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Lettered inside image: "16 | The sprightly lark's shrill matin wakes the morn, | Grief's sharpest thorn hard pressing on my breast; | I strive, with wakeful melody, to cheer | The sullen gloom, sweet philomel! like thee, | And call the stars to listen; every star | Is deaf to mine, enamour'd of thy lay: | Yet be not vain; there are, who thine excel, | And charm through distant ages: wrapp'd in shade, | Pris'ner of darkness! to the silent hours, | How often I repeat their rage divine, | To lull my griefs, and steal my heart from woe! | I roll their raptures, but not catch their fire: | Dark, though not blind, like thee Maeonides! | Or, Milton! thee; ah, could I reach your strain! | Or his, who made Maeonides our own: | Man too he sung--immortal man I sing: | *Oft bursts my song beyond the bounds of life; | What now, but immortality, can please? | O had he press'd his theme, pursued the track, | Which opens out of darkness into day! | O had he mounted on his wing of fire, | Soar'd, where I sink, and sung immortal man! | How had it bless'd mankind, and rescued me!"; lower right: "inv. & sc | WB"; lower left: " London Pubd. June 21, 1796, by R. Edwards, 142 New Bond Street."