A lyric conception--my friend, the Poet, said--hits me like a bullet in the forehead.

I have often had the blood drop from my cheeks when it struck, and felt that I turned as white as death.
Then comes a creeping as of centipedes running down the spine, -- then a gasp and a great jump of the heart,--then a sudden flush and a beating in the vessels of the head,--then a long sigh,--and the poem is written.
It is an impromptu, I suppose, then, if you write it so suddenly, -- I replied.
No,--said he,--far from it.

I said written, but I did not say COPIED.

Every such poem has a soul and a body, and it is the body of it, or the copy, that men read and publishers pay for.

The soul of it is born in an instant in the poet's soul.