WELL! THOU ART HAPPY.
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4.
Where once my wit, perchance, hath shone,
In aid of others' let me shine;
And when, alas! our brains are gone,
What nobler substitute than wine?
5.
Quaif while thou canst: another race,
When thou and thine, like me, are sped,
May rescue thee from earth's embrace,
And rhyme and revel with the dead.
6.
Why not? since through life's little day
Our heads such sad effects produce;
Redeem'd from worms and wasting clay,
This chance is theirs, to be of use.
Newstead Abbey, 1808. [First published in the seventh edition of Childe Harold.]
1.
Well! thou art happy, and I feel