My hasting days fly on with full career,
But my late spring no bud or blossom shew'th.
Perhaps my semblance might deceive the truth
That I to manhood am arrived so near;
And inward ripeness doth much less appear
That some more timely-happy spirits endu'th.
Yet be it less, or more, or soon, or slow,
It shall be still in strictest measure even
To that same lot, however mean or high,
Toward which Time leads me, and the will of Heaven.
All is, if I have grace to use it so,
As ever in my great taskmaster's eye.

By this I believe you may well repent of having made mention at all of
this matter; for, if I have not all this while won you to this, I
have certainly wearied you of it. This, therefore, alone may be a
sufficient reason for me to keep me as I am, lest having thus tired
you singly, I should deal worse with, a whole congregation, and spoil
all the patience of a parish; for I myself do not only see my own
tediousness, but now grow offended with it, that has hindered me thus
long from coming to the last and best _period_ of my letter, and
that which must now chiefly work my pardon, that I am your true and
unfeigned _friend_.



TO LEONARD PHILARAS, THE ATHENIAN

_The blind poet_[1]