Thomas Humphry Ward, ed. The English Poets. 1880–1918.rnVol. V. Browning to Rupert Brooke

William Johnson Cory (1823–1892)

Extracts from Ionica: To the Muse

GUIDE me with song, kind Muse, to death’s dark shade;

Keep me in sweet accord with boy and maid,

Still in fresh blooms of art and truth arrayed.

Bear with old age, blithe child of memory!

Time loves the good; and youth and thou art nigh

To Sophocles and Plato, till they die.

Playmate of freedom, queen of nightingales,

Draw near; thy voice grows faint: my spirit fails

Still with thee, whether sleep or death assails.