'What! Irving? thrice welcome, warm heart and fine brain, You bring back the happiest spirit from Spain, 1440 And the gravest sweet humor, that ever were there Since Cervantes met death in his gentle despair; Nay, don't be embarrassed, nor look so beseeching, I sha'n't run directly against my own preaching, And, having just laughed at their Raphaels and Dantes, Go to setting you up beside matchless Cervantes; But allow me to speak what I honestly feel,-- To a true poet-heart add the fun of Dick Steele, Throw in all of Addison, _minus_ the chill, 1449 With the whole of that partnership's stock and good-will, Mix well, and while stirring, hum o'er, as a spell, The fine _old_ English Gentleman, simmer it well, Sweeten just to your own private liking, then strain, That only the finest and clearest remain, Let it stand out of doors till a soul it receives From the warm lazy sun loitering down through green leaves, And you'll find a choice nature, not wholly deserving A name either English or Yankee,--just Irving. 'There goes,--but _stet nominis umbra_,--his name You'll be glad enough, some day or other, to claim, 1460 And will all crowd about him and swear that you knew him If some English critic should chance to review him. The old _porcos ante ne projiciatis_ MARGARITAS, for him you have verified gratis; What matters his name? Why, it may be Sylvester, Judd, Junior, or Junius, Ulysses, or Nestor, For aught _I_ know or care; 'tis enough that I look On the author of "Margaret," the first Yankee book With the _soul_ of Down East in 't, and things farther East, As far as the threshold of morning, at least, 1470 Where awaits the fair dawn of the simple and true, Of the day that comes slowly to make all things new. 'T has a smack of pine woods, of bare field and bleak hill, Such as only the breed of the Mayflower could till; The Puritan's shown in it, tough to the core, Such as prayed, smiting Agag on red Marston Moor: With an unwilling humor, half choked by the drouth In brown hollows about the inhospitable mouth; With a soul full of poetry, though it has qualms About finding a happiness out of the Psalms; 1480 Full of tenderness, too, though it shrinks in the dark, Hamadryad-like, under the coarse, shaggy bark; That sees visions, knows wrestlings of God with the Will, And has its own Sinais and thunderings still.'