On this my pensive pillow, gentle Sleep!
Descend, in all thy downy plumage drest:
Wipe with thy wing these eyes that wake to weep,
And place thy crown of poppies on my breast.

O steep my senses in oblivion's balm,
And sooth my throbbing pulse with lenient hand;
This tempest of my boiling blood becalm!
Despair grows mild at thy supreme command.

Yet ah! in vain, familiar with the gloom,
And sadly toiling through the tedious night,
I seek sweet slumber, while that virgin bloom,
For ever hovering, haunts my wretched sight.

Aye, but she?
Your other sister and my other soul
Grave Silence, lovelier
Than the three loveliest maidens, what of her?
Clio, not you,
Not you, Calliope,
Nor all your wanton line,
Not Beauty's perfect self shall comfort me
For Silence once departed,
For her the cool-tongued, her the tranquil-hearted,
Whom evermore I follow wistfully,
Wandering Heaven and Earth and Hell and the four seasons through;
Thalia, not you,
Not you, Melpomene,
Not your incomparable feet, O thin Terpsichore, I seek in this great hall,

O THOU, whose sober precepts can controul
The wild impatience of the troubled soul,
Sweet Nymph serene ! whose all-consoling pow'r
Awakes to calm delight the ling'ring hour;
O hear thy suppliant's ardent pray'r !
Chase from my pensive mind corroding care,
Steal thro' the heated pulses of the brain,
Charm sorrow to repose­and lull the throb of pain.

O, tell me, what are life's best joys?
Are they not visions that decay,
Sweet honey'd poisons, gilded toys,
Vain glitt'ring baubles of a day?

I
'Tis done -- but yesterday a King!
And arm'd with Kings to strive --
And now thou art a nameless thing:
So abject -- yet alive!
Is this the man of thousand thrones,
Who strew'd our earth with hostile bones,
And can he thus survive?
Since he, miscall'd the Morning Star,
Nor man nor fiend hath fallen so far.

II
Ill-minded man! why scourge thy kind
Who bow'd so low the knee?
By gazing on thyself grown blind,
Thou taught'st the rest to see.
With might unquestion'd, -- power to save, --

Queen of every moving measure,
Sweetest source of purest pleasure,
Music; why thy powers employ
Only for the sons of joy?
Only for the smiling guests
At natal or at nuptial feasts?
Rather thy lenient numbers pour
On those whom secret griefs devour;
Bid be still the throbbing hearts
Of those, whom death, or absence parts,
And, with some softly whisper'd air,
Smooth the brow of dumb despair.

SORC'RESS of the Cave profound!
Hence, with thy pale, and meagre train,
Nor dare my roseate bow'r profane,
Where light-heel'd mirth despotic reigns,
Slightly bound in feath'ry chains,
And scatt'ring blisses round.

Hence, to thy native Chaos­where
Nurs'd by thy haggard Dam, DESPAIR,
Shackled by thy numbing spell,
Mis'ry's pallid children dwell;
Where, brooding o'er thy fatal charms,
FRENZY rolls the vacant eye;
Where hopeless LOVE, with folded arms,
Drops the tear, and heaves the sigh;

Deep in th' abyss where frantic horror bides,
In thickest mists of vapours fell,
Where wily Serpents hissing glare
And the dark Demon of Revenge resides,
At midnight's murky hour
Thy origin began:
Rapacious MALICE was thy sire;
Thy Dam the sullen witch, Despair;
Thy Nurse, insatiate Ire.
The FATES conspir'd their ills to twine,
About thy heart's infected shrine;
They gave thee each disastrous spell,
Each desolating pow'r,
To blast the fairest hopes of man.

Soon as thy fatal birth was known,
From her unhallow'd throne

HAIL! GODDESS of persuasive art!
The magic of whose tuneful tongue
Lulls to soft harmony the wand'ring heart
With fascinating song;
O, let me hear thy heav'n-taught strain,
As thro' my quiv'ring pulses steal
The mingling throbs of joy and pain,
Which only sensate minds can feel;
Ah ! let me taste the bliss supreme,
Which thy warm touch unerring flings
O'er the rapt sense's finest strings,
When GENIUS, darting frown the sky,
Glances across my wond'ring eye,
Her animating beam.

SWEET ELOQUENCE! thy mild controul,

TERRIFIC FIEND! thou Monster fell,
Condemn'd in haunts profane to dwell,
Why quit thy solitary Home,
O'er wide Creation's paths to roam?
Pale Tyrant of the timid Heart,
Whose visionary spells can bind
The strongest passions of the mind,
Freezing Life's current with thy baneful Art.

Nature recoils when thou art near,
For round thy form all plagues are seen;
Thine is the frantic tone, the sullen mien,
The glance of petrifying fear,
The haggard Brow, the low'ring Eye,
The hollow Cheek, the smother'd Sigh,

Who gave thee, O Beauty!
The keys of this breast,
Too credulous lover
Of blest and unblest?
Say when in lapsed ages
Thee knew I of old;
Or what was the service
For which I was sold?
When first my eyes saw thee,
I found me thy thrall,
By magical drawings,
Sweet tyrant of all!
I drank at thy fountain
False waters of thirst;
Thou intimate stranger,
Thou latest and first!
Thy dangerous glances
Make women of men;
New-born we are melting
Into nature again.
Lavish, lavish promiser,
Nigh persuading gods to err,