Page:Landon in Literary Gazette 1823.pdf/79



Praise! light and dew of the sweet leaves Around the Poet's temples hung, How turned to gall, and how profaned By envious or by idle tongue!

Given by vapid fools, who laud Only if others do the same; Forgotten even while the breath Is on the air that bears your name.

And He! what was his fate, the bard, He of the Desert Harp, whose song Flowed freely, wildly, as the wind That bore him and his harp along?

That fate which waits the gifted one, To pine, each finer impulse check'd; At length to sink, and die beneath The shade and silence of neglect.

And this the polished age, that springs The Phoenix from dark years gone by, That blames and mourns the past, yet leaves Her warrior and her bard to die.

To die in poverty and pride, The light of hope and genius past, Each feeling wrung, until the heart Could bear no more, so broke at last.

Thus withering amid the wreck Of sweet hopes, high imaginings, What can the Minstrel do, but die, Cursing his too beloved strings!—L. E. L.