Thus in our looks some propagation lies, For we make babies in each other's eyes! TO MRS TO ROSA. Does the harp of Rosa slumber? Steal the breezy lyre along, Does the harp of Rosa cease? SYMPATHY. TO JULIA. -sine me sit nulla Venus. OUR hearts, my love, were doom'd to be The genuine twins of Sympathy: And thrill with like vibration. How often have I heard thee say, Were worse to thee than feeling none: And, oh! how often in those eyes, TO JULIA. I SAW the peasant's hand unkind From yonder oak the ivy sever; They seem'd in very being twined; Yet now the oak is fresh as ever. Not so the widow'd ivy shines: Torn from its dear and only stay, In drooping widowhood it pines, And scatters all its blooms away! Thus, Julia, did our hearts entwine, SULPICIA. Till Fate disturb'd their tender ties: Thus gay indifference blooms in thine, While mine, deserted, droops and dies! And Heaven punishes desires As much as if the deed were done. If wishing damns us, you and I Are damn'd to all our heart's content; Come then, at least we may enjoy Some pleasure for our punishment! TO ROSA. WRITTEN DURING ILLNESS. THE wisest soul, by anguish torn, But love 's an essence of the soul, Of withering pain or pale decay. And surely when the touch of death Dissolves the spirit's mortal ties, Love still attends the soaring breath, And makes it purer for the skies! Oh, Rosa! when, to seek its sphere, My soul shall leave this orb of men, That love it found so blissful here Shall be its best of blisses then! And, as in fabled dreams of old, Some airy genius, child of time, Presided o'er each star that roll'd, And track'd it through its path sublime; So thou, fair planet, not unled, Shalt through thy mortal orbit stray; Thy lover's shade, divinely wed, Shall linger round thy wandering way. Let other spirits range the sky, And brighten in the solar gem; I'll bask beneath that lucid eye, Nor envy worlds of suns to them! And oh! if airy shapes may steal To mingle with a mortal frame, Then, then, my love!--but drop the veil! Hide, hide from Heaven the unholy flame. No!-when that heart shall cease to beat, And when that breath at length is free; Then, Rosa, soul to soul we 'll meet, And mingle to eternity. ANACREONTIQUE. -—in lacrymas verterat omae merum. Tin. lib. i, eleg. 5. PRESS the grape, and let it pour Around the board its purple shower; And while the drops my goblet steep, I'll think-in woe the clusters weep. Weep on, weep on, my pouting vine! ANACREONTIQUE. FRIEND of my soul! this goblet sip, 'T will steal away thy mind; It leaves no sting behind! Come, twine the wreath, thy brows to shade; Like woman's love the rose will fade, For, though the flower 's decay'd, The heart can bloom no more! - Neither do I condemn thee! go, and sin no more!» ST Joux, chap. viii. Оn, woman, if by simple wile Thy soul has stray'd from honour's track, 'T is mercy only can beguile, By gentle ways, the wanderer back. The stain that on thy virtue lies, Wash'd by thy tears may yet decay; As clouds that sully morning skies May all be wept in showers away. Go go-be innocent, and live The tongues of men may wound thee sore; But Heaven in pity can forgive, And bids thee Go, and sin no more!. LOVE AND MARRIAGE. Eque brevi verbo ferre perenne malum.-SECUNDUS, eleg. vii. STILL the question I must parry, Still a wayward truant prove: Were she fairest of creation, Wise enough, but never rigid; Gay, but not too lightly free; Chaste as snow, and yet not frigid; Warm, yet satisfied with me: Were she all this, ten times over, All that Heaven to earth allows, I should be too much her lover Ever to become her spouse. |