 | The vision of Cortes, Cain, and other poems |  |
[Ambition owns no friend—yet be thou mine]
Ambition owns no friend—yet be thou mine—I have not much to win thee, yet if song,
However humble, may a name prolong,
My lay shall seek to give a life to thine!
Let this reward thee for thy kindly thought—
'Tis all I ask of thee—thus, when my years
Are ripen'd to their full, or early wrought,
To a short term of being, and my tears,
Haply for me, are staid—and I, at rest,
136
Which wrong my name and to it darkly clings,
Shadowing its purity—do thou attest,
Mine eye was on the sun—I could not bend
To the dull clouds, when I might still ascend!
| The vision of Cortes, Cain, and other poems | |