XIII. ON FAME. FAME, like a wayward girl, will still be coy Who have not learnt to be content without her; A very Gipsey is she, Nilus-born, Sister-in-law to jealous Potiphar; ! Ye lovesick Bards! repay her scorn for scorn; 1819. XIV. ON FAME. "You cannot eat your cake and have it too.". How fever'd is the man, who cannot look Upon his mortal days with temperate blood, Who vexes all the leaves of his life's book, And robs his fair name of its maidenhood: It is as if the rose should pluck herself, Or the ripe plum finger its misty bloom; As if a Naiad, like a meddling elf, Should darken her pure grot with muddy gloom. But the rose leaves herself upon the brier, grace, Spoil his salvation for a fierce miscreed? 1819. XV. WHY did I laugh to-night? No voice will tell; vain. moan, ; Why did I laugh? I know this Being's lease, My fancy to its utmost blisses spreads; Yet would I on this very midnight cease, And the world's gaudy ensigns see in shreds; Verse, Fame, and Beauty are intense indeed, But Death intenser Death is Life's high meed. 1819. 228 XVI. ON A DREAM. As Hermes once took to his feathers light, So play'd, so charm'd, so conquer'd, so bereft Not to pure Ida with its snow-cold skies, Where in the gust, the whirlwind, and the flaw saw, Pale were the lips I kiss'd, and fair the form 1819. XVII. IF by dull rhymes our English must be chain'd, Fetter'd, in spite of pained loveliness, To fit the naked foot of poesy; Let us inspect the lyre, and weigh the stress Than Midas of his coinage, let us be Jealous of dead leaves in the bay-wreath crown: So, if we may not let the Muse be free, She will be bound with garlands of her own. 1819. |