With wayworn feet a Pilgrim woe-begone
Life's upward road I journeyed many a day,
And hymning many a sad yet soothing lay
Beguil'd my wandering with the charms of song.
Lonely my heart and rugged was my way,
Yet often pluck'd I as I past along
The wild and simple flowers of Poesy,
And as beseem'd the wayward Fancy's child
Entwin'd each random weed that pleas'd mine eye.
Accept the wreath, BELOVED! it is wild
And rudely garlanded; yet scorn not thou
The humble offering, where the sad rue weaves
'Mid gayer flowers its intermingled leaves,
And I have twin'd the myrtle for thy brow.
I have collected in this Volume the productions of very distant periods.
The lyric pieces were written in earlier youth; I now think the Ode the
most worthless species of composition as well as the most difficult, and
should never again attempt it, even if my future pursuits were such as
allowed leisure for poetry. The poems addressed to the heart and the
understanding are those of my maturer judgment. The Inscriptions will be
found to differ from the Greek simplicity of Akenside's in the point
that generally concludes them. The Sonnets were written first, or I
would have adopted a different title, and avoided the shackle of rhyme
and the confinement to fourteen lines.