 | The poetical works of Henry Kirke White |  |
TO THE MUSE.
WRITTEN AT THE AGE OF FOURTEEN.
Ill-fated maid, in whose unhappy train
Chill poverty and misery are seen,
Anguish and discontent, the unhappy bane
Of life, and blackener of each brighter scene.
Why to thy votaries dost thou give to feel
So keenly all the scorns—the jeers of life?
Why not endow them to endure the strife
With apathy's invulnerable steel,
Of self-content and ease, each torturing wound to heal?
Chill poverty and misery are seen,
Anguish and discontent, the unhappy bane
Of life, and blackener of each brighter scene.
Why to thy votaries dost thou give to feel
So keenly all the scorns—the jeers of life?
Why not endow them to endure the strife
With apathy's invulnerable steel,
Of self-content and ease, each torturing wound to heal?
Ah! who would taste your self-deluding joys,
That lure the unwary to a wretched doom,
That bid fair views and flattering hopes arise,
Then hurl them headlong to a lasting tomb?
What is the charm which leads thy victims on
To persevere in paths that lead to woe?
What can induce them in that route to go,
In which innumerous before have gone,
And died in misery poor and woe-begone.
That lure the unwary to a wretched doom,
That bid fair views and flattering hopes arise,
Then hurl them headlong to a lasting tomb?
What is the charm which leads thy victims on
To persevere in paths that lead to woe?
What can induce them in that route to go,
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And died in misery poor and woe-begone.
Yet can I ask what charms in thee are found;
I, who have drunk from thine ethereal rill,
And tasted all the pleasures that abound
Upon Parnassus' loved Aonian hill?
I, through whose soul the Muses' strains aye thrill!
Oh! I do feel the spell with which I'm tied;
And though our annals fearful stories tell,
How Savage languished, and how Otway died,
Yet must I persevere, let whate'er will betide.
I, who have drunk from thine ethereal rill,
And tasted all the pleasures that abound
Upon Parnassus' loved Aonian hill?
I, through whose soul the Muses' strains aye thrill!
Oh! I do feel the spell with which I'm tied;
And though our annals fearful stories tell,
How Savage languished, and how Otway died,
Yet must I persevere, let whate'er will betide.
| The poetical works of Henry Kirke White | |