Classic Poem

O What have I to do
With merriment & jollities
Youths golden hair & sparkling eyes?
And deafening games that children prize

I am not made to tune a lute
Nor amble in a soft saloon
Nor mine the grace of kind salute
To mien of pride & heart of stone

My pulse is slow my blood is cold
My stammering tongue is rudely tuned

I care not who shall kiss the cup
That Fashion holds to Beauty up
Nor who shall slip thro' the smiling throng
With honied lyes upon his tongue
The swift hours that go singing by
Tell not the triflers they must die

Man to his work the merry to their wine
Friend to his friend folly to festivals
All hopes & humors to their several ends
Sages to schools, young Passion to its love
Ambition to its task and me to mine.
I am not charged with dallying messages
That thus I mingle in this glittering crowd
Seeing with strange eyes their buffooneries
I am not tangled in the cobweb net
That wanton Beauty weaves for youth so knit
To some fair maid he follows with his eye
A sterner errand to the silken troop
Has quenched the uneasy blush that warmed my cheek
I am commissioned in my day of joy
To leave my woods & streams & the sweet sloth
Of prayer & song that were my dear delight
To leave the rudeness of my woodland life
Sweet twilight walks and midnight solitude
And kind acquaintance with the morning stars
& the smooth passage of my household hours
The innocent mirth which sweetens daily bread
Railing in love at those who rail again by mind's industry sharpening the love of life
Books, Muses, study, fireside, friends, & love,
I loved ye with true love, so fare ye well.

I was a boy; boyhood slid gaily by
And the impatient years that trod on it
Taught me new lessons in the lore of life.

I've learned the burthen of that sad history
All woman born do know, that hoped for days
Days that come dancing on fraught with delights
Dash our blown hopes as they limp heavily by
But I—the bantling of a country Muse
Abandon all those toys with speed to obey
The King whose meek ambassador I go.