Her tinsel crown, in sign of victory.

What next? One deal was lost; my hope less high: "What if old Time," methought, "should play his

mace

With heavy power against me?" Age look'd shy,

More pale her mien, and changed her careworn face. Yes! Time and Age had tricks I could not see, Old gamesters both! Life's game was lost with me.

See Note.

IV. THE POET AND HIS PATRONS.

To Naples my good lord the Count is gone,

The Duke, my good lord too, is gone to France: Heaven speed you, Princes both; for this day's

chance

Will leave your stairs to some men dull and lone.
With learned clerks the Court is all o'erdone;

My muse shall ask no patron's countenance :
Give me, in my poor Andalusian manse
Safe shelter from grandees and summer sun.
There, with some few free books,-free, I would say,
From censures rash,-I walk and pass my time,
Ere, like the mellow fig, Time pass o'er me.
For what I cannot hope, I do not pray;

I hope at last, what not to hope were crime, To reach that haven, where the just shall be.

Her tinsel crown, in sign of tory,

277

What next? One deal was ist, my hope 'ess ign
"What if old Time," methought, should play his

mace

With heavy power against me !" Age look shy,
More pale her mien, and changed her careworn face
Yes! Time and Age had tricks I could not see,
Old gamesters both! Life's game was lost with me

See Note.

I. THE POET AND HIS PATRONS.

To Naies my good lord the Count is gone,
The Duke, my good lord too, is gone to France
Heaven speed you, Princes both; for the day's

Chance

Wave your stams T se nen tull and

With leamed clerks the Court & all
My muse shall ask IT ! x
Gave me, in my car fansat an
Safe shelter from gates ant nummer
There with some e Tee s
From censures ERA ik nu ee

Ere. like the mellow Time

For what I cannot ope
Te at last, wat 1

To react that have wee

fire,

ist."

V. ON THE CENSURE PRONOUNCED AGAINST HIS

66 LONELY MUSINGS." I.

With little wit, and polish next to none,

So says a great strong critic, no great clerk,
With heavy pace slow-wandering in the dark,
My lonely muse had to the Palace gone:
The pedant closed the gate with jealous frown,

An angry man, in learning much to seek,

Who sleeps in Spanish, dreams and snores in Greek, And drops the Church's Creed, to preach his own. Light was the weight of censure; yet it flew;

No road to Fame was open: every tongue Malign'd my verse as strange,—more strange than new. The grave Memorial envied the poor song It would not study. Spite its worst may do; But victory comes by patient suffering wrong.

66

VI. ON THE CENSURE PASSED ON HIS LONELY

MUSINGS." II.

Return, my lonely muse, and dwell alone,

More blest in wilds, where Horror broods around, Than taught in courts base Flattery's songs to sound, Like bird in cage, with voice no more thine own. Like the wise consul, leave without a moan

The trammels gay that Virtue shuns to wear, And seek the wood's green cloister, happiest there, In wild deer's secret haunt by moss-clad stone. List to that mellow note, the stock dove's wail, From yon old oak, as though in mournful ways She wooed the chequer'd brake to learn her tale: O let her love-dirge from that woodland maze Breathe warning: Like the still forsaken vale, The lonely muse is deaf to blame or praise.

VII. POLYPHEME AND HIS CRITICS.

My gallant youth, the sea-maid's one-eyed lover,
Walk'd forth upon the pavement in Madrid,
When such a pack of curs as ne'er lay hid

In hamlet rude, to vex some harmless rover,
Came round him, with a noise like whelps in cover,
Pedants, and those who rail as pedants bid.
My goat-herd brave the causeway-path bestrid,
Snorting, and whistling like a startled plover;
Then drove them with his thundering voice away:
"They tell me I'm obscure," I heard him say;
"If once their lean wits land upon my coast,
I'll help them to the light that they desire;
Their paper-trash shall serve to make the fire,
At which their critic-limbs I'll grill and roast."