The poem
When outside the icy rain Comes leaping helter-skelter, Shall I tie my restive brain Snugly under shelter?
Shall I make a gentle song Here in my firelit study, When outside the winds blow strong And the lanes are muddy?
With old wine and drowsy meats Am I to fill my belly? Shall I glutton here with Keats? Shall I drink with Shelley?
Tobacco's pleasant, firelight's good: Poetry makes both better. Clay is wet and so is mud, Winter rains are wetter.
Yet rest there, Shelley, on the sill, For though the winds come frorely, I'm away to the rain-blown hill And the ghost of Sorley.