Ah! should it be the latter, I obtain,
’Twill be encouragement to try again.
O, had I but a tithe of Alfred’s[100] spark,
I’d launch again my little hopeful bark,
Into the ocean of my soul’s delight!
Would prose all day, and sometimes half the night;
Would scribble out blank verse, or couplets, free;
Would ’queath its pages to futurity.
And when my sand-glass had run out its last,—
My eyes for ever had been closed and fast,—