I.
On a soft bank of camomel I sate,
O’ershaded by two mournful yews;
(Doubtless it was the will of fate
I this retreat should chuse.)
Where on delicious poetry I fed,
Amazing thoughts chilled all my blood,
And almost stopt the vital flood,
As Dryden’s sacred verse I read.
Whilst killing raptures seized my head,
I shook, as if I had foreknown
What all-commanding fate had done;
What for our sovereign Dryden had designed,
Till sleep o’erwhelmed my brain, as sorrow had my mind;
To think that all the great, even he, must die,
And here, in fame alone, have immortality.
When in my dream the fatal muse,
With hair dishevell’d, and in tears,
Melpomene appears;
Upon my throbbing heart her hand she laid,
Her hand as cold as death, and thus she said,—
“Least of my care, be calmed! No more just heaven accuse!