e! condemn'd to life!
A cloud impairs my sight;
My weak hand disobeys my will,
And trembles as I write.

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 noble 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 shore,
And put to sea? a dangerous sea?
What throngs have sunk before!

How proud the poet's billow swells!
The God! the God! 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 g