The Poet’s Trust In His Sorrow

O GOD! how sad a doom is mine,
To human seeming:
Thou hast called on me to resign
So much--much!--all--but the divine
Delights of dreaming.
I set my dreams to music wild,
A wealth of measures,
My lays, thank Heaven! are undefiled,
I sport with Fancy as a child
With golden leisures.
And long as fate, not wholly stern,
But this shall grant me,
Still with perennial faith to turn
Where Song's unsullied altars burn
Nought, nought, shall daunt me!
What though my worldly state be low
Beyond redressing;
I own an inner flame whose glow
Makes radiant all the outward show;
My last great blessing!