A Remonstrance to Fancy
Fancy! Fancy! let me be!
Cease to jibe and jeer at me!
Old friend, you are no longer kind.
Why make a league with Discontent?
My eyes to present good you blind,
And weave an artful tapestry
Of pictured joys and beauties blent;
Eerie with what can never be;
An elvish glamour over all,
Fitful and fantastical;
Bewildering, and rich and strange,
With tints of wild, elusive hope,
As intricate, and prone to change
As forms of a kaleidoscope.
Dear Fancy, let this fooling end!
I long to keep you for my friend,
To fling a rainbow, now and then,
Blithely across my spirit's heaven;
With shapes too fine for mortal ken
To limn the painted skies of even;
Or in dark winter months to throw
A summer landscape o'er the snow.
But, wilful fairy, tempt me not
To think, to do — I know not what —
Do not you my pleasures wrong
With your deluding siren song,
And poisoned whisper, “Better far
The gifts in my bestowal are!”
Or kindle longings in my frame
That like a sudden-leaping flame,
Scorch and shrivel and destroy
Glad Innocence and Peace and Joy.
Come, with looks serene and fair,
And a mild engaging air:
Then, if you give a hand to Trust,
And one to Honor, do your will;
Freak and frolic if you must,
But be a friend to Reason still.
Or come, as erst, in quaintest guise,
And let amusement light your eyes:
Like a hoyden, flushed and free,
Taking liberties with me:
Strip my sober working dress:
Deck me in all daintiness:
Dimple as you used to do,
And I will gayly go with you:
But shine with no uncanny gleam,
Like a tricksy, teasing sprite,
Or a will-o'-the-wisp at night
Dancing up a sluggish stream:
Keep the thoughts I should not think:
Keep the dreams I dare not dream;
And do not sport so near the brink
Of that wild chasm, scarped and steep,
Where late you sported in my sleep.
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