What though, for showing truth to flatter’d state

      Kind Hunt was shut in prison, yet has he,

      In his immortal spirit, been as free

      As the sky-searching lark, and as elate.

      Minion of grandeur! think you he did wait?

      Think you he nought but prison walls did see,

      Till, so unwilling, thou unturn’dst the key?

      Ah, no! far happier, nobler was his fate!

      In Spenser’s halls he strayed, and bowers fair,

      Culling enchanted flowers; and he flew

      With daring Milton through the fields of air:

      To regions of his own his genius true

      Took happy flights. Who shall his fame impair

      When thou art dead, and all thy wretched crew?

      Minutes are flying swiftly, and as yet

      Nothing unearthly has enticed my brain

      Into a delphic labyrinth – I would fain

      Catch an unmortal thought to pay the debt

      I owe to the kind Poet who has set

      Upon my ambitious head a glorious gain.

      Two bending laurel sprigs – ’tis nearly pain

      To be conscious of such a Coronet.

      Still time is fleeting, and no dream arises

      Gorgeous as I would have it – only I see

      A trampling down of what the world most prizes

      Turbans and Crowns, and blank regality;

      And then I run into most wild surmises

      Of all the many glories that may be.

      Welcome joy, and welcome sorrow,

      Lethe’s weed and Hermes’ feather;

      Come today, and come tomorrow,

      I do love you both together!

      I love to mark sad faces in fair weather;

      And hear a merry laugh amid the thunder;

      Fair and foul I love together.

      Meadows sweet where flames are under.

      And a giggle at a wonder;

      Visage sage at pantomime;

      Funeral, and steeple-chime;

      Infant playing with a skull;

      Morning fair, and shipwreck’d hull;

      Nightshade with the woodbine kissing;

      Serpents in red roses hissing;

      Cleopatra regal-dress’d

      With the aspic at her breast;

      Dancing music, music sad,

      Both together, sane and mad;

      Muses bright and muses pale;

      Sombre Saturn, Momus hale; -

      Laugh and sigh, and laugh again;

      Oh the sweetness of the pain!

      Muses bright, and muses pale.

      Bare your faces of the veil;

      Let me see; and let me write

      Of the day, and of the night -

      Both together: – let me slake

      All my thirst for sweet hearache!

      Let my bower be of yew,

      Interwreath’d with myrtles new;

      Pines and lime-trees full in bloom,

      And my couch a low grass-tomb.

      CASTLE BUILDER In short, convince you that however wise

      You may have grown from convent libraries,

      I have, by many yards at least, been carding

      A longer skein of wit in convent garden.

      BERNADINE A very Eden that same place must be!

      Pray what demesne? Whose Lordship’s legacy?

      What, have you convents in that Gothic Isle?

      Pray pardon me, I cannot help but smile.

      CASTLE BUILDER Sir, Convent Garden is a monstrous beast

      From morning, four o’clock, to twelve at noon,

      It swallows cabbages without a spoon,

      And then, from twelve till two, this Eden made is

      A promenade for cooks and ancient ladies;

      And then for supper, ‘stead of soup and poaches,

      It swallows chairmen, damns, and Hackney coaches.

      In short, Sir, ’tis a very place for monks,

      For it containeth twenty thousand punks,

      Which any man may number for his sport,

      By following fat elbows up a court.

      In such like nonsense would I pass an hour

      With random Friar, or Rake upon his tour,

      Or one of few of that imperial host’

      Who came unmaimed from the Russian frost.

      Tonight I’ll have my friar – let me think

      About my room, – I’ll have it in the pink;

      It should be rich and sombre, and the moon,

      Just in its mid-life in the midst of June,

      Should look thro’ four large windows and display

      Clear, but for gold-fish vases in the way,

      Their glassy diamonding on Turkish floor;

      The tapers keep aside, an hour and more,

      To see what else the moon alone can show;

      While the night-breeze doth softly let us know

      My terrace is well bower’d with oranges.

      Upon the floor the dullest spirit sees

      A guitar-ribband and a lady’s glove

      Beside a crumple-leaved tale of love;

      A tambour-frame, with Venus sleeping there,

      All finish’d but some ringlets of her hair;

      A viol, bowstrings torn, crosswise upon

      A glorious folio of Anacreon;

      A skull upon a mat of roses lying,

      Ink’d purple with a song concerning dying;

      An hourglass on the turn, amid the trails

      Of passion-flower; – just in time there sails

      A cloud across the moon, – the lights bring in!

      And see what more my phantasy can win.

      It is a gorgeous room, but somewhat sad;

      The draperies are