The Divine Afflatus.

A dear friend sent me a copy of A Handbook To Literature by William Flint Thrall and Addison Hibbard. The thing is a gem! Originally published in 1936, this one that I was given is a nicely worn and pre-loved 1960 edition. Still tons of mileage left in it yet. I believe the book is widely known as The Thrall & Hibbard. [Is all of this as profoundly exciting to you as it is to me?]
In all seriousness, I love this book. It is filled with wondrous literature factoids, and is a compendium, from A to Z [from abstract poetry to zeugma] of all things literary. Many are the evenings I have just thumbed through it and landed upon articles that have enTHRALLED me to no end.... [“You know, there are pills you can take for this Cipriano.”]
“Oh, up your dithyramb!”
OK, so having said all of this, one evening I got caught up with an article on what is known as The Divine Afflatus. No, this is not the moment a deity passes wind! But close. Close.
The Divine Afflatus [and henceforth I quote Thrall & Hibbard. Listen up now kids, I assure you that this stuff is going to be on the exam!] is “a phrase used to mean poetic inspiration, particularly the exalted state immediately preceding creative composition, when the poet is felt to be receiving his inspiration directly from a divine source. The doctrine of divine inspiration for poets was advocated by Plato. Although the phrase and doctrine have been used in a serious and sincere sense by such a poet as Shelley, the term is perhaps more often used now in a somewhat contemptuous sense, to imply a sort of pretensious over-valuation in a would-be poet or a bombastic spirit in an oratator, whose fervid style or manner is felt not to be justified by the actual substance of the poem or oration.”
I must say to you, immediately upon reading this definition, my own bombastic orifice was inflated, as it were!
I reached for a piece of paper, and with one thought in mind, namely, that “I can literally flatulate as good as the next guy” I began to scribble and jot as though released from shackles. The following stanzas fell out of me in such a mighty warm torrent my friends, that I had to undo my belt buckle and trouser-snap, lean back in my chair, and conclude that I myself, Cipriano, had just experienced:

The Divine Afflatus

Ye lads, I hereby declare that it was very like a swoon
and as unlike common reverie as would a spaniel
‘gainst a hen both be judged poultry. Furthermore,
were it not that I pricked my thumb unto blood
in the reaching for the quill in its pot, surely
I would have fainted dead before a word.

But such as ye read went down, black upon white,
forewarning, cognizance, and derivation to the four winds.
Yea, as it were, effusions, entirely absent of plan
and so far ahead of pen that I ran to keep pace,
fell out just as ye see here, crumpled before ye.
Thus, stumbling headlong I managed a mere scribbling
as Calliope (for she threw her name behind her)
advanced, and in fact, vanished, as it were.

And so, let us raise our tankards my fellows,
in a toast to those who understand my verse.
And ye others, complain not to me, but thirst,
and blame ye the gods.