 | The hireling and the slave, Chicora, and other poems |  |
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THE POET'S REWARD.
“Poetry has been to me its own exceeding great reward; it has soothed my afflictions; it has multiplied and refined my enjoyments; it has endeared solitude; it has given me the habit of wishing to discover the good and the beautiful in all that meets and surrounds me.”—
Coleridge.O Spirit of Song! thy voice can soothe and cheer
In every ill that preys on human life;
When Friendship's altered face grows cold and drear;
When faithless love is lost in doubt and strife;
In sickness and in age, with sorrows rife
When fallen on evil days, as Milton fell,
And evil tongues, in peril, blind and poor;
As Danté dwelt, in exile forced to dwell;
Wandering, as Homer went, from door to door;
Like Leyden, dying on a foreign shore,
Or Byron; mourning Reason's partial blight,
Like gentle Cowper—to the poet's heart,
Visions of beauty, and the life and light
Of hope, and love, and joy, thy melodies impart.
| The hireling and the slave, Chicora, and other poems | |