But see! e'en now the Muse's charm prevails; Scared by her seraph looks, and smiles of fire: Oh for a seat in some poetic nook, Just hid with trees, and sparkling with a brook, Where through the quivering boughs the sun-beams shoot Their arrowy diamonds upon flower and fruit, While stealing airs come fuming o'er the stream, There shouldst thou come, O first of my desires, T And all the bower, with chequer'd shadows strown, Glow'd with a mellow twilight of its own; There shouldst thou come, and there sometimes with thee Might deign repair the staid Philosophy, To taste thy freshening brook, and trim thy groves, And tell us what good task true glory loves. I see it now! I pierce the fairy glade, And feel the enclosing influence of the shade:- Their pranksome crowd; and in grave order go Beside the water, singing, small and clear, New harmonies unknown to mortal ear, Caught upon moonlight nights from some nigh-wander ing sphere. I turn to thee, and listen with fix'd eyes, And feel my spirits mount on winged ecstasies. In vain. For now with looks that doubly burn, Shamed of their late defeat, my foes return. They know their foil is short;-and shorter still, The bliss that waits upon the Muse's will. Back to their seats they rush, and reassume Their ghastly rights, and sadden all the room. O'er ears and brain the bursting wrath descends, Cabals, mis-statements, noise of private ends, Doubts, hazards, crosses, cloud-compelling vapours, With dire necessity to read the papers, Judicial slaps that would have stung Saint Paul, Costs, pityings, warnings, wits,-and worse than all, (Oh for a dose of Thelwall or of poppy!) The fiend, the punctual fiend, that bawls for copy! Whose ravening features glared collected hell, And lo, my Bower of Bliss is turn'd into a jail! The enduring soul, that to keep others free But toils alone, and struggles every hour From the rank slaves, that gather round his hand. Ве I yield, I yield.-Once more I turn to you, To the soft dreaming of the Muse's bowers, Farewell, farewell, dear Muse, and all thy pleasure! He conquers ease, who would be crown'd with leisure. 1811. SONG. (TO THE AIR OF "THE DE'IL CAME FIDDLING THROUGH THE TOWN.") Oн, one that I know is a knavish lass, So finish'd in all fine thieving, She'll e'en look away what you wanted to say, And smile you out of your grieving. To see her, for instance, go down a dance, You'd think you sat securely, For there's nothing about her of forward France, But lord! she goes with so blithe a repose, And comes so shapely about you, That ere you're aware, with a glance and an air, your heart from out you. She whisks |