TO MY READERS
NAY, blame me not; I might have sparedYour patience many a trivial verse,Yet these my earlier welcome shared,So, let the better shield the worse.
And some might say, "Those ruder songsHad freshness which the new have lost;To spring the opening leaf belongs,The chestnut-burs await the frost."
When those I wrote, my locks were brown,When these I write—ah, well a-day!The autumn thistle's silvery downIs not the purple bloom of...
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