From forty-nine citations that the Oxford English Dictionary attributes to the book Meanderings of Memory, by an author known only as Nightlark, believed to have been published in 1852. In May, unable to find a copy of the book or any information about it except a single listing in a bookseller’s catalogue, the editors of the dictionary appealed to the public for help.

Care for your couchward path

Galls them no more their foodlessness or fag

Hag of the hearthward cringe and tripod stool

Who can trim a cockabundy, turn a rod with him?

If a thought Should cream the blood in sanctuaried court

O too rebrutalized!

He looked submission with a shoeward eye

Of velvet black, and closely-fitting trouse

Yon vermined Sarcophage

Shall e’er revirginize that brow’s abuse