1 Was it the proud full sail of his great verse,
2 Bound for the prize of all too precious you,
3 That did my ripe thoughts in my brain inhearse,
4 Making their tomb the womb wherein they grew?
5 Was it his spirit, by spirits taught to write
6 Above a mortal pitch, that struck me dead?
7 No, neither he, nor his compeers by night
8 Giving him aid, my verse astonished.
9 He, nor that affable familiar ghost
10 Which nightly gulls him with intelligence
11 As victors of my silence cannot boast;
12 I was not sick of any fear from thence:
13 But when your countenance fill'd up his line,
14 Then lack'd I matter; that enfeebled mine.
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