Appreciation …

… The Other Billy Collins. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

William Collins—“Poor Collins” to his contemporaries. 1721–59: dead, completely incapacitated and insane, at thirty-seven. Author of two tiny books: Persian Eclogues (1742), and Odes on Several Descriptive and Allegorical Subjects (1746, though dated ’47). Book #1, written before the poet was twenty; book #2, before he was twenty-five.