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Samuel Taylor Coleridge - To A Friend Who Had Declared His Intention Of Writing No More Poetry
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Dear Charles! whilst yet thou wert a babe, I ween
That Genius plunged thee in that wizard fount
High Castalie: and (sureties of thy faith)
That Pity and Simplicity stood by.
And promised for thee that thou shouldst renounce
The world`s low cares and lying vanities,
Steadfast and rooted in the heavenly Muse,
And washed and sanctified to Poesy.
Yes -- thou wert plunged but with forgetful hand
Held, as by Thetis erst her warrior son:
And with those recreant unbaptized heels
Thou`rt flying from thy bounden minist`ries--
So sore it seems and burthensome a task
To weave unwithering flowers!  But take thou heed:
For thou art vulnerable, wild-eyed boy,
And I have arrows mystically dipt,
Such as may stop thy speed.  Is thy Burns dead?
And shall he die unwept, and sink to earth
`Without the meed of one melodious tear?`
Thy Burns, and Nature`s own beloved bard,
Who to the `Illustrious of his native Land,
So properly did look for patronage.` 
Ghost of Maecenas! hide thy blushing face!
They snatched him from the sickle and the plough--
To gauge ale-firkins.
                                   Oh! for shame return!
On a bleak rock, midway the Aonian mount,
There stands a lone and melancholy tree,
Whose aged branches to the midnight blast
Make solemn music: pluck its darkest bough,
Ere yet the unwholesome night-dew be exhaled,
And weeping wreath it round thy Poet`s tomb.
Then in the outskirts, where pollutions grow,
Pick the rank henbane and the dusky flowers
Of night-shade, or its red and tempting fruit,
These with stopped nostril and glove-guarded hand
Knit in nice intertexture, so to twine,
The illustrious brow of Scotch Nobility.
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