Slowly, or rapidly-unwilling still For you to try my dull, unlearned quill. Nor should I now, but that I've known you long; That you first taught me all the sweets of song: The grand, the sweet, the terse, the free, the fine : What swell'd with pathos, and what right divine: Spenserian vowels that elope with ease, And float along like birds o'er summer seas: Miltonian storms, and more, Miltonian tender ness: Michael in arms, and more, meek Eve's fair slenderness. Who read for me the sonnet swelling loudly Up to its climax, and then dying proudly? Who found for me the grandeur of the ode, Growing, like Atlas, stronger from its load? Who let me taste that more than cordial dram, The sharp, the rapier-pointed epigram? Show'd me that epic was of all the king, Round, vast, and spanning all, like Saturn's ring? Upon a tyrant's head. Ah! had I never seen, No, doubly no;-yet should these rhymings please, I shall roll on the grass with twofold ease; With hopes that you would one day think the reading Of my rough verses not an hour misspent ; Some weeks have pass'd since last I saw the spires In lucent Thames reflected:-warm desires To feel the air that plays about the hills, sures; The air that floated by me seem'd to say "Write! thou wilt never have a better day." And so I did. When many lines I'd written, grace I was not oversmitten, Though with their Yet, as my hand was warm, I thought I'd better Trust to my feelings, and write you a letter. Such an attempt required an inspiration Of a peculiar sort,—a consummation ;— Which, had I felt, these scribblings might have been Verses from which the soul would never ween; That freshly terminate in open plains, And revell'd in a chat that ceased not, When, at night-fall, among your books we got: No, nor when supper came, nor after that,— Nor when reluctantly I took my hat; No, nor till cordially you shook my hand Mid-way between our homes :-your accents bland Still sounded in my ears, when I no more Could hear your footsteps touch the gravelly floor. Sometimes I lost them, and then found again; You changed the foot-path for the grassy plain. In those still moments I have wish'd you joys That well you know to honour :-"Life's very toys |