Dear Charles! whilst yet thou wert a babe, I ween <br />That Genius plunged thee in that wizard fount <br />High Castalie: and (sureties of thy faith) <br />That Pity and Simplicity stood by. <br />And promised for thee that thou shouldst renounce <br />The world's low cares and lying vanities, <br />Steadfast and rooted in the heavenly Muse, <br />And washed and sanctified to Poesy. <br />Yes -- thou wert plunged but with forgetful hand <br />Held, as by Thetis erst her warrior son: <br />And with those recreant unbaptized heels <br />Thou'rt flying from thy bounden minist'ries-- <br />So sore it seems and burthensome a task <br />To weave unwithering flowers! But take thou heed: <br />For thou art vulnerable, wild-eyed boy, <br />And I have arrows mystically dipt, <br />Such as may stop thy speed. Is thy Burns dead? <br />And shall he die unwept, and sink to earth <br />'Without the meed of one melodious tear?' <br />Thy Burns, and Nature's own beloved bard, <br />Who to the 'Illustrious of his native Land, <br />So properly did look for patronage.' <br />Ghost of Maecenas! hide thy blushing face! <br />They snatched him from the sickle and the plough-- <br />To gauge ale-firkins. <br />Oh! for shame return! <br />On a bleak rock, midway the Aonian mount, <br />There stands a lone and melancholy tree, <br />Whose aged branches to the midnight blast <br />Make solemn music: pluck its darkest bough, <br />Ere yet the unwholesome night-dew be exhaled, <br />And weeping wreath it round thy Poet's tomb. <br />Then in the outskirts, where pollutions grow, <br />Pick the rank henbane and the dusky flowers <br />Of night-shade, or its red and tempting fruit, <br />These with stopped nostril and glove-guarded hand <br />Knit in nice intertexture, so to twine, <br />The illustrious brow of Scotch Nobility.<br /><br />Samuel Taylor Coleridge<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/to-a-friend-who-had-declared-his-intention-of-writing-no-more-poetry/
