Eternity’s inexorable chain
Fast binds; and vengeance claims the full arrear.
How late I shudder’d on the brink! how late
Life call’d for her last refuge in despair!
That time is mine, O Mead! to thee I owe; 40
Fain would I pay thee with eternity.
But ill my genius answers my desire;
My sickly song is mortal, past thy cure.
Accept the will;—that dies not with my strain.
For what calls thy disease, Lorenzo? not