Nor has Time's all-darkening shade
In obscure oblivion press'd
What Anacreon laugh'd and play'd;
Gay Anacreon, drunken priest!
Gentle Sappho, love-sick muse,
Warms the heart with amorous fire;
Still her tenderest notes infuse
Melting rapture, soft desire.
Beauteous Helen, young and gay,
By a painted fopling won,
Went not first, fair nymph, astray,
Fondly pleased to be undone.
Nor young Teucer's slaughtering bow,
Nor bold Hector's dreadful sword,
Alone the terrors of the foe,
Sow'd the field with hostile blood.
Many valiant chiefs of old
Greatly lived and died before
Agamemnon, Grecian bold,
Waged the ten years' famous war.
But their names, unsung, unwept,
Unrecorded, lost and gone,
Long in endless night have slept,
And shall now no more be known.
Virtue, which the poet's care
Has not well consign'd to fame,
Lies, as in the sepulchre
Some old king, without a name.
But, O Humphry, great and free,
While my tuneful songs are read,
Old forgetful Time on thee
Dark oblivion ne'er shall spread.
When the deep cut notes shall fade
On the mouldering Parian stone,
On the brass no more be read
The perishing inscription;
Forgotten all the enemies,
Envious G----n's cursed spite,
And P----l's derogating lies,
Lost and sunk in Stygian night;
Still thy labour and thy care,
What for Dublin thou hast done,
In full lustre shall appear,
And outshine th' unclouded sun.
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