ODES. 143 



TO THE MUSE. 

 Written at the Age of Fourteen, 



Ill-fated Maid, in whose unhappy train 

 Chill poverty and misery are seen, 



Anguish and discontent, the unhappy bane 

 Of life, and blackener of each brighter scene ; 



AVhy to thy votaries dost thou give to feel 

 So keenly all the scorns — the jeers of life ? 

 Why not endow them to endure the strife 



With apathy's invulnerable steel, 



Or self-content and ease, each torturing wound to heal 



Ah ! who would taste your self-deluding joys, 

 That lure the unwary to a wretched doom, 



That bid fair views and flattering hopes arise. 

 Then hurl them headlong to a lasting tomb ? 



What is the charm which leads thy victims on, 

 To persevere in paths that lead to woe ? 

 What can induce them in that route to go, 



In which innumerous before have gone, 



And died in misery, poor and woe- begone ? 



III. 



Yet can I ask what charms in thee are found : 

 T who have drank from thine ethereal rill. 



And tasted all the pleasures that abound 

 Upon Parnassus, loved Aonian hill ? 



I, through whose soul the Muses' strains aye thrill ! 

 Oh ! I do feel the spell with which I'm tied ; 



And though our annals fearful stories tell. 

 How Savage languish'd, and how Otway died, 

 Yet must I persevere, let whate'er will betide. 



