Poesy! thou sweet'st content
That e'er Heaven to mortals lent,
Though for thy sake I am crost,
Though my best hopes I have lost,
And I knew thou'dst make my trouble
Ten times more than ten times double,
I should love and keep thee too,
Spite of all the world could do.
Though thou be to them a scorn
That to nought but earth are born;
Let my life no longer be,
Than I am in love with thee! ~ WITHER.
I always loved thee gentle Poesy!
And though thou oft hast served to work me woe,
Do love thee still;—nurtured beneath thine eye,
“For me the meanest, simplest flowers that blow,
Have often thoughts that lie too deep for tears.”
Not all the joys the multitude can know
Should e'er seduce my bosom to forego
Thy sacred influence: yet from earliest years,
Like that frail plant whose shrinking leaves betray
The careless pressure of an idle hand,
My heart, unschooled in guile, could ne'er command
Its hectics of the moment:—let thy ray,
Then, thou sweet source of sorrow and delight,
Beam on thy votary's soul with more attempered light.