Classic Poem

Idol of youths and virgins, Moore!
Thy days, the bright, the calm, are o'er!
No gentler mortal ever prest
His parent Earth's benignant breast.
What of the powerful can be said
They did for thee? They edited .
What of that royal gourd? Thy verse
Excites our scorn and spares our curse.
Each truant wife, each trusting maid,
All loves, all friendships, he betraid.
Despised in life by those he fed,
By his last mistress left ere dead,
Hearing her only wrench the locks
Of every latent jewel-box.
There spouse and husband strove alike,
Fearing lest Death too soon should strike,
But fixt no plunder to forego
Til the gross spirit sank below.
Thy closing days I envied most,
When all worth losing had been lost.
Alone I spent my earlier hour
While thou wert in the roseate bower,
And raised to thee was every eye,
And every song won every sigh.
One servant and one chest of books
Follow'd me into mountain nooks,
Where shelter'd from the sun and breeze
Lay Pindar and Thucydides.
There antient days come back again,
And British kings renew'd their reign;
There Arthur and his knights sat round
Cups far too busy to be crown'd;
There Alfred's glorious shade appear'd,
Of higher mien than Greece e'er rear'd.
I never sought in prime or age
The smile of Fortune to engage,
Nor rais'd nor lower'd the telescope
Erected on the tower of Hope.
From Pindus and Parnassus far
Blinks cold and dim the Georgian star.