in January', telling of the poet's struggle for bread and fame,
while "his worshipful sweet wife sat still, afar, within the village
whence she sent him forth, waiting all confident and proud and calm."
And, if there occurs therein a plaintive tone, let us remember
that it is the only time that he complained of his lot,
and that here really he has more in mind his dearer self, his wife,
and that calm succeeded to unrest just as it does in this passage:

"`Why can we poets dream us beauty, so,
But cannot dream us bread? Why, now, can I
Make, aye, create this fervid throbbing June
Out of the chill, chill matter of my soul,
Yet cannot make a poorest penny-loaf
Out of this same chill matter, no, not one
For Mary, though she starved upon my breast?'
And then he fell upon his couch, and sobbed,
And, late, just when his heart leaned o'er
The very edge of breaking, fain to fall,
God sent him sleep."**

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* `A Florida Sunday', ll. 102-103.
** `June Dreams in January', ll. 68-78.
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V. Lanier's Theory of Poetry