Xix

While still that music pealed an alien strain Broke boisterous into sudden interplay, Troubling the soul with laughter and dismay; And chattering drolls appeared, expressly plain, And tingling to the immemorial vein Of the obscene in all things formed of clay. There pausing on the turmoiled scene that lay Before my eyes, a light broke on my brain, And vast Aristophanic laughter shook Each nerve within me, and a hand did part Some far-back curtain of the soul, and took A portion of my years; and I did start, Divining art’s new purport, to rebuke And humanize the stiffly pure of heart.

HESEPE, 11th June