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. My muse shall ask no patron's countenance : 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 mace With heavy power against me !" Age look shy, See Note. I. THE POET AND HIS PATRONS. To Naies my good lord the Count is gone, Chance Wave your stams T se nen tull and With leamed clerks the Court & all Ere. like the mellow Time For what I cannot ope 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, 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, In hamlet rude, to vex some harmless rover, |