Tis sweet in boyhood's visionary mood,
When glowing Fancy, innocently gay,
Flings forth, like motes, her bright aërial brood,
To dance and shine in Hope's prolific ray;
'Tis sweet, unweeting how the flight of years
May darkling roll in trials and in tears,
To dress the future in what garb we list,
And shape the thousand joys that never may exist.
But he, sad wight! of all that feverish train,
Fool'd by those phantoms of the wizard brain,
Most wildly dotes, whom young ambition stings
To trust his weight upon poetic wings;
He, downward looking in his airy ride,
Beholds Elysium bloom on every side;
Unearthly bliss each thrilling nerve attunes,
And thus the dreamer with himself communes.
Yes! Earth shall witness, 'ere my star be set,
That partial nature mark'd me for her pet;
That Phoebus doom'd me, kind indulgent sire!
To mount his car, and set the world on fire.
Fame's steep ascent by easy flights to win,
With a neat pocket volume I'll begin;
And dirge, and sonnet, ode, and epigram,
Shall show mankind how versatile I am.
The buskin'd Muse shall next my pen descry:
The boxes from their inmost rows shall sigh;
The pit shall weep, the galleries deplore
Such moving woes as ne'er were heard before:
Enough--I'll leave them in their soft hysterics,