Yea, our blind Poet, who, in his later day,

Stood almost single, uttering odious truth,

Darkness before and danger’s voice behind;

Soul awful – if the earth hath ever lodged

An awful Soul, I seemed to see him here

Familiarly, and in his Scholar’s dress

Bounding before me, yet a Stripling Youth,

A Boy, no better, with his rosy cheeks

Angelical, keen eye, courageous look,

And conscious step of purity and pride.

     Among the Band of my Compeers was One

Whom Chance had stationed in the very Room

Honoured by Milton’s Name. O temperate Bard!

Be it confest that, for the first time, seated

Within thy innocent Lodge and Oratory,

One of a festive Circle, I poured out

Libations, to thy memory drank, till pride

And gratitude grew dizzy in a brain

Never excited by the fumes of wine

Before that hour, or since. Then, forth I ran,

From that assembly through a length of streets

Ran, Ostrich-like, to reach our Chapel door

In not a desperate or opprobrious time,

Albeit long after the importunate bell

Had stopped, with wearisome Cassandra voice

No longer haunting the dark winter night.

Call back, O Friend! a moment to thy mind

The place itself and fashion of the Rites.

With careless ostentation shouldering up

My Surplice, through the inferior throng I clove

Of the plain Burghers, who in audience stood

On the last skirts of their permitted ground

Under the pealing Organ.