"Prophetic schemes,
And golden dreams,
May I, unsanguine, cast away!
Have what I HAVE,
And live, not LEAVE,
Enamoured of the present day!

"My hours my own!
My faults unknown!
My chief revenue in content!
Then leave one BEAM
Of honest FAME!
And scorn the laboured monument!

"Unhurt my urn
Till that great TURN
When mighty Nature's self shall die,
Time cease to glide,
With human pride,
Sunk in the ocean of eternity!"

It is whimsical that he, who was soon to bid adieu to rhyme, should
fix upon a measure in which rhyme abounds even to satiety. Of this
he said, in his "Essay on Lyric Poetry," prefixed to the poem--" For
the more harmony likewise I chose the frequent return of rhyme,
which laid me under great difficulties. But difficulties overcome
give grace and pleasure. Nor can I account for the PLEASURE OF
RHYME IN GENERAL (of which the moderns are too fond) but from this
truth." Yet the moderns surely deserve not much censure for their