Attempts in verse Author:John Jones Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: THE AUTHOR TO HIS BOOK. Poor rugged offspring of my humble Muse, The world may spurn thee, and thy faults abuse; For in thy progress not a peaceful hour Had I... more » to form thee, and no classic power; Plain simple Nature, in her homely way, With sudden impulse sung each artless lay, To state her feelings, or express a thought Of what her knowledge or her fancy caught; No state of ease the hapless Muse enjoyed, The hands were busy, and the ears annoyed By those quick sounds with which the tongues are rife, Of mortals bustling in domestic life. For far from sounds of strife and noisy mirth. Doth Fancy love to give her musings birth. Nursed in a soil which felt no cheering rays, And laughter fearing, without hope of praise, Nor on thee having leisure to bestow, Thou wert uncherished, and thy growth was slow; But when through time some incident arose That called the heart to pleasure or to woes, Which Nature kindly asked the Muse to paint, Her willing fervor broke through all restraint, And soon depicted what the bosom felt, And then to thee some little substance dealt. Loved child of fancy! not endeared for worth, But as a toy to him who gave thee birth, Not oft intruded on another's view, Few of thy nature or existence knew, And when beheld, opinions, coldly given, Still chilled the source by which thou might'st have thriven. But on thee chance beamed a more genial ray, Which lit and led thee into Southey's way; And he saw even in thy small share of skill, That there was in thee something pleasing still, Where those who met thee with a nature kind Might some congenial charm, amusing find; And at the risk of every critic's strife, He lends his hand to lead thee into life, For which I'll nurse, whate'er my fate may be, A grateful thought to life's extremity. To help th...« less