To My Reader

Young Reader! for most surely to the old
These loose, uneven thinkings can but seem
Unlife-like and unreal as a dream,
O! judge not thou that I have been too bold
With sacred teaching, or have done it wrong
To give fair form or sweetness to my song:
Nor be thou wearied with the changeful vision,
As though, with labored and unmeaning skill,
I had but rifled fancy at my will,
Or held her hidden order in derision.
O far from that: these fitful strains keep blending,
Poorly yet truly, strivings gained or lost,
By one in whom two tempers were contending,
Neither of which had yet come uppermost.