The world had wanted many an idle song),
What drop or nostrum can this plague remove?
Or which must end me, a fool’s wrath or love?
A dire dilemma—either way I’m sped;
If foes, they write; if friends, they read me dead.
Seiz’d and ty’d down to judge, how wretched I,
Who can’t be silent, and who will not lie.
To laugh, were want of goodness and of grace;
And to be grave, exceeds all power of face.
I sit with sad civility; I read