Shall a man who in his younger days has written poetry, or what passed
for it, continue to attempt it in his later years? Certainly, if it
amuses or interests him, no one would object to his writing in verse as
much as he likes. Whether he should continue to write for the public is
another question. Poetry is a good deal a matter of heart-beats, and the
circulation is more languid in the later period of life. The joints are
less supple; the arteries are more or less "ossified." Something like
these changes has taken place in the mind. It has lost the flexibility,
the plastic docility, which it had in youth and early manhood, when the
gristle had but just become hardened into bone. It is the nature of
poetry to writhe itself along through the tangled growths of the
vocabulary, as a snake winds through the grass, in sinuous, complex, and
unexpected curves, which crack every joint that is not supple as
india-rubber.

I had a poem that I wanted to print just here. But after what I have
this moment said, I hesitated, thinking that I might provoke the obvious
remark that I exemplified the unfitness of which I had been speaking. I
remembered the advice I had given to a poetical aspirant not long since,
which I think deserves a paragraph to itself.

My friend, I said, I hope you will not write in verse. When you write in
prose you say what you mean. When you write in rhyme you say what you
must.

Should I send this poem to the publishers, or not?

"Some said, 'John, print it;' others said, 'Not so.'"