Literature Network » William Wordsworth » Poems in Two Volumes, Volume 1 » XX - To the Memory of Raisley Calvert

XX - To the Memory of Raisley Calvert

  Calvert! it must not be unheard by them
  Who may respect my name that I to thee
  Ow'd many years of early liberty.
  This care was thine when sickness did condemn
  Thy youth to hopeless wasting, root and stem:
  That I, if frugal and severe, might stray
  Where'er I liked; and finally array
  My temples with the Muse's diadem.
  Hence, if in freedom I have lov'd the truth,
  If there be aught of pure, or good, or great,
  In my past verse; or shall be, in the lays
  Of higher mood, which now I meditate,
  It gladdens me, O worthy, short-lived Youth!
  To think how much of this will be thy praise.

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