Classic Poem

Once with this young man's tardy brains
I gave myself a heap of pains
while as he sat before my feet.
His education's not complete:
else had he hearken'd what I said
& held his Blake in rightful dread
nor stol'n his " grain of sand " , nor set
after the noun its epithet,
nor writ — I read with eyes a-twinkling —
so strange an adjective as " wrinkling " ,
so homoeopathetical
with meaning tighten'd to a ball.
He's coming on tho', I admit:
His second stave gives proof of it;
he reads some meaning in a rose
by eyesight — let him trust his nose
and he'll find more. His genius too
can pierce the veil of matter thro';
what tho' my hair be lank and straight,
what tho' my form assign'd by fate
speak to the gross of cakes and ale,
he sees me hung with " curls " and " frail " ,
ideal, rapt, poetic — " pale " .
You see, he doesn't merely " rail " .
So print him: pay him nothing less
than ten-&-six & he will bless.