To The Muse

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. Why 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, Of 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? Yet can I ask what charms in thee are found; I, who have drunk from thine ethereal rill, And tasted all the pleasures that abound Upon Parnassus' loved Aonian hill? I, through whose soul the Muse's 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.