Farewell to Thee Muse

Enchantress, farewell, who do oft has decoy'd me,
At the close of the evening through woodlands to roam,

Where the forester, 'lated, with wonder espied me
Explore the wild scenes he was quitting for home.
Farewell, and take with thee thy numbers wild speaking

The language alternate of rapture and woe:

Oh! none but some lover, whose heartstrings are breaking,

The pang that I feel at our parting can know.

Each joy couldst double, and when there come sorrow,

Or pale disappointment to darken my way,

What voice was like thine, that could sing of to-morrow,

Til forgot in the strain was the grief of to-day!

But when friends drop around us in life's weary waning,

The grief, Queen of Numbers, thou canst not assuage;

Nor the gradual estrangement of those yet remaining,

The languor of pain, and the chillness of age.

'Twas thou that once taught me in accents bewailing,

To sing how a warrior lay stretched on the plain,

And a maiden hung o'er him with aid unavailing,

And held to his lips the cold goblet in vain;

As vain thy enchantments, O Queen of wild Numbers,

To a bard when the reign of his fancy is o'er,

And the quick pulse of feeling in apathy slumbers--

Farewell, then, Enchantress! I meet thee no more!

1812, Sir Walter Scott