Page 13 - Poetry-Books

And what ‘t was Crusoe’s fate to save
‘T was mine to lose—a Savage.

Even Glover’s works I cannot put
My frozen hands upon;
Though ever since I lost my Foote
My Bunyan has been gone.

My Hoyle with Cotton went; oppressed,
My Taylor too must sail;
To save my Goldsmith from arrest,
In vain I offered Bayle.

I Prior sought, but could not see
The Hood so late in front;
And when I turned to hunt for Lee,
Oh! where was my Leigh Hunt.

I tried to laugh, old Care to tickle,
Yet could not Tickell touch;
And then, alas! I missed my Mickle,
And surely mickle’s much.

‘T is quite enough my griefs to feed,
My sorrows to excuse,
To think I cannot read my Reid,
Nor even use my Hughes.

To West, to South, I turn my head,
Exposed alike to odd jeers;
For since my Roger Ascham’s fled,
I ask ‘em for my Rogers.

They took my Horne—and Horne Tooke, too,
And thus my treasures flit;
I feel, when I would Hazlitt view,
The flames that it has lit.

My word’s worth little, Wordsworth gone,
If I survive its doom;
How many a bard I doated on
Was swept off—with my Broome.

~ 11 ~