I'd like now, yet had happy been afraid, To have just looked, when this man came to die, 100 And seen who lined the clean gay garret-sides And stood about the neat low truckle-bed, With the heavenly manner of relieving guard. Here had been, mark, the general-in-chief, Thro' a whole campaign of the world's life and death, Doing the King's work all the dim day long, In his old coat and up to knees in mud, Smoked like a herring, dining on a crust, And, now the day was won, relieved at once! No further show or need for that old coat, 110 You are sure, for one thing! Bless us, all the while How sprucely we are dressed out, you and I! A second, and the angels alter that. Well, I could never write a verse--could you? Let's to the Prado and make the most of time. NOTES "How it Strikes a Contemporary" is a portrait of the Poet as the unpoetic gossiping public of his day sees him. It is humorously colored by the alien point of view of the speaker, who suspects without understanding either the greatness of the poet's spiritual personality and mission, or the nature of his life, which is withdrawn from that of the commonalty, yet spent in clear-sighted universal sympathies and kindly mediation between Humanity and its God. 3. Valladolid: the royal city of the kings of Castile, before Philip II moved the Court to Madrid, where Cervantes, Calderon, and Las Casas lived and Columbus died. 76. Titian: pictures by the Venetian, Tiziano Vecellio (1477-1576), glowing in color, presumably of large golden-haired women like his famous Venus. 90. Corregidor: the Spanish title for a magistrate, literally, a corrector, from corregir, to correct. ARTEMIS PROLOGIZES 1842