And more imagination teems.

On innocent delights I dote,

Upon my lake I love to float,

For law I far niente take

And every morning I awake

The child of sloth and liberty.

I slumber much, a little read,

Of fleeting glory take no heed.

In former years thus did not I

In idleness and tranquil joy

The happiest days of life employ?

L.

Love, flowers, the country, idleness

And fields my joys have ever been;

I like the difference to express

Between myself and my Eugene,

Lest the malicious reader or

Some one or other editor

Of keen sarcastic intellect

Herein my portrait should detect,

And impiously should declare,

To sketch myself that I have tried

Like Byron, bard of scorn and pride,

As if impossible it were

To write of any other elf

Than one's own fascinating self.

LI.

Here I remark all poets are

Love to idealize inclined;

I have dreamed many a vision fair

And the recesses of my mind

Retained the image, though short-lived,

Which afterwards the muse revived.

Thus carelessly I once portrayed

Mine own ideal, the mountain maid,