ERINNA.
259
To make me the low slave of vanity,
Heartless and humbled? O my own sweet power,
Surely thy songs are made for more than this!
What a worst waste of feeling and of life
Have been the imprints of my roll of time,
Too much, too long! To what use have I turn'd
The golden gifts in which I pride myself?
They are profaned; with their pure ore I made
A temple resting only on the breath
Of heedless worshippers. Alas! that ever
Praise should have been what it has been to me—
The opiate of my heart. Yet I have dream'd
Of things which cannot be; the bright, the pure,
That all of which the heart may only dream;
And I have mused upon my gift of song,
And deeply felt its beauty, and disdain'd
S 2
