Soon may the edict lapse, that on you lays
This dire compulsion of infertile days,
This hardest penal toil, reluctant rest!
Meanwhile I count you eminently blest,
Happy from labours heretofore well done,
Happy in tasks auspiciously begun.
For they are blest that have not much to rue--
That have not oft mis-heard the prompter's cue,
Stammered and stumbled and the wrong parts played,
And life a Tragedy of Errors made.
More verses by William Watson
- Vanishings
- To Edward Dowden: On Receiving From Him A Copy Of 'The Life Of Shelley'
- On Landor's 'Hellenics'
- Thy Voice From Inmost Dreamland Calls
- To James Bromley With 'Wordsworth's Grave'