Yet ah! celestial maids, ye are not dead;
Immortal as ye are, ye may not die:
And well I ween, ye cannot quite be fled,
Ere ye entune his mournful elegy.
Stay then awhile, O stay, ye fleeting fair;
Revisit yet, nor hallow'd Hippocrene,
Nor Thespia's shade; till your harmonious teen
Be grateful pour'd on some slow-ditted air,
Such tribute paid, again ye may repair
To what lov'd haunt you whilom did erect;
Whether Lycaeus, or that mountain fair
Trim Maenelaus, with piny verdure deck'd.
But now it boots you not in these to stray,
Or yet Cyllene's hoary shade to chuse,
Or where mild Ladon's swelling waters play.
Forego each vain excuse,
And haste to Thames's shores; for Thames shall join
Our sad society, and passing mourn,
Letting cold tears bedew his silver urn.
And, when the poet's wither'd grot he laves,
His reed-crown'd locks shall shake, his head shall bow,
His tide no more in eddies blithe shall rove,
But creep soft by with long-drawn murmurs slow.
For oft the poet rous'd his charmed waves
With martial notes, or lull'd with strains of love.
He must not now in brisk meanders flow
Gamesome, and kiss the sadly-silent shore,
Without the loan of some poetick woe.