[Footnote 20: "L'Amitié est l'Amour sans ailes," is a French proverb.
(See the lines so entitled, p. 220.)]
[Footnote i:
'Hence! thou unvarying song, of varied loves,
Which youth commends, maturer age reproves;
Which every rhyming bard repeats by rote,
By thousands echo'd to the self-same note!
Tir'd of the dull, unceasing, copious strain,
My soul is panting to be free again.
Farewell! ye nymphs, propitious to my verse,
Some other Damon, will your charms rehearse;
Some other paint his pangs, in hope of bliss,
Or dwell in rapture on your nectar'd kiss.
Those beauties, grateful to my ardent sight,
No more entrance my senses in delight;
Those bosoms, form'd of animated snow,
Alike are tasteless and unfeeling now.
These to some happier lover, I resign;
The memory of those joys alone is mine.
Censure no more shall brand my humble name,
The child of passion and the fool of fame.
Weary of love, of life, devoured with spleen,
I rest a perfect Timon, not nineteen;
World! I renounce thee! all my hope's o'ercast!
One sigh I give thee, but that sigh's the last.
Friends, foes, and females, now alike, adieu!
Would I could add remembrance of you, too!
Yet though the future, dark and cheerless gleams,
The curse of memory, hovering in my dreams,
Depicts with glowing pencil all those years,
Ere yet, my cup, empoison'd, flow'd with tears,
Still rules my senses with tyrannic sway,
The past confounding with the present day.
Alas! in vain I check the maddening thought;
It still recurs, unlook'd for and unsought:
My soul to Fancy's', etc., etc., as at line 29.--]
[Footnote ii: 'Cunning with age.' ['MS. Newstead'.]]
[Footnote iii: 'Nor shrunk before.' ['Hours of Idleness'.]]
[Footnote iv:
'Careless to soothe the pedant's furious frown,
Scarcely respecting his majestic gown;
By which, in vain, he gain'd a borrow'd grace,
Adding new terror to his sneering face,'
['P. on V. Occasions'.]]
[Footnote v:
'With him for years I search'd the classic page,
Culling the treasures of the letter'd sage,'
['P. on V. Occasions'.]]
[Footnote vi:
'Contempt, in silence, be the pedant's lot,
Soon shall his shallow precepts be forgot;
No more his mention shall my pen degrade--
My tribute to his name's already paid.'
['P. on V. Occasions'.]