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49

I. SONNET. To a poetical friend.

Waste not in fruitless toil youth's fleeting prime,
Nor genial love's delight too long refuse:
Scorn wisdom's lore, and scorn the tempting muse!
On lowly pinions skim the realm of time,
Careless of all who gain a loftier clime,
Who bathe their tresses in Castalian dews;
Yet sorrows cannot shun, of varied hues,
Sorrows, that ever haunt the sons of rhime.
What dream of airy joy deludes thy mind?
Ill can the muse thro' life's tempestuous glade
Thy wanderings chear—she weeps herself to find
How oft the fairest hopes of merit fade,
How oft the world, to worth, to genius blind,
Deems wisdom air, and virtue's self a shade!