Lines, Written in Answer to the Question "Where Is Our Poet?"

Ask you for the poet lyre? What can touch his soul with fire, When from ev'ry passing cloud The storm-king whistles shrill and loud, And nature shrieks her requiem wild, O'er summer, her departed child. When through the shortened winter day The languid sun sheds sickly ray, And struggling moonbeams seem at most, Dim meteor forms of Ossian's ghost. Then shall not I, a feeble maid, Of the Muses be afraid? When poets sleep with talents fine, Shall I approach the "sacred Nine?" But when I heard the vesper bell Mournful peal its sad farewell; And murmuring through the evening air, Echo only answered, "where?" I thought I'd chase my fears away, And conjure up a simple lay. Ye poets who have talents ten, Excuse the errors of my pen; The best I could do I have done, For reader I have scarcely one.