“Thy best,”, he cried.

Then will I e’en sing you a song, my lord, which is a song-full of songs.  I composed it long, long since, when Yillah yet bowered in Odo.  Ere now, some fragments have been heard.  Ah, Taji! in this my lay, live over again your happy hours.  Some joys have thousand lives; can never die; for when they droop, sweet memories bind them up.—­My lord, I deem these verses good; they came bubbling out of me, like live waters from a spring in a silver mine.  And by your good leave, my lord, I have much faith in inspiration.  Whoso sings is a seer.”

“Tingling is the test,” said Babbalanja, “Yoomy, did you tingle, when that song was composing?”

“All over, Babbalanja.”

“From sole to crown?”

“From finger to finger.”

“My life for it! true poetry, then, my lord!  For this self-same tingling, I say, is the test.”

“And infused into a song,” cried Yoomy, “it evermore causes it so to sparkle, vivify, and irradiate, that no son of man can repeat it without tingling himself.  This very song of mine may prove what I say.”

“Modest youth!” sighed Media.

“Not more so, than sincere,” said Babbalanja.  “He who is frank, will often appear vain, my lord.  Having no guile, he speaks as freely of himself, as of another; and is just as ready to honor his own merits, even if imaginary, as to lament over undeniable deficiencies.  Besides, such men are prone to moods, which to shallow-minded, unsympathizing mortals, make their occasional distrust of themselves, appear but as a phase of self-conceit.  Whereas, the man who, in the presence of his very friends, parades a barred and bolted front,—­that man so highly prizes his sweet self, that he cares not to profane the shrine he worships, by throwing open its portals.  He is locked up; and Ego is the key.  Reserve alone is vanity.  But all mankind are egotists.  The world revolves upon an I; and we upon ourselves; for we are our own worlds:—­all other men as strangers, from outlandish, distant climes, going clad in furs.  Then, whate’er they be, let us show our worlds; and not seek to hide from men, what Oro knows.”

“Truth, my lord,” said Yoomy, “but all this applies to men in mass; not specially, to my poor craft.  Of all mortals, we poets are most subject to contrary moods.  Now, heaven over heaven in the skies; now layer under layer in the dust.  This, the penalty we pay for being what we are.  But Mardi only sees, or thinks it sees, the tokens of our self-complacency:  whereas, all our agonies operate unseen.  Poets are only seen when they soar.”

“The song! the song!” cried Media.  “Never mind the metaphysics of genius.”

And Yoomy, thus clamorously invoked, hemmed thrice, tuning his voice for the air.

But here, be it said, that the minstrel was miraculously gifted with three voices; and, upon occasions, like a mocking-bird, was a concert of sweet sounds in himself.  Had kind friends died, and bequeathed him their voices?  But hark! in a low, mild tenor, he begins:—­