Philemon to Olivia

Miss Flaxman

Electro Magus, sapient man!
Declares, that by his charging plan
He can make poets by the score,
Of those who ne’er have rhymed before!
He says that his electric shocks
The door of poetry unlocks
And every dormant verse awakes
And dullness from his pinion shakes
When strait-way lively couplets mingle
With triplets gay in tuneful jingle.

But yet dear Lady there are those
Who would have glided on in prose
Spite of the rhyme-inspiring panic
Produced by Battery Galvanic
But for the wonder working power
Which brings to all their rhyming hour
For show me one, who e’er have loved
And not the inspiration proved
I thought that Love would not have found
His way again, this heart to wound,
But Ah! thine eyes, so fair and bright
Feathered the arrow, gave the light.

Philemon

14th February 1815