AH! say not, dear sir, that poetical pleasures,
The voice of the Muse, shall invite you in vain;
For soothing and sweet were your musical measures:
We linger, still hoping to hear them again.
To strains so pathetic, so plaintive, to listen,
Is pleasure delightfully tempered with pain:
And while the sly tear for a moment will glisten,
It seems to invite the soft music again.
Though life's pelting storms and its pitiless billows
Have oft beat around you in murmurs of pain,
Oh! hang not desponding your harp on the willows,
But strike its sweet chords, and delight us again.
The lark, the gay carols of morning expresses;
But if we have heard Philomela complain,
We hasten, more pleased, to her shady recesses,
And sigh for the evening to hear her again.
Then say not the years and the cares that surround you
Can dissipate Poesy's fanciful train:
The Muses still wait, if they dance not, around you;
Like us they will mourn, till you seek them again.
And though the wild music of youth may be dying,
Or but the faint echo of pleasure remain;
The tones of your harp were so sweetly replying,
That still we would hear it again and again.
August, 1809.