Poems (Wordsworth, 1815)/Volume 2/To Raisley Calvert
XXXVII.
TO THE MEMORY
OF
RAISLEY CALVERT.
Calvert! it must not be unheard by them
Who may respect my name that I to thee
Owed many years of early liberty.
This care was thine when sickness did condemn
Thy youth to hopeless wasting, root and stem:
That I, if frugal and severe, might stray
Where'er I liked; and finally array
My temples with the Muse's diadem.
Hence, if in freedom I have loved the truth,
If there be aught of pure, or good, or great,
In my past verse,—or shall be, in the lays
Of higher mood, which now I meditate,—
It gladdens me, O "Worthy, short-lived Youth!
To think how much of this will be thy praise.