And having coiled my sated length,

    I felt anon my whilom strength

    Slip from me gradually, till deep

    I dropped away in dreamful sleep,

    Wherein I walked an endless maze,

    And dined on Caxtons all my days.

    Then I woke suddenly. Alas!

    What in my sleep had come to pass?

    That priceless first edition row,—

    Squat quarto and tall folio,—

    Had, in my slumber, vanished quite;

    Instead, on my astonished sight

    The newest novels burst,—a gay

    And most unpalatable array!

    I, that have battened on the best,

    Why should I thus be dispossessed

    And with starvation, or the worst

    Of diets, cruelly be curst?

    It was many and many a year ago,

    On an island near the sea,

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