In the Poet's Corner in the New York Times, I read this:
I saw the attic
Was dunned by grime,
And, windows blurred,
Was stunned by Time.
A broken clock,
Without its hands,
Had run out
Of all demands.
Cluttered, cobwebbed
Cabinets
Were auditing
Old regrets. I saw a photo
Whose eyes of trust
Were feuding with
Silt and dust.
From that stranger
Who had my name
I stepped downstairs
To what I became.—Louis Ginsberg
It was Samuel Butler who also wrote about an attic in "A Psalm of Montreal" —in these words:
Stored away in a Montreal lumber room
The Discobolus standeth and turneth his face to the wall;
Dusty, cobweb-covered, maimed and set at naught,
Beauty crieth in an attic and no man regardeth.
O God! O Montreal!
And Milton used the word "attic" in this verse:
The olive grove of Academe,
Plato's retirement, where the attic bird
Trills her thick-warbled notes the summer long.
And Jean Baptiste Moliere wrote: "It is seasoned throughout with attic salt."
And Isaac Hill Bromley wrote:
Bring me honey of Hynettus, bring me
stores of attic salt; I am weary of the commonplace.
These dinner speeches tire me;
They are tedious, flat, and stale.