[Page 309]

Written to a near Neighbour in a tempestuous Night, 1748.

By the Same.
I.
1 YOU bid my Muse not cease to sing,
2 You bid my ink not cease to flow;
3 Then say it ever shall be spring,
4 And boisterous winds shall never blow:
5 When you such miracles can prove,
6 I'll sing of friendship, or of love.
II.
7 But now, alone, by storms opprest,
8 Which harshly in my ears resound;
9 No cheerful voice with witty jest,
10 No jocund pipe to still the sound;
11 Untrain'd beside in verse-like art,
12 How shall my pen express my heart?
[Page 310]
III.
13 In vain I call th' harmonious Nine,
14 In vain implore Apollo's aid;
15 Obdurate, they refuse a line,
16 While spleen and care my rest invade,
17 Say, shall we Morpheus next implore,
18 And try if dreams befriend us more?
IV.
19 Wisely at least he'll stop my pen,
20 And with his poppies crown my brow:
21 Better by far in lonesome den
22 To sleep unheard of — than to glow
23 With treach'rous wildfire of the brain,
24 Th' intoxicated poet's bane.

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About this text

Title (in Source Edition): Written to a near Neighbour in a tempestuous Night, 1748.
Author: Henrietta St. John Knight, Lady Luxborough
Themes: poetry; literature; writing
Genres:
References: DMI 26691

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Source edition

Dodsley, Robert, 1703-1764. A Collection of Poems in Six Volumes. By Several Hands. Vol. IV. London: printed by J. Hughs, for R. and J. Dodsley, 1763 [1st ed. 1758], pp. 309-310. 6v.: music; 8⁰. (ESTC T131163; OTA K104099.004) (Page images digitized by the Eighteenth-Century Poetry Archive from a copy in the archive's library.)

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