Every door is barred with gold, and opens but with golden keys.
Every gate is thronged with suitors, all the markets overflow,
I have but an angry fancy,—what is that which I should do?
I had been content to perish, falling on the foeman's ground,
When the ranks are rolled in vapor, and the winds are laid with sound.
But the jingling of the guinea helps the hurt that honor feels,
And the nations do but murmur, snarling at each other's heels."
How finely, in the next stanzas, are portrayed the expectations of the ardent youth, the light of London, and the imagined progress of scenic and real life!
"Can I but relive in sadness? I will turn that earlier page.
Hide me from my deep emotion, O thou wondrous Mother-Age!