From all mankind, to be conceal’d, and die. 
Alas! what hopes, what high romantic views
Did that one visit to the soul infuse,
Which cherished with such love, ’twas worse than death to lose. 
Still he would strive, though painful was the strife,
To walk in this appointed road of life;
On these low duties duteous he would wait,
And patient bear the anguish of his fate. 
Thanks to the Patron, but of coldest kind,
Express’d the sadness of the Poet’s mind;
Whose heavy hours were pass’d with busy men,
In the dull practice of th’ official pen;
Who to superiors must in time impart;
(The custom this) his progress in their art: 
But so had grief on his perception wrought,
That all unheeded were the duties taught;
No answers gave he when his trial came,
Silent he stood, but suffering without shame;
And they observed that words severe or kind
Made no impression on his wounded mind: 
For all perceived from whence his failure rose,
Some grief, whose cause he deign’d not to disclose. 
A soul averse from scenes and works so new,
Fear ever shrinking from the vulgar crew;
Distaste for each mechanic law and rule. 
Thoughts of past honour and a patron cool;
A grieving parent, and a feeling mind,
Timid and ardent, tender and refined: 
These all with mighty force the youth assail’d,
Till his soul fainted, and his reason fail’d: 
When this was known, and some debate arose,
How they who saw it should the fact disclose,
He found their purpose, and in terror fled
From unseen kindness, with mistaken dread. 
   Meantime the parent was distress’d to find
His son no longer for a priest design’d;
But still he gain’d some comfort by the news
Of John’s promotion, though with humbler views;
For he conceived that in no distant time
The boy would learn to scramble and to climb;
He little thought his son, his hope and pride,
His favour’d boy, was now a home denied: 
Yes! while the parent was intent to trace
How men in office climb from place to place,
By day, by night, o’er moor and heath, and hill,
Roved the sad youth, with ever-changing will,
Of every aid bereft, exposed to every ill. 
   Thus as he sat, absorb’d in all the care
And all the hope that anxious fathers share,
A friend abruptly to his presence brought,
With trembling hand, the subject of his thought;
Whom he had found afflicted and subdued
By hunger, sorrow, cold, and solitude. 
   Silent he enter’d the forgotten room,
As ghostly forms may be conceived to come;
With sorrow-shrunken face and hair upright,
He look’d dismayed, neglect, despair, affright;
But dead to comfort, and on misery thrown,
His parent’s loss he felt not, nor his own. 
   The good man, struck with horror, cried aloud,
And drew around him an astonish’d crowd;
The sons and servants to the father ran,
To share the feelings of the griev’d old man.