 | Lays and Legends of Ancient Greece, with Other Poems |  |
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CONCLUSION.
Reader, my songs are sung. If thou hast readWith love and pious kindness to the bard,
Thy reading was not bare of all reward.
But if thou curled thy lip and tossed thy head,
As one to nice fastidious notions bred,
Judging all men with bitter sentence hard,
Thyself against thyself the way hast barred
To know my best, and on my worst hast fed.
In the pure eye to stir the sacred tear,
To lift the low, and dash the lofty look,
Bright thoughts to nurse, the cloudy brain to clear,
Was all the plan that shaped this little book:
Choose what thou needest, what thou choosest hold,
As men from sand redeem the glancing gold.
| Lays and Legends of Ancient Greece, with Other Poems | |