Enchantress, farewell, who so oft hast decoy'd me, <br />At the close of the evening through woodlands to roam, <br />Where the forester, 'lated, with wonder espied me <br />Explore the wild scenes he was quitting for home. <br />Farewell and take with thee thy numbers wild speaking <br />The language alternate of rapture and woe: <br />Oh! none but some lover, whose heartstrings are breaking <br />The pang that I feel at our parting can know. <br /> <br />Each joy thou couldst double, and when there came sorrow, <br />Or pale disappointment to darken my way, <br />What voice was like thine, that could sing of tomorrow, <br />Till forgot in the strain was the grief of today! <br />But when friends drop around us in life's weary waning, <br />The grief, Queen of Numbers, thou canst not assuage; <br />Nor the gradual estrangement of those yet remaining, <br />The languor of pain, and the chillness of age. <br /> <br />'Twas thou that once taught me, accents bewailing, <br />To sing how a warrior I lay stretch'd on the plain, <br />And a maiden hung o'er him with aid unavailing, <br />And held to his lips the cold goblet in vain ; <br />As vain thy enchantments, O Queen of wild Numbers <br />To a bard when the reign of his fancy is o'er, <br />And the quick pulse of feeling in apathy slumbers— <br />Farewell, then, Enchantress I'll meet thee no more!<br /><br />Sir Walter Scott<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/farewell-to-the-muse-3/
