Those rays that from his shaken locks do flow;
Meantime, by truant love of rambling led,
I turn my back on thy detested walls,
Proud City! and thy sons I leave behind,
A sordid, selfish, money-getting kind;
Brute things, who shut their ears when Freedom calls.

I pass not thee so lightly, well-known spire,
That minded me of many a pleasure gone,
Of merrier days, of love and Islington;
Kindling afresh the flames of past desire.
And I shall muse on thee, slow journeying on
To the green plains of pleasant Hertfordshire.

1795.




TO THE POET COWPER

_On his Recovery from an Indisposition.
Written some Time Back

(Summer, 1796)_


Cowper, I thank my God, that thou art heal'd.
Thine was the sorest malady of all;
And I am sad to think that it should light