Whatever I have said or sung, Some bitter notes my harp would give, Yea, tho’ there often seem’d to live A contradiction on the tongue,
Yet Hope had never lost her youth; She did but look thro’ dimmer eyes; Or Love but play’d with gracious lies, Because he felt so fix’d in truth:
And if the song were full of care, He breathed the spirit of the song; And if the words were sweet and strong He set his royal signet there;
Abiding with me till I sail To seek thee on the mystic deeps, And this electric force, that keeps A thousand pulses dancing, fail.