Of fashionable dames the foe,

The misanthrope of gloomy brow,

By whom the youthful bard was slain?" -

In time I'll give ye without fail

A true account and in detail.

XL.

But not at present, though sincerely

I on my chosen hero dote;

Though I'll return to him right early,

Just at this moment I cannot.

Years have inclined me to stern prose,

Years to light rhyme themselves oppose,

And now, I mournfully confess,

In rhyming I show laziness.

As once, to fill the rapid page

My pen no longer finds delight,

Other and colder thoughts affright,

Sterner solicitudes engage,

In worldly din or solitude

Upon my visions such intrude.

XLI.

Fresh aspirations I have known,

I am acquainted with fresh care,

Hopeless are all the first, I own,

Yet still remains the old despair.

Illusions, dream, where, where your sweetness?

Where youth (the proper rhyme is fleetness)?

And is it true her garland bright

At last is shrunk and withered quite?

And is it true and not a jest,

Not even a poetic phrase,

That vanished are my youthful days

(This joking I used to protest),

Never for me to reappear -

That soon I reach my thirtieth year?