CHILDISH RECOLLECTIONS.[1]
"I cannot but remember such things were,
And were most dear to me."
["That were most precious to me."—Macbeth, act iv. sc. 3, line 321.]
When slow Disease, with all her host of Pains,[3]
- ↑ [The words, "that schoolboy thing," etc. (see letter to H. Drury, Jan. 8, 1808), evidently apply, not as Moore intimates, to this period, but to the lines "On a Change of Masters," etc., July, 1805 (see letter to W. Bankes, March 6, 1807).]
- ↑ [The motto was prefixed in Hours of Idleness.]
- ↑
Hence! thou unvarying song, of varied loves,
Which youth commends, maturer age reproves;
Which every rhyming bard repeats by rote,
By thousands echo'd to the self-same note!
Tir'd of the dull , unceasing, copious strain,
My soul is panting to be free again.
Farewell! ye nymphs, propitious to my verse,
Some other Damon, will your charms rehearse;
Some other paint his pangs, in hope of bliss,
Or dwell in rapture on your nectar'd kiss.
Those beauties, grateful to my ardent sight,
No more entrance my senses in delight;
Those bosoms, form'd of animated snow,
Alike are tasteless and unfeeling now.
These to some happier lover, I resign;
The memory of those joys alone is mine.
Censure no more shall brand my humble name,
The child of passion and the fool of fame.
Weary of love, of life, devour'd with spleen,
I rest a perfect Timon, not nineteen;
World! I renounce thee! all my hope's o'ercast!
One sigh I give thee, but that sigh's the last.
Friends, foes, and females, now alike, adieu!
Would I could add remembrance of you, too!
Yet though the future, dark and cheerless gleams,
The curse of memory, hovering in my dreams,
Depicts with glowing pencil all those years,
Ere yet, my cup, empoison'd, flow'd with tears,
Still rules my senses with tyrannic sway,
The past confounding with the present day.Alas! in vain I check the maddening thought;
It still recurs, unlook'd for and unsought:
My soul to Fancy's, etc., etc., as at line 29.—[P. on V. Occasions, p. 109, sq.]
