Now Avon glides through Severn to the sea,
And murmurs that her Shakspeare sings no more;
Thames bears the freight of many a tribute shore,
But on those banks her poet bold and free,
That stooped in blindness at his humble door,
Yet never bowed to priest or prince the knee,
Wanders no more by those sad sisters led;
Herbert and Spenser dead
Have left their names alone to him whose scheme
Stiffly endeavors to supplant the dream
Of seer and poet, with mechanic rule
Learned from the chemist’s closet, from the surgeon’s tool.
With us Philosophy still spreads her wing,
And soars to seek Heaven’s King—
Nor creeps through charnels, prying with the glass
That makes the little big,—while gods unseen may pass.