University of Virginia Library

You ask, my friend, and well you may,
You ask me how I spend the day.
I'll tell you, in unstudied rhyme,
How wisely I befool my time:
Expect not wit nor fancy, then,
In this effusion of my pen;
These idle lines—they might be worse—
Are simple prose, in simple verse.

Each morning, then, at five o'clock,
The adamantine doors unlock;
Bolts, bars, and portals, crash and thunder;
The gates of iron burst asunder:
Hinges that creak, and keys that jingle,
With clattering chains in concert mingle;
So sweet the din, your dainty ear
For joy would break its drum to hear;
While my dull organs, at the sound,
Rest in tranquillity profound:
Fantastic dreams amuse my brain,
And waft my spirit home again.
Though captive all day long, 'tis true,
At night I am as free as you;
Not ramparts high, nor dungeons deep,
Can hold me when I'm fast asleep.

But every thing is good in season;
I dream at large—and wake in prison.
Yet think not, sir, I lie too late;
I rise as early even as eight:
Ten hours of drowsiness are plenty,
For any man, in four-and-twenty.
You smile—and yet 'tis nobly done,
I'm but five hours behind the sun!

When dress'd, I to the yard repair,
And breakfast on the pure fresh air;
But though this choice Castalian cheer
Keeps both the head and stomach clear,
For reasons strong enough with me,
I mend the meal with toast and tea.
Now air and fame, as poets sing,
Are both the same, the self-same thing.
Yet bards are not chameleons quite,
And heavenly food is very light:
Whoever dined or supp'd on fame,
And went to bed upon a name?

Breakfast despatched, I sometimes read,
To clear the vapours from my head;
For books are magic charms, I ween,
Both for the crotchets and the spleen.
When genius, wisdom, wit abound,
Where sound is sense, and sense is sound;
When art and nature both combine,
And live and breathe in every line;
The reader glows along the page
With all the author's native rage!
But books there are with nothing fraught,—
Ten thousand words, and ne'er a thought;
Where periods without period crawl,
Like caterpillars on a wall,
That fall to climb, and climb to fall;
While still their efforts only tend
To keep them from their journey's end.
The readers yawn with pure vexation,
And nod—but not with approbation.
In such a fog of dulness lost,
Poor patience must give up the ghost:
Not Argus' eyes awake could keep;
Even Death might read himself to sleep.

At half-past ten, or thereabout,
My eyes are all upon the scout,
To see the lounging post-boy come
With letters or with news from home.
Believe it, on a captive's word,
Although the doctrine seem absurd,
The paper messengers of friends
For absence almost make amends;—
But if you think I jest or lie,
Come to York Castle, sir, and try.

Sometimes to fairy-land I rove:—
Those iron rails become a grove;
These stately buildings fall away
To moss-grown cottages of clay;
Debtors are changed to jolly swains,
Who pipe and whistle on the plains;
Yon felons grim, with fetters bound,
Are satyrs wild with garlands crown'd;
Their clanking chains are wreaths of flowers;
Their horrid cells ambrosial bowers;
The oaths, expiring on their tongues,
Are metamorphosed into songs:
While wretched female prisoners, lo!
Are Dian's nymphs of virgin snow.
Those hideous walls with verdure shoot;
These pillars bend with blushing fruit;
That dunghill swells into a mountain:
The pump becomes a purling fountain;
The noisome smoke of yonder mills,
The circling air with fragrance fills;
This horse-pond spreads into a lake,
And swans of ducks and geese I make;
Sparrows are changed to turtle-doves,
That bill and coo their pretty loves;
Wagtails, turn'd thrushes, charm the vales,
And tomtits sing like nightingales.
No more the wind through key-holes whistles,
But sighs on beds of pinks and thistles;
The rattling rain that beats without,
And gurgles down the leaden spout,
In light delicious dew distils,
And melts away in amber rills;—
Elysium rises on the green,
And health and beauty crown the scene.

Then, by the enchantress Fancy led,
On violet-banks I lay my head;
Legions of radiant forms arise,
In fair array, before mine eyes;
Poetic visions gild my brain,
And melt in liquid air again;
As in a magic-lantern clear,
Fantastic images appear,
That, beaming from the spectred glass,
In beautiful succession pass,
Yet steal the lustre of their light
From the deep shadow of the night:
Thus, in the darkness of my head,
Ten thousand shining things are bred,
That borrow splendour from the gloom,
As glow-worms twinkle in a tomb.

But lest these glories should confound me,
Kind Dulness draws her curtain round me;
The visions vanish in a trice,
And I awake as cold as ice:
Nothing remains of all the vapour,
Save—what I send you—ink and paper.

Thus flow my morning hours along,
Smooth as the numbers of my song:
Yet, let me wander as I will,
I feel I am a prisoner still.
Thus Robin, with the blushing breast,
Is ravish'd from his little nest
By barbarous boys, who bind his leg
To make him flutter round a peg:
See, the glad captive spreads his wings,
Mounts, in a moment mounts and sings,
When suddenly the cruel chain
Twitches him back to earth again!
—The clock strikes one—I can't delay,
For dinner comes but once a day:
At present, worthy friend, farewell;
But by to-morrow's post I'll tell
How, during these half-dozen moons,
I cheat the lazy afternoons.