‘Quite out of conceit!  I’m enchanted to hear it,’
Cried Apollo aside.  ’Who’d have thought she was near it? 
To be sure, one is apt to exhaust those commodities 1190
One uses too fast, yet in this case as odd it is
As if Neptune should say to his turbots and whitings,
“I’m as much out of salt as Miranda’s own writings”
(Which, as she in her own happy manner has said,
Sound a depth, for ’tis one of the functions of lead). 
She often has asked me if I could not find
A place somewhere near me that suited her mind;
I know but a single one vacant, which she,
With her rare talent that way, would fit to a T.
And it would not imply any pause or cessation 1200
In the work she esteems her peculiar vocation,—­
She may enter on duty to-day, if she chooses,
And remain Tiring-woman for life to the Muses.’

Miranda meanwhile has succeeded in driving Up into a corner, in spite of their striving, A small flock of terrified victims, and there, With an I-turn-the-crank-of-the-Universe air And a tone which, at least to my fancy, appears Not so much to be entering as boxing your ears, Is unfolding a tale (of herself, I surmise, 1210 For ’tis dotted as thick as a peacock’s with I’s), Apropos of Miranda, I’ll rest on my oars And drift through a trifling digression on bores, For, though not wearing ear-rings in more majorum, Our ears are kept bored just as if we still wore ’em.  There was one feudal custom worth keeping, at least, Roasted bores made a part of each well-ordered feast, And of all quiet pleasures the very ne plus Was in hunting wild bores as the tame ones hunt us.  Archaeologians, I know, who have personal fears 1220 Of this wise application of hounds and of spears, Have tried to make out, with a zeal more than wonted,
’Twas a kind of wild swine that our ancestors hunted;
But I’ll never believe that the age which has strewn
Europe o’er with cathedrals, and otherwise shown
That it knew what was what, could by chance not have known
(Spending, too, its chief time with its buff on, no doubt)
Which beast ’twould improve the world most to thin out. 
I divide bores myself, in the manner of rifles,
Into two great divisions, regardless of trifles:—­ 1230
There’s your smooth-bore and screw-bore, who do not much vary
In the weight of cold lead they respectively carry. 
The smooth-bore is one in whose essence the mind
Not a corner nor cranny to cling by can find;
You feel as in nightmares sometimes, when you slip
Down a steep slated roof, where there’s nothing to grip;
You slide and you slide, the blank horror increases,—­
You had rather by far be at once smashed to pieces;
You fancy a whirlpool below white and frothing,
And finally drop off and light upon—­nothing. 1240
The screw-bore has twists in him, faint predilections
For going just wrong in the tritest directions;