Part 24 (1/2)

What shall I write? Thalia, tell; Say, long abandon'd muse!

What field of fancy shall I range?

What subject shall I choose?

A choice of moment high inspire, And rescue me from shame, For doting on thy charms so late, By grandeur in my theme.

Beyond the themes, which most admire, Which dazzle, or amaze, Beyond renown'd exploits of war, Bright charms, or empire's blaze,

Are themes, which, in a world of woe Can best appease our pain; And, in an age of gaudy guilt, Gay folly's flood restrain;

Amidst the storms of life support A calm, unshaken mind; And with unfading laurels crown The brow of the resign'd.

O resignation! yet unsung, Untouch'd by former strains; Though claiming every muse's smile, And every poet's pains,

Beneath life's evening, solemn shade, I dedicate my page To thee, thou safest guard of youth!

Thou sole support of age!

All other duties crescents are Of virtue faintly bright, The glorious consummation, thou!

Which fills her orb with light:

How rarely fill'd! the love divine In evils to discern, This the first lesson which we want, The latest, which we learn;

A melancholy truth! for know, Could our proud hearts resign, The distance greatly would decrease 'Twixt human and divine.

But though full n.o.ble is my theme, Full urgent is my call To soften sorrow, and forbid The bursting tear to fall:

The task I dread; dare I to leave Of humble prose the sh.o.r.e, And put to sea? a dangerous sea?

What throngs have sunk before!

How proud the poet's billow swells!

The G.o.d! the G.o.d! his boast: A boast how vain! What wrecks abound!

Dead bards stench every coast.

What then am I? Shall I presume, On such a moulten wing, Above the general wreck to rise, And in my winter, sing;

When nightingales, when sweetest bards Confine their charming song To summer's animating heats, Content to warble young?

Yet write I must; a lady(49) sues; How shameful her request!

My brain in labour for dull rhyme!

Hers teeming with the best!

But you a stranger will excuse, Nor scorn his feeble strain; To you a stranger, but, through fate, No stranger to your pain.

The ghost of grief deceas'd ascends, His old wound bleeds anew; His sorrows are recall'd to life By those he sees in you;

Too well he knows the twisting strings Of ardent hearts combin'd When rent asunder, how they bleed, How hard to be resign'd:

Those tears you pour, his eyes have shed; The pang you feel, he felt; Thus nature, loud as virtue, bids His heart at yours to melt.

But what can heart, or head, suggest?