I find the burden and restrictions of rhyme more and more troublesome as I grow older.  There are times when it seems natural enough to employ that form of expression, but it is only occasionally; and the use of it as the vehicle of the commonplace is so prevalent that one is not much tempted to select it as the medium for his thoughts and emotions.  The art of rhyming has almost become a part of a high-school education, and its practice is far from being an evidence of intellectual distinction.  Mediocrity is as much forbidden to the poet in our days as it was in those of Horace, and the immense majority of the verses written are stamped with hopeless mediocrity.

When one of the ancient poets found he was trying to grind out verses which came unwillingly, he said he was writing—­

        INVITA Minerva.

   Vex not the Muse with idle prayers,
   —­She will not hear thy call;
   She steals upon thee unawares,
   Or seeks thee not at all.

   Soft as the moonbeams when they sought
   Endymion’s fragrant bower,
   She parts the whispering leaves of thought
   To show her full-blown flower.

   For thee her wooing hour has passed,
   The singing birds have flown,
   And winter comes with icy blast
   To chill thy buds unblown.

   Yet, though the woods no longer thrill
   As once their arches rung,
   Sweet echoes hover round thee still
   Of songs thy summer sung.

   Live in thy past; await no more
   The rush of heaven-sent wings;
   Earth still has music left in store
   While Memory sighs and sings.

I hope my special Minerva may not always be unwilling, but she must not be called upon as she has been in times past.  Now that the teacups have left the table, an occasional evening call is all that my readers must look for.  Thanking them for their kind companionship, and hoping that I may yet meet them in the now and then in the future, I bid them goodbye for the immediate present, then in the future, I bid them goodbye for the immediate present.

ELSIE VENNER

By Oliver Wendell Holmes

PREFACE.

This tale was published in successive parts in the “Atlantic Monthly,” under the name of “The Professor’s Story,” the first number having appeared in the third week of December, 1859.  The critic who is curious in coincidences must refer to the Magazine for the date of publication of the chapter he is examining.