The hand is really the hand of Esau, but under a course of threatened
scrivener’s cramp.
For the next edition of the Book of Verses, pray accept an emendation.
Last three lines of Echoes No. XLIV. read—
‘But life in act? How should the grave
Be victor over these,
Mother, a mother of men?’
The two vocatives scatter the effect of this inimitable close. If you
insist on the longer line, equip ‘grave’ with an epithet.