The Moralists tell us that Loving is Sinning,
  And always are prating about and about it,
But as Love of Existence itself’s the beginning,
  Say, what would Existence itself be without it?

They argue the point with much furious Invective,
  Though perhaps ’twere no difficult task to confute it;
But if Venus and ***** should once prove defective,
  Pray who would there be to defend or dispute it?

’Tis done!—I saw it in my dreams:
No more with Hope the future beams;
  My days of happiness are few:
Chill’d by Misfortune’s wintry blast,
My dawn of Life is overcast;
  Love, Hope, and Joy, alike adieu!
  Would I could add Remembrance too!

Remind me not, remind me not,
  Of those beloved, those vanish’d hours,
    When all my soul was given to thee;
Hours that may never be forgot,
  Till Time unnerves our vital powers,
    And thou and I shall cease to be.

Can I forget—canst thou forget,
  When playing with thy golden hair,
    How quick thy fluttering heart did move?
Oh! by my soul, I see thee yet,
  With eyes so languid, breast so fair,
    And lips, though silent, breathing love.

When thus reclining on my breast,
Those eyes threw back a glance so sweet,
    As half reproach’d yet rais’d desire,
And still we near and nearer prest,
  And still our glowing lips would meet,
  As if in kisses to expire.

And then those pensive eyes would close,
  And bid their lids each other seek,
    Veiling the azure orbs below;
While their long lashes’ darken’d gloss
  Seem’d stealing o’er thy brilliant cheek,
    Like raven’s plumage smooth’d on snow.

I dreamt last night our love return’d,
  And, sooth to say, that very dream
    Was sweeter in its phantasy,
Than if for other hearts I burn’d,
  For eyes that ne’er like thine could beam
    In Rapture’s wild reality.

Then tell me not, remind me not,
  Of hours which, though for ever gone,
    Can still a pleasing dream restore,
Till thou and I shall be forgot,
  And senseless, as the mouldering stone
    Which tells that we shall be no more.

Why, Pigot, complain
  Of this damsel’s disdain,
Why thus in despair do you fret?
  For months you may try,
  Yet, believe me, a sigh
Will never obtain a coquette.

   Would you teach her to love?
   For a time seem to rove;
At first she may frown in a pet;
   But leave her awhile,
   She shortly will smile,
And then you may kiss your coquette.

   For such are the airs
   Of these fanciful fairs,
They think all our homage a debt:
   Yet a partial neglect
   Soon takes an effect,
And humbles the proudest coquette.

   Dissemble your pain,
   And lengthen your chain,
And seem her hauteur to regret;
   If again you shall sigh,
   She no more will deny,
That yours is the rosy coquette.

   If still, from false pride,
   Your pangs she deride,
This whimsical ****** forget;
   Some other admire,
   Who will melt with your fire,
And laugh at the little coquette.

   For me, I adore
   Some twenty or more,
And love them most dearly; but yet,
   Though my heart they enthral,
   I’d abandon them all,
Did they act like your blooming coquette.

   No longer repine,
   Adopt this design,
And break through her slight-woven net!
   Away with despair,
   No longer forbear
To fly from the captious coquette.

  Then quit her, my friend!
  Your ***** defend,
Ere quite with her snares you’re beset:
  Lest your deep-wounded heart,
  When incens’d by the smart,
Should lead you to curse the coquette.

She walks in beauty, like the night
     Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that’s best of dark and bright
     Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellowed to that tender light
     Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

One shade the more, one ray the less,
     Had half impaired the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
     Or softly lightens o’er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
     How pure, how dear their dwelling place.

And on that cheek, and o’er that brow,
     So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
     But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
     A heart whose love is innocent!

’Twas now the noon of night, and all was still,
Except a hapless Rhymer and his quill.
In vain he calls each Muse in order down,
Like other females, these will sometimes frown;
He frets, be fumes, and ceasing to invoke
The Nine, in anguish’d accents thus he spoke:
Ah what avails it thus to waste my time,
To roll in Epic, or to rave in Rhyme?
What worth is some few partial readers’ praise.
If ancient Virgins croaking ‘censures’ raise?
Where few attend, ’tis useless to indite;
Where few can read, ’tis folly sure to write;
Where none but girls and striplings dare admire,
And Critics rise in every country Squire—
But yet this last my candid Muse admits,
When Peers are Poets, Squires may well be Wits;
When schoolboys vent their amorous flames in verse,
Matrons may sure their characters asperse;
And if a little parson joins the train,
And echos back his Patron’s voice again—
Though not delighted, yet I must forgive,
Parsons as well as other folks must live:—
From rage he rails not, rather say from dread,
He does not speak for Virtue, but for bread;
And this we know is in his Patron’s giving,
For Parsons cannot eat without a ‘Living’.
The Matron knows I love the *** too well,
Even unprovoked aggression to repel.
What though from private pique her anger grew,
And bade her blast a heart she never knew?
What though, she said, for one light heedless line,
That Wilmot’s verse was far more pure than mine!
In wars like these, I neither fight nor fly,
When ‘dames’ accuse ’tis bootless to deny;
Her’s be the harvest of the martial field,
I can’t attack, where Beauty forms the shield.
But when a pert Physician loudly cries,
Who hunts for scandal, and who lives by lies,
A walking register of daily news,
Train’d to invent, and skilful to abuse—
For arts like these at bounteous tables fed,
When S——condemns a book he never read.
Declaring with a coxcomb’s native air,
The ‘moral’s’ shocking, though the ‘rhymes’ are fair.
Ah! must he rise unpunish’d from the feast,
Nor lash’d by vengeance into truth at least?
Such lenity were more than Man’s indeed!
Those who condemn, should surely deign to read.
Yet must I spare—nor thus my pen degrade,
I quite forgot that scandal was his trade.
For food and raiment thus the coxcomb rails,
For those who fear his physic, like his tales.
Why should his harmless censure seem offence?
Still let him eat, although at my expense,
And join the herd to Sense and Truth unknown,
Who dare not call their very thoughts their own,
And share with these applause, a godlike bribe,
In short, do anything, except prescribe:—
For though in garb of Galen he appears,
His practice is not equal to his years.
Without improvement since he first began,
A young Physician, though an ancient Man—
Now let me cease—Physician, Parson, Dame,
Still urge your task, and if you can, defame.
The humble offerings of my Muse destroy,
And crush, oh! noble conquest! crush a Boy.
What though some silly girls have lov’d the strain,
And kindly bade me tune my Lyre again;
What though some feeling, or some partial few,
Nay, Men of Taste and Reputation too,
Have deign’d to praise the firstlings of my Muse—
If you your sanction to the theme refuse,
If you your great protection still withdraw,
Whose Praise is Glory, and whose Voice is law!
Soon must I fall an unresisting foe,
A hapless victim yielding to the blow.—
Thus Pope by Curl and Dennis was destroyed,
Thus Gray and Mason yield to furious Lloyd;
From Dryden, Milbourne tears the palm away,
And thus I fall, though meaner far than they.
As in the field of combat, side by side,
A Fabius and some noble Roman died.

To sit on rocks, to muse o’er flood and fell,
To slowly trace the forest’s shady scene,
Where things that own not man’s dominion dwell,
And mortal foot hath ne’er or rarely been;
To climb the trackless mountain all unseen,
With the wild flock that never needs a fold;
Alone o’er steeps and foaming falls to lean;
This is not solitude, ’tis but to hold
Converse with Nature’s charms, and view her stores unrolled.

But midst the crowd, the hurry, the shock of men,
To hear, to see, to feel and to possess,
And roam alone, the world’s tired denizen,
With none who bless us, none whom we can bless;
Minions of splendour shrinking from distress!
None that, with kindred consciousness endued,
If we were not, would seem to smile the less
Of all the flattered, followed, sought and sued;
This is to be alone; this, this is solitude!

Breeze of the night in gentler sighs
  More softly murmur o’er the pillow;
For Slumber seals my *****’s eyes,
  And Peace must never shun her pillow.

Or breathe those sweet æolian strains
  Stolen from celestial spheres above,
To charm her ear while some remains,
  And soothe her soul to dreams of love.

But Breeze of night again forbear,
  In softest murmurs only sigh:
Let not a Zephyr’s pinion dare
  To lift those auburn locks on high.

Chill is thy Breath, thou breeze of night!
  Oh! ruffle not those lids of Snow;
For only Morning’s cheering light
  May wake the beam that lurks below.

Blest be that lip and azure eye!
  Sweet *****, hallowed be thy Sleep!
Those lips shall never vent a sigh,
  Those eyes may never wake to weep.

So, we’ll go no more a roving
So late into the night,
Though the heart be still as loving,
And the moon be still as bright.

For the sword outwears its sheath,
And the soul wears out the breast,
And the heart must pause to breathe,
And love itself have rest.

Though the night was made for loving,
And the day returns too soon,
Yet we’ll go no more a roving
By the light of the moon.

There be none of Beauty’s daughters
With a magic like thee;
And like music on the waters
Is thy sweet voice to me:
When, as if its sound were causing
The charmed ocean’s pausing,
The waves lie still and gleaming,
And the lulled winds seem dreaming;

And the midnight moon is weaving
Her bright chain o’er the deep,
Whose breast is gently heaving
As an infant’s asleep:
So the spirit bows before thee,
To listen and adore thee,
With a full but soft emotion,
Like the swell of Summer’s ocean.

There’s not a joy the world can give like that it takes away
When the glow of early thought declines in feeling’s dull decay;
’Tis not on youth’s smooth cheek the blush alone, which fades so fast,
But the tender bloom of heart is gone, ere youth itself be past.

Then the few whose spirits float above the wreck of happiness
Are driven o’er the shoals of guilt, or ocean of excess:
The magnet of their course is gone, or only points in vain
The shore to which their shivered sail shall never stretch again.

Then the mortal coldness of the soul like death itself comes down;
It cannot feel for others’ woes, it dare not dream its own;
That heavy chill has frozen o’er the fountain of our tears,
And though the eye may sparkle still, ’tis where the ice appears.

Though wit may flash from fluent lips, and mirth distract the breast,
Through midnight hours that yield no more their former hope of rest,
’Tis but as ivy-leaves around the ruined turret wreath—
All green and wildly fresh without, but worn and grey beneath.

Oh, could I feel as I have felt, or be what I have been,
Or weep as I could once have wept, o’er many a vanished scene;
As springs in deserts found seem sweet, all brackish though they be,
So, midst the withered waste of life, those tears would flow to me.

Tis done—and shivering in the gale
The bark unfurls her snowy sail;
And whistling o’er the bending mast,
Loud sings on high the fresh’ning blast;
And I must from this land be gone,
Because I cannot love but one.

But could I be what I have been,
And could I see what I have seen—
Could I repose upon the breast
Which once my warmest wishes blest—
I should not seek another zone,
Because I cannot love but one.

’Tis long since I beheld that eye
Which gave me bliss or misery;
And I have striven, but in vain,
Never to think of it again:
For though I fly from Albion,
I still can only love but one.

As some lone bird, without a mate,
My weary heart is desolate;
I look around, and cannot trace
One friendly smile or welcome face,
And ev’n in crowds am still alone,
Because I cannot love but one.

And I will cross the whitening foam,
And I will seek a foreign home;
Till I forget a false fair face,
I ne’er shall find a resting-place;
My own dark thoughts I cannot shun,
But ever love, and love but one.

The poorest, veriest wretch on earth
Still finds some hospitable hearth,
Where Friendship’s or Love’s softer glow
May smile in joy or soothe in woe;
But friend or leman I have none,
Because I cannot love but one.

I go—but wheresoe’er I flee
There’s not an eye will weep for me;
There’s not a kind congenial heart,
Where I can claim the meanest part;
Nor thou, who hast my hopes undone,
Wilt sigh, although I love but one.

To think of every early scene,
Of what we are, and what we’ve been,
Would whelm some softer hearts with woe—
But mine, alas! has stood the blow;
Yet still beats on as it begun,
And never truly loves but one.

And who that dear lov’d one may be,
Is not for ****** eyes to see;
And why that early love was cross’d,
Thou know’st the best, I feel the most;
But few that dwell beneath the sun
Have loved so long, and loved but one.

I’ve tried another’s fetters too,
With charms perchance as fair to view;
And I would fain have loved as well,
But some unconquerable spell
Forbade my bleeding breast to own
A kindred care for aught but one.

’Twould soothe to take one lingering view,
And bless thee in my last adieu;
Yet wish I not those eyes to weep
For him that wanders o’er the deep;
His home, his hope, his youth are gone,
Yet still he loves, and loves but one.

When all around grew drear and dark,
And reason half withheld her ray—
And hope but shed a dying spark
Which more misled my lonely way;

In that deep midnight of the mind,
And that internal strife of heart,
When dreading to be deemed too kind,
The weak despair—the cold depart;

When fortune changed—and love fled far,
And hatred’s shafts flew thick and fast,
Thou wert the solitary star
Which rose, and set not to the last.

Oh, blest be thine unbroken light!
That watched me as a seraph’s eye,
And stood between me and the night,
For ever shining sweetly nigh.

And when the cloud upon us came,
Which strove to blacken o’er thy ray—
Then purer spread its gentle flame,
And dashed the darkness all away.

Still may thy spirit dwell on mine,
And teach it what to brave or brook—
There’s more in one soft word of thine
Than in the world’s defied rebuke.

Thou stood’st as stands a lovely tree
That, still unbroke though gently bent,
Still waves with fond fidelity
Its boughs above a monument.

The winds might rend, the skies might pour,
But there thou wert—and still wouldst be
Devoted in the stormiest hour
To shed thy weeping leaves o’er me.

But thou and thine shall know no blight,
Whatever fate on me may fall;
For heaven in sunshine will requite
The kind—and thee the most of all.

Then let the ties of baffled love
Be broken—thine will never break;
Thy heart can feel—but will not move;
Thy soul, though soft, will never shake.

And these, when all was lost beside,
Were found, and still are fixed in thee;—
And bearing still a breast so tried,
Earth is no desert—e’en to me.

There is a mystic thread of life
  So dearly wreath’d with mine alone,
That Destiny’s relentless knife
  At once must sever both, or none.

There is a Form on which these eyes
  Have fondly gazed with such delight—
By day, that Form their joy supplies,
  And Dreams restore it, through the night.

There is a Voice whose tones inspire
  Such softened feelings in my breast,—
I would not hear a Seraph Choir,
  Unless that voice could join the rest.

There is a Face whose Blushes tell
  Affection’s tale upon the cheek,
But pallid at our fond farewell,
  Proclaims more love than words can speak.

There is a Lip, which mine has prest,
  But none had ever prest before;
It vowed to make me sweetly blest,
  That mine alone should press it more.

There is a ***** all my own,
  Has pillow’d oft this aching head,
A Mouth which smiles on me alone,
  An Eye, whose tears with mine are shed.

There are two Hearts whose movements thrill,
  In unison so closely sweet,
That Pulse to Pulse responsive still
  They Both must heave, or cease to beat.

There are two Souls, whose equal flow
  In gentle stream so calmly run,
That when they part—they part?—ah no!
  They cannot part—those Souls are One.

River, that rollest by the ancient walls,
Where dwells the lady of my love, when she
Walks by thy brink, and there perchance recalls
A faint and fleeting memory of me;

What if thy deep and ample stream should be
A mirror of my heart, where she may read
The thousand thoughts I now betray to thee,
Wild as thy wave, and headlong as thy speed!

What do I say—a mirror of my heart?
Are not thy waters sweeping, dark, and strong?
Such as my feelings were and are, thou art;
And such as thou art were my passions long.

Time may have somewhat tamed them,—not for ever;
Thou overflow’st thy banks, and not for aye
The ***** overboils, congenial river!
Thy floods subside, and mine have sunk away.


But left long wrecks behind, and now again,
Born in our old unchanged career, we move;
Thou tendest wildly onwards to the main,
And I—to loving one I should not love.

The current I behold will sweep beneath
Her native walls and murmur at her feet;
Her eyes will look on thee, when she shall breathe
The twilight air, unharmed by summer’s heat.

She will look on thee,—I have looked on thee,
Full of that thought; and, from that moment, ne’er
Thy waters could I dream of, name, or see,
Without the inseparable sigh for her!

Her bright eyes will be imaged in thy stream,—
Yes! they will meet the wave I gaze on now:
Mine cannot witness, even in a dream,
That happy wave repass me in its flow!

The wave that bears my tears returns no more:
Will she return by whom that wave shall sweep?
Both tread thy banks, both wander on thy shore,
I by thy source, she by the dark-blue deep.

But that which keepeth us apart is not
Distance, nor depth of wave, nor space of earth,
But the distraction of a various lot,
As various as the climates of our birth.

A stranger loves the lady of the land,
Born far beyond the mountains, but his blood
Is all meridian, as if never fanned
By the black wind that chills the polar flood.

My blood is all meridian; were it not,
I had not left my clime, nor should I be,
In spite of tortures, ne’er to be forgot,
A slave again of love,—at least of thee.

’Tis vain to struggle—let me perish young—
Live as I lived, and love as I have loved;
To dust if I return, from dust I sprung,
And then, at least, my heart can ne’er be moved.

Oh, talk not to me of a name great in story;
The days of our youth are the days of our glory;
And the myrtle and ivy of sweet two-and-twenty
Are worth all your laurels, though ever so plenty.

What are garlands and crowns to the brow that is wrinkled?
’Tis but as a dead flower with May-dew besprinkled:
Then away with all such from the head that is hoary!
What care I for the wreaths that can only give glory?

O Fame!—if I e’er took delight in thy praises,
’Twas less for the sake of thy high-sounding phrases,
Than to see the bright eyes of the dear one discover
She thought that I was not unworthy to love her.

There chiefly I sought thee, there only I found thee;
Her glance was the best of the rays that surround thee;
When it sparkled o’er aught that was bright in my story,
I knew it was love, and I felt it was glory.

Imitation Of Tibullus


Cruel Cerinthus! does the fell disease
Which racks my breast your fickle ***** please?
Alas! I wish’d but to o’ercome the pain,
That I might live for Love and you again;
But, now, I scarcely shall bewail my fate:
By Death alone I can avoid your hate.

Written under the impression that the author would soon die.


Adieu, thou Hill! where early joy
  Spread roses o’er my brow;
Where Science seeks each loitering boy
  With knowledge to endow.
Adieu, my youthful friends or foes,
Partners of former bliss or woes;
  No more through Ida’s paths we stray;
Soon must I share the gloomy cell,
Whose ever-slumbering inmates dwell
  Unconscious of the day.
Adieu, ye hoary Regal Fanes,
  Ye spires of Granta’s vale,
Where Learning robed in sable reigns.
  And Melancholy pale.
Ye comrades of the jovial hour,
Ye tenants of the classic bower,
On Cama’s verdant margin plac’d,
Adieu! while memory still is mine,
For offerings on Oblivion’s shrine,
These scenes must be effac’d.

Adieu, ye mountains of the clime
Where grew my youthful years;
Where Loch na Garr in snows sublime
His giant summit rears.
Why did my childhood wander forth
From you, ye regions of the North,
With sons of Pride to roam?
Why did I quit my Highland cave,
Marr’s dusky heath, and Dee’s clear wave,
To seek a Sotheron home?

Hall of my Sires! a long farewell—
Yet why to thee adieu?
Thy vaults will echo back my knell,
Thy towers my tomb will view:
The faltering tongue which sung thy fall,
And former glories of thy Hall,
Forgets its wonted simple note—
But yet the Lyre retains the strings,
And sometimes, on æolian wings,
In dying strains may float.

Fields, which surround yon rustic cot,
  While yet I linger here,
Adieu! you are not now forgot,
  To retrospection dear.
Streamlet! along whose rippling surge
My youthful limbs were wont to urge,
  At noontide heat, their pliant course;
Plunging with ardour from the shore,
Thy springs will lave these limbs no more,
  Deprived of active force.

And shall I here forget the scene,
  Still nearest to my breast?
Rocks rise and rivers roll between
  The spot which passion blest;
Yet Mary, all thy beauties seem
Fresh as in Love’s bewitching dream,
  To me in smiles display’d;
Till slow disease resigns his prey
To Death, the parent of decay,
  Thine image cannot fade.

And thou, my Friend! whose gentle love
  Yet thrills my *****’s chords,
How much thy friendship was above
  Description’s power of words!
Still near my breast thy gift I wear
Which sparkled once with Feeling’s tear,
  Of Love the pure, the sacred gem:
Our souls were equal, and our lot
In that dear moment quite forgot;
  Let Pride alone condemn!

All, all is dark and cheerless now!
  No smile of Love’s deceit
Can warm my veins with wonted glow,
  Can bid Life’s pulses beat:
Not e’en the hope of future fame
Can wake my faint, exhausted frame,
  Or crown with fancied wreaths my head.
Mine is a short inglorious race,—
To humble in the dust my face,
  And mingle with the dead.

Oh Fame! thou goddess of my heart;
  On him who gains thy praise,
Pointless must fall the Spectre’s dart,
  Consumed in Glory’s blaze;
But me she beckons from the earth,
My name obscure, unmark’d my birth,
  My life a short and ****** dream:
Lost in the dull, ignoble crowd,
My hopes recline within a shroud,
  My fate is Lethe’s stream.

When I repose beneath the sod,
  Unheeded in the clay,
Where once my playful footsteps trod,
  Where now my head must lay,
The meed of Pity will be shed
In dew-drops o’er my narrow bed,
  By nightly skies, and storms alone;
No mortal eye will deign to steep
With tears the dark sepulchral deep
  Which hides a name unknown.

Forget this world, my restless sprite,
  Turn, turn thy thoughts to Heaven:
There must thou soon direct thy flight,
  If errors are forgiven.
To bigots and to sects unknown,
Bow down beneath the Almighty’s Throne;
  To Him address thy trembling prayer:
He, who is merciful and just,
Will not reject a child of dust,
  Although His meanest care.

Father of Light! to Thee I call;
  My soul is dark within:
Thou who canst mark the sparrow’s fall,
  Avert the death of sin.
Thou, who canst guide the wandering star
Who calm’st the elemental war,
  Whose mantle is yon boundless sky,
My thoughts, my words, my crimes forgive;
And, since I soon must cease to live,
  Instruct me how to die.

No specious splendour of this stone
Endears it to my memory ever;
With lustre only once it shone,
And blushes modest as the giver.

Some, who can sneer at friendship’s ties,
Have, for my weakness, oft reprov’d me;
Yet still the simple gift I prize,
For I am sure, the giver lov’d me.

He offer’d it with downcast look,
As fearful that I might refuse it;
I told him, when the gift I took,
My only fear should be, to lose it.

This pledge attentively I view’d,
And sparkling as I held it near,
Methought one drop the stone bedew’d,
And, ever since, I’ve lov’d a tear.

Still, to adorn his humble youth,
Nor wealth nor birth their treasures yield;
But he, who seeks the flowers of truth,
Must quit the garden, for the field.

’Tis not the plant uprear’d in sloth,
Which beauty shews, and sheds perfume;
The flowers, which yield the most of both,
In Nature’s wild luxuriance bloom.

Had Fortune aided Nature’s care,
For once forgetting to be blind,
His would have been an ample share,
If well proportioned to his mind.

But had the Goddess clearly seen,
His form had fix’d her fickle breast;
Her countless hoards would his have been,
And none remain’d to give the rest.

Slow sinks, more lovely ere his race be run,
Along Morea’s hills the setting Sun;
Not, as in northern climes, obscurely bright,
But one unclouded blaze of living light;
O’er the hushed deep the yellow beam he throws,
Gilds the green wave that trembles as it glows;
On old ægina’s rock and Hydra’s isle
The God of gladness sheds his parting smile;
O’er his own regions lingering loves to shine,
Though there his altars are no more divine.
Descending fast, the mountain-shadows kiss
Thy glorious Gulf, unconquered Salamis!
Their azure arches through the long expanse,
More deeply purpled, meet his mellowing glance,
And tenderest tints, along their summits driven,
Mark his gay course, and own the hues of Heaven;
Till, darkly shaded from the land and deep,
Behind his Delphian rock he sinks to sleep.

  On such an eve his palest beam he cast
When, Athens! here thy Wisest looked his last.
How watched thy better sons his farewell ray,
That closed their murdered Sage’s latest day!
Not yet—not yet—Sol pauses on the hill,
The precious hour of parting lingers still;
But sad his light to agonizing eyes,
And dark the mountain’s once delightful dyes;
Gloom o’er the lovely land he seemed to pour,
The land where Phoebus never frowned before;
But ere he sunk below Cithaeron’s head,
The cup of Woe was quaffed—the Spirit fled;
The soul of Him that scorned to fear or fly,
Who lived and died as none can live or die.

  But lo! from high Hymettus to the plain
The Queen of Night asserts her silent reign;
No murky vapour, herald of the storm,
Hides her fair face, or girds her glowing form;
With cornice glimmering as the moonbeams play,
There the white column greets her grateful ray,
And bright around, with quivering beams beset,
Her emblem sparkles o’er the Minaret;
The groves of olive scattered dark and wide,
Where meek Cephisus sheds his scanty tide,
The cypress saddening by the sacred mosque,
The gleaming turret of the gay kiosk,
And sad and sombre ’mid the holy calm,
Near Theseus’ fane, yon solitary palm;
All, tinged with varied hues, arrest the eye;
And dull were his that passed them heedless by.
Again the ægean, heard no more afar,
Lulls his chafed breast from elemental war:
Again his waves in milder tints unfold
Their long expanse of sapphire and of gold,
Mixed with the shades of many a distant isle
That frown, where gentler Ocean deigns to smile.

  As thus, within the walls of Pallas’ fane,
I marked the beauties of the land and main,
Alone, and friendless, on the magic shore,
Whose arts and arms but live in poets’ lore;
Oft as the matchless dome I turned to scan,
Sacred to Gods, but not secure from Man,
The Past returned, the Present seemed to cease,
And Glory knew no clime beyond her Greece!

  Hour rolled along, and Dian’******on high
Had gained the centre of her softest sky;
And yet unwearied still my footsteps trod
O’er the vain shrine of many a vanished God:
But chiefly, Pallas! thine, when Hecate’s glare
Checked by thy columns, fell more sadly fair
O’er the chill marble, where the startling tread
Thrills the lone heart like echoes from the dead.
Long had I mused, and treasured every trace
The wreck of Greece recorded of her race,
When, lo! a giant-form before me strode,
And Pallas hailed me in her own Abode!

  Yes,’twas Minerva’s self; but, ah! how changed,
Since o’er the Dardan field in arms she ranged!
Not such as erst, by her divine command,
Her form appeared from Phidias’ plastic hand:
Gone were the terrors of her awful brow,
Her idle ægis bore no Gorgon now;
Her helm was dinted, and the broken lance
Seemed weak and shaftless e’en to mortal glance;
The Olive Branch, which still she deigned to clasp,
Shrunk from her touch, and withered in her grasp;
And, ah! though still the brightest of the sky,
Celestial tears bedimmed her large blue eye;
Round the rent casque her owlet circled slow,
And mourned his mistress with a shriek of woe!

  “Mortal!”—’twas thus she spake—”that blush of shame
Proclaims thee Briton, once a noble name;
First of the mighty, foremost of the free,
Now honoured ‘less’ by all, and ‘least’ by me:
Chief of thy foes shall Pallas still be found.
Seek’st thou the cause of loathing!—look around.
Lo! here, despite of war and wasting fire,
I saw successive Tyrannies expire;
‘Scaped from the ravage of the Turk and Goth,
Thy country sends a spoiler worse than both.
Survey this vacant, violated fane;
Recount the relics torn that yet remain:
‘These’ Cecrops placed, ‘this’ Pericles adorned,
‘That’ Adrian reared when drooping Science mourned.
What more I owe let Gratitude attest—
Know, Alaric and Elgin did the rest.
That all may learn from whence the plunderer came,
The insulted wall sustains his hated name:
For Elgin’s fame thus grateful Pallas pleads,
Below, his name—above, behold his deeds!
Be ever hailed with equal honour here
The Gothic monarch and the Pictish peer:
Arms gave the first his right, the last had none,
But basely stole what less barbarians won.
So when the Lion quits his fell repast,
Next prowls the Wolf, the filthy Jackal last:
Flesh, limbs, and blood the former make their own,
The last poor brute securely gnaws the bone.
Yet still the Gods are just, and crimes are crossed:
See here what Elgin won, and what he lost!
Another name with his pollutes my shrine:
Behold where Dian’s beams disdain to shine!
Some retribution still might Pallas claim,
When Venus half avenged Minerva’s shame.”

  She ceased awhile, and thus I dared reply,
To soothe the vengeance kindling in her eye:
“Daughter of Jove! in Britain’s injured name,
A true-born Briton may the deed disclaim.
Frown not on England; England owns him not:
Athena, no! thy plunderer was a Scot.
Ask’st thou the difference? From fair Phyles’ towers
Survey Boeotia;—Caledonia’s ours.
And well I know within that ******* land
Hath Wisdom’s goddess never held command;
A barren soil, where Nature’s germs, confined
To stern sterility, can stint the mind;
Whose thistle well betrays the niggard earth,
Emblem of all to whom the Land gives birth;
Each genial influence nurtured to resist;
A land of meanness, sophistry, and mist.
Each breeze from foggy mount and marshy plain
Dilutes with drivel every drizzly brain,
Till, burst at length, each wat’ry head o’erflows,
Foul as their soil, and frigid as their snows:
Then thousand schemes of petulance and pride
Despatch her scheming children far and wide;
Some East, some West, some—everywhere but North!
In quest of lawless gain, they issue forth.
And thus—accursed be the day and year!
She sent a Pict to play the felon here.
Yet Caledonia claims some native worth,
As dull Boeotia gave a Pindar birth;
So may her few, the lettered and the brave,
Bound to no clime, and victors of the grave,
Shake off the sordid dust of such a land,
And shine like children of a happier strand;
As once, of yore, in some obnoxious place,
Ten names (if found) had saved a wretched race.”

  “Mortal!” the blue-eyed maid resumed, “once more
Bear back my mandate to thy native shore.
Though fallen, alas! this vengeance yet is mine,
To turn my counsels far from lands like thine.
Hear then in silence Pallas’ stern behest;
Hear and believe, for Time will tell the rest.

  “First on the head of him who did this deed
My curse shall light,—on him and all his seed:
Without one spark of intellectual fire,
Be all the sons as senseless as the sire:
If one with wit the parent brood disgrace,
Believe him ******* of a brighter race:
Still with his hireling artists let him prate,
And Folly’s praise repay for Wisdom’s hate;
Long of their Patron’s gusto let them tell,
Whose noblest, native gusto is—to sell:
To sell, and make—may shame record the day!—
The State—Receiver of his pilfered prey.
Meantime, the flattering, feeble dotard, West,
Europe’s worst dauber, and poor Britain’s best,
With palsied hand shall turn each model o’er,
And own himself an infant of fourscore.
Be all the Bruisers culled from all St. Giles’,
That Art and Nature may compare their styles;
While brawny brutes in stupid wonder stare,
And marvel at his Lordship’s ’stone shop’ there.
Round the thronged gate shall sauntering coxcombs creep
To lounge and lucubrate, to prate and peep;
While many a languid maid, with longing sigh,
On giant statues casts the curious eye;
The room with transient glance appears to skim,
Yet marks the mighty back and length of limb;
Mourns o’er the difference of now and then;
Exclaims, ‘These Greeks indeed were proper men!’
Draws slight comparisons of ‘these’ with ‘those’,
And envies Laïs all her Attic beaux.
When shall a modern maid have swains like these?
Alas! Sir Harry is no Hercules!
And last of all, amidst the gaping crew,
Some calm spectator, as he takes his view,
In silent indignation mixed with grief,
Admires the plunder, but abhors the thief.
Oh, loathed in life, nor pardoned in the dust,
May Hate pursue his sacrilegious lust!
Linked with the fool that fired the Ephesian dome,
Shall vengeance follow far beyond the tomb,
And Eratostratus and Elgin shine
In many a branding page and burning line;
Alike reserved for aye to stand accursed,
Perchance the second blacker than the first.

  “So let him stand, through ages yet unborn,
Fixed statue on the pedestal of Scorn;
Though not for him alone revenge shall wait,
But fits thy country for her coming fate:
Hers were the deeds that taught her lawless son
To do what oft Britannia’s self had done.
Look to the Baltic—blazing from afar,
Your old Ally yet mourns perfidious war.
Not to such deeds did Pallas lend her aid,
Or break the compact which herself had made;
Far from such counsels, from the faithless field
She fled—but left behind her Gorgon shield;
A fatal gift that turned your friends to stone,
And left lost Albion hated and alone.

“Look to the East, where Ganges’ swarthy race
Shall shake your tyrant empire to its base;
Lo! there Rebellion rears her ghastly head,
And glares the Nemesis of native dead;
Till Indus rolls a deep purpureal flood,
And claims his long arrear of northern blood.
So may ye perish!—Pallas, when she gave
Your free-born rights, forbade ye to enslave.

  “Look on your Spain!—she clasps the hand she hates,
But boldly clasps, and thrusts you from her gates.
Bear witness, bright Barossa! thou canst tell
Whose were the sons that bravely fought and fell.
But Lusitania, kind and dear ally,
Can spare a few to fight, and sometimes fly.
Oh glorious field! by Famine fiercely won,
The Gaul retires for once, and all is done!
But when did Pallas teach, that one retreat
Retrieved three long Olympiads of defeat?

  “Look last at home—ye love not to look there
On the grim smile of comfortless despair:
Your city saddens: loud though Revel howls,
Here Famine faints, and yonder Rapine prowls.
See all alike of more or less bereft;
No misers tremble when there’s nothing left.
‘Blest paper credit;’ who shall dare to sing?
It clogs like lead Corruption’s weary wing.
Yet Pallas pluck’d each Premier by the ear,
Who Gods and men alike disdained to hear;
But one, repentant o’er a bankrupt state,
On Pallas calls,—but calls, alas! too late:
Then raves for’——’; to that Mentor bends,
Though he and Pallas never yet were friends.
Him senates hear, whom never yet they heard,
Contemptuous once, and now no less absurd.
So, once of yore, each reasonable frog,
Swore faith and fealty to his sovereign ‘log.’
Thus hailed your rulers their patrician clod,
As Egypt chose an onion for a God.

  “Now fare ye well! enjoy your little hour;
Go, grasp the shadow of your vanished power;
Gloss o’er the failure of each fondest scheme;
Your strength a name, your bloated wealth a dream.
Gone is that Gold, the marvel of mankind.
And Pirates barter all that’s left behind.
No more the hirelings, purchased near and far,
Crowd to the ranks of mercenary war.
The idle merchant on the useless quay
Droops o’er the bales no bark may bear away;
Or, back returning, sees rejected stores
Rot piecemeal on his own encumbered shores:
The starved mechanic breaks his rusting loom,
And desperate mans him ‘gainst the coming doom.
Then in the Senates of your sinking state
Show me the man whose counsels may have weight.
Vain is each voice where tones could once command;
E’en factions cease to charm a factious land:
Yet jarring sects convulse a sister Isle,
And light with maddening hands the mutual pile.

  “’Tis done, ’tis past—since Pallas warns in vain;
The Furies seize her abdicated reign:
Wide o’er the realm they wave their kindling brands,
And wring her vitals with their fiery hands.
But one convulsive struggle still remains,
And Gaul shall weep ere Albion wear her chains,
The bannered pomp of war, the glittering files,
O’er whose gay trappings stern Bellona smiles;
The brazen trump, the spirit-stirring drum,
That bid the foe defiance ere they come;
The hero bounding at his country’s call,
The glorious death that consecrates his fall,
Swell the young heart with visionary charms.
And bid it antedate the joys of arms.
But know, a lesson you may yet be taught,
With death alone are laurels cheaply bought;
Not in the conflict Havoc seeks delight,
His day of mercy is the day of fight.
But when the field is fought, the battle won,
Though drenched with gore, his woes are but begun:
His deeper deeds as yet ye know by name;
The slaughtered peasant and the ravished dame,
The rifled mansion and the foe-reaped field,
Ill suit with souls at home, untaught to yield.
Say with what eye along the distant down
Would flying burghers mark the blazing town?
How view the column of ascending flames
Shake his red shadow o’er the startled Thames?
Nay, frown not, Albion! for the torch was thine
That lit such pyres from Tagus to the Rhine:
Now should they burst on thy devoted coast,
Go, ask thy ***** who deserves them most?
The law of Heaven and Earth is life for life,
And she who raised, in vain regrets, the strife.”

An Imitation Of Macpherson’s “Ossian”.


Dear are the days of youth! Age dwells on their remembrance
through the mist of time. In the twilight he recalls the
sunny hours of morn. He lifts his spear with trembling hand.
“Not thus feebly did I raise the steel before my fathers!”
Past is the race of heroes! But their fame rises on the
harp; their souls ride on the wings of the wind; they hear
the sound through the sighs of the storm, and rejoice in
their hall of clouds. Such is Calmar. The grey stone marks
his narrow house. He looks down from eddying tempests: he
rolls his form in the whirlwind, and hovers on the blast of
the mountain.

In Morven dwelt the Chief; a beam of war to Fingal. His
steps in the field were marked in blood. Lochlin’s sons had
fled before his angry spear; but mild was the eye of Calmar;
soft was the flow of his yellow locks: they streamed like
the meteor of the night. No maid was the sigh of his soul:
his thoughts were given to friendship,—to dark-haired
Orla, destroyer of heroes! Equal were their swords in
battle; but fierce was the pride of Orla:—gentle alone
to Calmar. Together they dwelt in the cave of Oithona.

From Lochlin, Swaran bounded o’er the blue waves. Erin’s
sons fell beneath his might. Fingal roused his chiefs to
combat. Their ships cover the ocean! Their hosts throng on
the green hills. They come to the aid of Erin.

Night rose in clouds. Darkness veils the armies. But the
blazing oaks gleam through the valley. The sons of Lochlin
slept: their dreams were of blood. They lift the spear in
thought, and Fingal flies. Not so the Host of Morven. To
watch was the post of Orla. Calmar stood by his side. Their
spears were in their hands. Fingal called his chiefs: they
stood around. The king was in the midst. Grey were his
locks, but strong was the arm of the king. Age withered not
his powers. “Sons of Morven,” said the hero, “to-morrow we
meet the foe. But where is Cuthullin, the shield of Erin? He
rests in the halls of Tura; he knows not of our coming. Who
will speed through Lochlin, to the hero, and call the chief
to arms? The path is by the swords of foes; but many are my
heroes. They are thunderbolts of war. Speak, ye chiefs! Who
will arise?”

“Son of Trenmor! mine be the deed,” said dark-haired Orla,
“and mine alone. What is death to me? I love the sleep of
the mighty, but little is the danger. The sons of Lochlin
dream. I will seek car-borne Cuthullin. If I fall, raise the
song of bards; and lay me by the stream of Lubar.”—
“And shalt thou fall alone?” said fair-haired Calmar. “Wilt
thou leave thy friend afar? Chief of Oithona! not feeble is
my arm in fight. Could I see thee die, and not lift the
spear? No, Orla! ours has been the chase of the roebuck, and
the feast of shells; ours be the path of danger: ours has
been the cave of Oithona; ours be the narrow dwelling on the
banks of Lubar.”—”Calmar,” said the chief of Oithona,
“why should thy yellow locks be darkened in the dust of
Erin? Let me fall alone. My father dwells in his hall of
air: he will rejoice in his boy; but the blue-eyed Mora
spreads the feast for her Son in Morven. She listens to the
steps of the hunter on the heath, and thinks it is the tread
of Calmar. Let her not say, ‘Calmar has fallen by the steel
of Lochlin: he died with gloomy Orla, the chief of the dark
brow.’ Why should tears dim the azure eye of Mora? Why
should her voice curse Orla, the destroyer of Calmar? Live
Calmar! Live to raise my stone of moss; live to revenge me
in the blood of Lochlin. Join the song of bards above my
grave. Sweet will be the song of Death to Orla, from the
voice of Calmar. My ghost shall smile on the notes of
Praise.” “Orla,” said the son of Mora, “could I raise the
song of Death to my friend? Could I give his fame to the
winds? No, my heart would speak in sighs: faint and broken
are the sounds of sorrow. Orla! our souls shall hear the
song together. One cloud shall be ours on high: the bards
will mingle the names of Orla and Calmar.”

They quit the circle of the Chiefs. Their steps are to the
Host of Lochlin. The dying blaze of oak dim-twinkles through
the night. The northern star points the path to Tura.
Swaran, the King, rests on his lonely hill. Here the troops
are mixed: they frown in sleep; their shields beneath their
heads. Their swords gleam, at distance in heaps. The fires
are faint; their embers fail in smoke. All is hushed; but
the gale sighs on the rocks above. Lightly wheel the Heroes
through the slumbering band. Half the journey is past, when
Mathon, resting on his shield, meets the eye of Orla. It
rolls in flame, and glistens through the shade. His spear is
raised on high. “Why dost thou bend thy brow, chief of
Oithona?” said fair-haired Calmar: “we are in the midst of
foes. Is this a time for delay?” “It is a time for
vengeance,” said Orla of the gloomy brow. “Mathon of Lochlin
sleeps: seest thou his spear? Its point is dim with the gore
of my father. The blood of Mathon shall reek on mine: but
shall I slay him sleeping, Son of Mora? No! he shall feel
his wound: my fame shall not soar on the blood of slumber.
Rise, Mathon, rise! The Son of Conna calls; thy life is his;
rise to combat.” Mathon starts from sleep: but did he rise
alone? No: the gathering Chiefs bound on the plain. “Fly!
Calmar, fly!” said dark-haired Orla. “Mathon is mine. I
shall die in joy: but Lochlin crowds around. Fly through the
shade of night.” Orla turns. The helm of Mathon is cleft;
his shield falls from his arm: he shudders in his blood. He
rolls by the side of the blazing oak. Strumon sees him fall:
his wrath rises: his weapon glitters on the head of Orla:
but a spear pierced his eye. His brain gushes through the
wound, and foams on the spear of Calmar. As roll the waves
of the Ocean on two mighty barks of the North, so pour the
men of Lochlin on the Chiefs. As, breaking the surge in
foam, proudly steer the barks of the North, so rise the
Chiefs of Morven on the scattered crests of Lochlin. The din
of arms came to the ear of Fingal. He strikes his shield;
his sons throng around; the people pour along the heath.
Ryno bounds in joy. Ossian stalks in his arms. Oscar shakes
the spear. The eagle wing of Fillan floats on the wind.
Dreadful is the clang of death! many are the Widows of
Lochlin. Morven prevails in its strength.

Morn glimmers on the hills: no living foe is seen; but the
sleepers are many; grim they lie on Erin. The breeze of
Ocean lifts their locks; yet they do not awake. The hawks
scream above their prey.

Whose yellow locks wave o’er the breast of a chief? Bright
as the gold of the stranger, they mingle with the dark hair
of his friend. ’Tis Calmar: he lies on the ***** of Orla.
Theirs is one stream of blood. Fierce is the look of the
gloomy Orla. He breathes not; but his eye is still a flame.
It glares in death unclosed. His hand is grasped in
Calmar’s; but Calmar lives! he lives, though low. “Rise,”
said the king, “rise, son of Mora: ’tis mine to heal the
wounds of Heroes. Calmar may yet bound on the hills of
Morven.”

“Never more shall Calmar chase the deer of Morven with
Orla,” said the Hero. “What were the chase to me alone? Who
would share the spoils of battle with Calmar? Orla is at
rest! Rough was thy soul, Orla! yet soft to me as the dew of
morn. It glared on others in lightning: to me a silver beam
of night. Bear my sword to blue-eyed Mora; let it hang in my
empty hall. It is not pure from blood: but it could not save
Orla. Lay me with my friend: raise the song when I am dark!”

They are laid by the stream of Lubar. Four grey stones mark
the dwelling of Orla and Calmar. When Swaran was bound, our
sails rose on the blue waves. The winds gave our barks to
Morven:—the bards raised the song.

“What Form rises on the roar of clouds? Whose dark Ghost
gleams on the red streams of tempests? His voice rolls on
the thunder. ’Tis Orla, the brown Chief of Oithona. He was
unmatched in war. Peace to thy soul, Orla! thy fame will not
perish. Nor thine, Calmar! Lovely wast thou, son of blue-
eyed Mora; but not harmless was thy sword. It hangs in thy
cave. The Ghosts of Lochlin shriek around its steel. Hear
thy praise, Calmar! It dwells on the voice of the mighty.
Thy name shakes on the echoes of Morven. Then raise thy fair
locks, son of Mora. Spread them on the arch of the rainbow,
and smile through the tears of the storm.

The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold,
And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold;
And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea,
When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee.

Like the leaves of the forest when summer is green,
That host with their banners at sunset were seen:
Like the leaves of the forest when autumn hath blown,
That host on the morrow lay withered and strown.

For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast,
And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed:
And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill,
And their hearts but once heaved, and for ever grew still!

And there lay the steed with his nostrils all wide,
But through it there rolled not the breath of his pride:
And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf,
And cold as the spray of the rock-beating surf.

And there lay the rider distorted and pale,
With the dew on his brow and the rust on his mail;
And the tents were all silent, the banners alone,
The lances unlifted, the trumpet unblown.

And the widows of Ashur are loud in their wail,
And the idols are broke in the temple of Baal;
And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword,
Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord!

I

Our life is twofold; Sleep hath its own world,
A boundary between the things misnamed
Death and existence: Sleep hath its own world,
And a wide realm of wild reality,
And dreams in their development have breath,
And tears, and tortures, and the touch of joy;
They leave a weight upon our waking thoughts,
They take a weight from off waking toils,
They do divide our being; they become
A portion of ourselves as of our time,
And look like heralds of eternity;
They pass like spirits of the past—they speak
Like sibyls of the future; they have power—
The tyranny of pleasure and of pain;
They make us what we were not—what they will,
And shake us with the vision that’s gone by,
The dread of vanished shadows—Are they so?
Is not the past all shadow?—What are they?
Creations of the mind?—The mind can make
Substances, and people planets of its own
With beings brighter than have been, and give
A breath to forms which can outlive all flesh.
I would recall a vision which I dreamed
Perchance in sleep—for in itself a thought,
A slumbering thought, is capable of years,
And curdles a long life into one hour.

II

I saw two beings in the hues of youth
Standing upon a hill, a gentle hill,
Green and of mild declivity, the last
As ’twere the cape of a long ridge of such,
Save that there was no sea to lave its base,
But a most living landscape, and the wave
Of woods and corn-fields, and the abodes of men
Scattered at intervals, and wreathing smoke
Arising from such rustic roofs: the hill
Was crowned with a peculiar diadem
Of trees, in circular array, so fixed,
Not by the sport of nature, but of man:
These two, a maiden and a youth, were there
Gazing—the one on all that was beneath
Fair as herself—but the boy gazed on her;
And both were young, and one was beautiful:
And both were young—yet not alike in youth.
As the sweet moon on the horizon’s verge,
The maid was on the eve of womanhood;
The boy had fewer summers, but his heart
Had far outgrown his years, and to his eye
There was but one beloved face on earth,
And that was shining on him; he had looked
Upon it till it could not pass away;
He had no breath, no being, but in hers:
She was his voice; he did not speak to her,
But trembled on her words; she was his sight,
For his eye followed hers, and saw with hers,
Which coloured all his objects;—he had ceased
To live within himself: she was his life,
The ocean to the river of his thoughts,
Which terminated all; upon a tone,
A touch of hers, his blood would ebb and flow,
And his cheek change tempestuously—his heart
Unknowing of its cause of agony.
But she in these fond feelings had no share:
Her sighs were not for him; to her he was
Even as a brother—but no more; ’twas much,
For brotherless she was, save in the name
Her infant friendship had bestowed on him;
Herself the solitary scion left
Of a time-honoured race.—It was a name
Which pleased him, and yet pleased him not—and why?
Time taught him a deep answer—when she loved
Another; even now she loved another,
And on the summit of that hill she stood
Looking afar if yet her lover’s steed
Kept pace with her expectancy, and flew.

III

A change came o’er the spirit of my dream.
There was an ancient mansion, and before
Its walls there was a steed caparisoned:
Within an antique Oratory stood
The Boy of whom I spake;—he was alone,
And pale, and pacing to and fro: anon
He sate him down, and seized a pen, and traced
Words which I could not guess of; then he leaned
His bowed head on his hands and shook, as ’twere
With a convulsion—then rose again,
And with his teeth and quivering hands did tear
What he had written, but he shed no tears.
And he did calm himself, and fix his brow
Into a kind of quiet: as he paused,
The Lady of his love re-entered there;
She was serene and smiling then, and yet
She knew she was by him beloved; she knew—
For quickly comes such knowledge—that his heart
Was darkened with her shadow, and she saw
That he was wretched, but she saw not all.
He rose, and with a cold and gentle grasp
He took her hand; a moment o’er his face
A tablet of unutterable thoughts
Was traced, and then it faded, as it came;
He dropped the hand he held, and with slow steps
Retired, but not as bidding her adieu,
For they did part with mutual smiles; he passed
From out the massy gate of that old Hall,
And mounting on his steed he went his way;
And ne’er repassed that hoary threshold more.

IV

A change came o’er the spirit of my dream.
The Boy was sprung to manhood: in the wilds
Of fiery climes he made himself a home,
And his Soul drank their sunbeams; he was girt
With strange and dusky aspects; he was not
Himself like what he had been; on the sea
And on the shore he was a wanderer;
There was a mass of many images
Crowded like waves upon me, but he was
A part of all; and in the last he lay
Reposing from the noontide sultriness,
Couched among fallen columns, in the shade
Of ruined walls that had survived the names
Of those who reared them; by his sleeping side
Stood camels grazing, and some goodly steeds
Were fastened near a fountain; and a man,
Glad in a flowing garb, did watch the while,
While many of his tribe slumbered around:
And they were canopied by the blue sky,
So cloudless, clear, and purely beautiful,
That God alone was to be seen in heaven.

V

A change came o’er the spirit of my dream.
The Lady of his love was wed with One
Who did not love her better: in her home,
A thousand leagues from his,—her native home,
She dwelt, begirt with growing Infancy,
Daughters and sons of Beauty,—but behold!
Upon her face there was a tint of grief,
The settled shadow of an inward strife,
And an unquiet drooping of the eye,
As if its lid were charged with unshed tears.
What could her grief be?—she had all she loved,
And he who had so loved her was not there
To trouble with bad hopes, or evil wish,
Or ill-repressed affliction, her pure thoughts.
What could her grief be?—she had loved him not,
Nor given him cause to deem himself beloved,
Nor could he be a part of that which preyed
Upon her mind—a spectre of the past.

VI

A change came o’er the spirit of my dream.
The Wanderer was returned.—I saw him stand
Before an altar—with a gentle bride;
Her face was fair, but was not that which made
The Starlight of his Boyhood;—as he stood
Even at the altar, o’er his brow there came
The selfsame aspect and the quivering shock
That in the antique Oratory shook
His ***** in its solitude; and then—
As in that hour—a moment o’er his face
The tablet of unutterable thoughts
Was traced—and then it faded as it came,
And he stood calm and quiet, and he spoke
The fitting vows, but heard not his own words,
And all things reeled around him; he could see
Not that which was, nor that which should have been—
But the old mansion, and the accustomed hall,
And the remembered chambers, and the place,
The day, the hour, the sunshine, and the shade,
All things pertaining to that place and hour,
And her who was his destiny, came back
And ****** themselves between him and the light;
What business had they there at such a time?

VII

A change came o’er the spirit of my dream.
The Lady of his love;—Oh! she was changed,
As by the sickness of the soul; her mind
Had wandered from its dwelling, and her eyes,
They had not their own lustre, but the look
Which is not of the earth; she was become
The queen of a fantastic realm; her thoughts
Were combinations of disjointed things;
And forms impalpable and unperceived
Of others’ sight familiar were to hers.
And this the world calls frenzy; but the wise
Have a far deeper madness, and the glance
Of melancholy is a fearful gift;
What is it but the telescope of truth?
Which strips the distance of its fantasies,
And brings life near in utter nakedness,
Making the cold reality too real!

VIII

A change came o’er the spirit of my dream.
The Wanderer was alone as heretofore,
The beings which surrounded him were gone,
Or were at war with him; he was a mark
For blight and desolation, compassed round
With Hatred and Contention; Pain was mixed
In all which was served up to him, until,
Like to the Pontic monarch of old days,
He fed on poisons, and they had no power,
But were a kind of nutriment; he lived
Through that which had been death to many men,
And made him friends of mountains; with the stars
And the quick Spirit of the Universe
He held his dialogues: and they did teach
To him the magic of their mysteries;
To him the book of Night was opened wide,
And voices from the deep abyss revealed
A marvel and a secret.—Be it so.

IX

My dream is past; it had no further change.
It was of a strange order, that the doom
Of these two creatures should be thus traced out
Almost like a reality—the one
To end in madness—both in misery.

Away with your fictions of flimsy romance,
  Those tissues of falsehood which Folly has wove;
Give me the mild beam of the soul-breathing glance,
  Or the rapture which dwells on the first kiss of love.

Ye rhymers, whose bosoms with fantasy glow,
  Whose pastoral passions are made for the grove;
From what blest inspiration your sonnets would flow,
  Could you ever have tasted the first kiss of love.

If Apollo should e’er his assistance refuse,
  Or the Nine be dispos’d from your service to rove,
Invoke them no more, bid adieu to the Muse,
  And try the effect, of the first kiss of love.

I hate you, ye cold compositions of art,
  Though prudes may condemn me, and bigots reprove;
I court the effusions that spring from the heart,
  Which throbs, with delight, to the first kiss of love.

Your shepherds, your flocks, those fantastical themes,
  Perhaps may amuse, yet they never can move:
Arcadia displays but a region of dreams;
  What are visions like these, to the first kiss of love?

Oh! cease to affirm that man, since his birth,
  From Adam, till now, has with wretchedness strove;
Some portion of Paradise still is on earth,
  And Eden revives, in the first kiss of love.

When age chills the blood, when our pleasures are past—
For years fleet away with the wings of the dove—
The dearest remembrance will still be the last,
Our sweetest memorial, the first kiss of love.

Father of Light! great God of Heaven!
  Hear’st thou the accents of despair?
Can guilt like man’s be e’er forgiven?
  Can vice atone for crimes by prayer?

Father of Light, on thee I call!
  Thou see’st my soul is dark within;
Thou, who canst mark the sparrow’s fall,
  Avert from me the death of sin.

No shrine I seek, to sects unknown;
  Oh, point to me the path of truth!
Thy dread Omnipotence I own;
  Spare, yet amend, the faults of youth.

Let bigots rear a gloomy fane,
  Let Superstition hail the pile,
Let priests, to spread their sable reign,
  With tales of mystic rites beguile.

Shall man confine his Maker’s sway
  To Gothic domes of mouldering stone?
Thy temple is the face of day;
  Earth, Ocean, Heaven thy boundless throne.

Shall man condemn his race to Hell,
  Unless they bend in pompous form?
Tell us that all, for one who fell,
  Must perish in the mingling storm?

Shall each pretend to reach the skies,
  Yet doom his brother to expire,
Whose soul a different hope supplies,
  Or doctrines less severe inspire?

Shall these, by creeds they can’t expound,
  Prepare a fancied bliss or woe?
Shall reptiles, groveling on the ground,
  Their great Creator’s purpose know?

Shall those, who live for self alone,
  Whose years float on in daily crime—
Shall they, by Faith, for guilt atone,
  And live beyond the bounds of Time?

Father! no prophet’s laws I seek,—
  Thy laws in Nature’s works appear;—
I own myself corrupt and weak,
  Yet will I pray, for thou wilt hear!

Thou, who canst guide the wandering star,
  Through trackless realms of aether’s space;
Who calm’st the elemental war,
  Whose hand from pole to pole I trace:

Thou, who in wisdom plac’d me here,
  Who, when thou wilt, canst take me hence,
Ah! whilst I tread this earthly sphere,
  Extend to me thy wide defence.

To Thee, my God, to thee I call!
  Whatever weal or woe betide,
By thy command I rise or fall,
  In thy protection I confide.

If, when this dust to dust’s restor’d,
  My soul shall float on airy wing,
How shall thy glorious Name ador’d
  Inspire her feeble voice to sing!

But, if this fleeting spirit share
  With clay the Grave’s eternal bed,
While Life yet throbs I raise my prayer,
  Though doom’d no more to quit the dead.

To Thee I breathe my humble strain,
  Grateful for all thy mercies past,
And hope, my God, to thee again
  This erring life may fly at last.

There was a time, I need not name,
  Since it will ne’er forgotten be,
When all our feelings were the same
  As still my soul hath been to thee.

And from that hour when first thy tongue
  Confess’d a love which equall’d mine,
Though many a grief my heart hath wrung,
  Unknown, and thus unfelt, by thine,

None, none hath sunk so deep as this—
  To think how all that love hath flown;
Transient as every faithless kiss,
  But transient in thy breast alone.

And yet my heart some solace knew,
  When late I heard thy lips declare,
In accents once imagined true,
  Remembrance of the days that were.

Yes! my adored, yet most unkind!
  Though thou wilt never love again,
To me ’tis doubly sweet to find
  Remembrance of that love remain.

Yes! ’tis a glorious thought to me,
  Nor longer shall my soul repine,
Whate’er thou art or e’er shall be,
  Thou hast been dearly, solely mine.

O lachrymarum fons, tenero sacros
  Ducentium ortus ex animo; quater
    Felix! in imo qui scatentem
      Pectore te, pia Nympha, sensit.

               GRAY, ‘Alcaic Fragment’.

   When Friendship or Love
   Our sympathies move;
When Truth, in a glance, should appear,
   The lips may beguile,
   With a dimple or smile,
But the test of affection’s a Tear.

   Too oft is a smile
   But the hypocrite’s wile,
To mask detestation, or fear;
   Give me the soft sigh,
   Whilst the soul-telling eye
Is dimm’d, for a time, with a Tear.

   Mild Charity’s glow,
   To us mortals below,
Shows the soul from barbarity clear;
   Compassion will melt,
   Where this virtue is felt,
And its dew is diffused in a Tear.

   The man, doom’d to sail
   With the blast of the gale,
Through billows Atlantic to steer,
   As he bends o’er the wave
   Which may soon be his grave,
The green sparkles bright with a Tear.

   The Soldier braves death
   For a fanciful wreath
In Glory’s romantic career;
   But he raises the foe
   When in battle laid low,
And bathes every wound with a Tear.

   If, with high-bounding pride,
   He return to his bride!
Renouncing the gore-crimson’d spear;
   All his toils are repaid
   When, embracing the maid,
From her eyelid he kisses the Tear.

   Sweet scene of my youth!
   Seat of Friendship and Truth,
Where Love chas’d each fast-fleeting year;
   Loth to leave thee, I mourn’d,
   For a last look I turn’d,
But thy spire was scarce seen through a Tear.

   Though my vows I can pour,
   To my Mary no more,
My Mary, to Love once so dear,
  In the shade of her bow’r,
  I remember the hour,
She rewarded those vows with a Tear.

   By another possest,
   May she live ever blest!
Her name still my heart must revere:
   With a sigh I resign,
   What I once thought was mine,
And forgive her deceit with a Tear.

   Ye friends of my heart,
   Ere from you I depart,
This hope to my breast is most near:
   If again we shall meet,
   In this rural retreat,
May we meet, as we part, with a Tear.

   When my soul wings her flight
   To the regions of night,
And my corse shall recline on its bier;
  As ye pass by the tomb,
  Where my ashes consume,
Oh! moisten their dust with a Tear.

  May no marble bestow
  The splendour of woe,
Which the children of Vanity rear;
  No fiction of fame
  Shall blazon my name,
All I ask, all I wish, is a Tear.

Muse of the many-twinkling feet! whose charms
Are now extended up from legs to arms;
Terpsichore!—too long misdeemed a maid—
Reproachful term—bestowed but to upbraid—
Henceforth in all the bronze of brightness shine,
The least a Vestal of the ****** Nine.
Far be from thee and thine the name of *****:
Mocked yet triumphant; sneered at, unsubdued;
Thy legs must move to conquer as they fly,
If but thy coats are reasonably high!
Thy breast—if bare enough—requires no shield;
Dance forth—sans armour thou shalt take the field
And own—impregnable to most assaults,
Thy not too lawfully begotten “Waltz.”

  Hail, nimble Nymph! to whom the young hussar,
The whiskered votary of Waltz and War,
His night devotes, despite of spur and boots;
A sight unmatched since Orpheus and his brutes:
Hail, spirit-stirring Waltz!—beneath whose banners
A modern hero fought for modish manners;
On Hounslow’s heath to rival Wellesley’s fame,
Cocked, fired, and missed his man—but gained his aim;
Hail, moving muse! to whom the fair one’s breast
Gives all it can, and bids us take the rest.
Oh! for the flow of Busby, or of Fitz,
The latter’s loyalty, the former’s wits,
To “energise the object I pursue,”
And give both Belial and his Dance their due!

  Imperial Waltz! imported from the Rhine
(Famed for the growth of pedigrees and wine),
Long be thine import from all duty free,
And Hock itself be less esteemed than thee;
In some few qualities alike—for Hock
Improves our cellar—thou our living stock.
The head to Hock belongs—thy subtler art
Intoxicates alone the heedless heart:
Through the full veins thy gentler poison swims,
And wakes to Wantonness the willing limbs.

  Oh, Germany! how much to thee we owe,
As heaven-born Pitt can testify below,
Ere cursed Confederation made thee France’s,
And only left us thy d—d debts and dances!
Of subsidies and Hanover bereft,
We bless thee still—George the Third is left!
Of kings the best—and last, not least in worth,
For graciously begetting George the Fourth.
To Germany, and Highnesses serene,
Who owe us millions—don’t we owe the Queen?
To Germany, what owe we not besides?
So oft bestowing Brunswickers and brides;
Who paid for ******, with her royal blood,
Drawn from the stem of each Teutonic stud:
Who sent us—so be pardoned all her faults—
A dozen dukes, some kings, a Queen—and Waltz.

  But peace to her—her Emperor and Diet,
Though now transferred to Buonapartè’s “fiat!”
Back to my theme—O muse of Motion! say,
How first to Albion found thy Waltz her way?

  Borne on the breath of Hyperborean gales,
From Hamburg’s port (while Hamburg yet had mails),
Ere yet unlucky Fame—compelled to creep
To snowy Gottenburg-was chilled to sleep;
Or, starting from her slumbers, deigned arise,
Heligoland! to stock thy mart with lies;
While unburnt Moscow yet had news to send,
Nor owed her fiery Exit to a friend,
She came—Waltz came—and with her certain sets
Of true despatches, and as true Gazettes;
Then flamed of Austerlitz the blest despatch,
Which Moniteur nor Morning Post can match
And—almost crushed beneath the glorious news—
Ten plays, and forty tales of Kotzebue’s;
One envoy’s letters, six composer’s airs,
And loads from Frankfort and from Leipsic fairs:
Meiners’ four volumes upon Womankind,
Like Lapland witches to ensure a wind;
Brunck’s heaviest tome for ballast, and, to back it,
Of Heynè, such as should not sink the packet.

  Fraught with this cargo—and her fairest freight,
Delightful Waltz, on tiptoe for a Mate,
The welcome vessel reached the genial strand,
And round her flocked the daughters of the land.
Not decent David, when, before the ark,
His grand Pas-seul excited some remark;
Not love-lorn Quixote, when his Sancho thought
The knight’s Fandango friskier than it ought;
Not soft Herodias, when, with winning tread,
Her nimble feet danced off another’s head;
Not Cleopatra on her Galley’s Deck,
Displayed so much of leg or more of neck,
Than Thou, ambrosial Waltz, when first the Moon
Beheld thee twirling to a Saxon tune!

  To You, ye husbands of ten years! whose brows
Ache with the annual tributes of a spouse;
To you of nine years less, who only bear
The budding sprouts of those that you shall wear,
With added ornaments around them rolled
Of native brass, or law-awarded gold;
To You, ye Matrons, ever on the watch
To mar a son’s, or make a daughter’s match;
To You, ye children of—whom chance accords—
Always the Ladies, and sometimes their Lords;
To You, ye single gentlemen, who seek
Torments for life, or pleasures for a week;
As Love or ***** your endeavours guide,
To gain your own, or ****** another’s bride;—
To one and all the lovely Stranger came,
And every Ball-room echoes with her name.

  Endearing Waltz!—to thy more melting tune
Bow Irish Jig, and ancient Rigadoon.
Scotch reels, avaunt! and Country-dance forego
Your future claims to each fantastic toe!
Waltz—Waltz alone—both legs and arms demands,
Liberal of feet, and lavish of her hands;
Hands which may freely range in public sight
Where ne’er before—but—pray “put out the light.”
Methinks the glare of yonder chandelier
Shines much too far—or I am much too near;
And true, though strange—Waltz whispers this remark,
“My slippery steps are safest in the dark!”
But here the Muse with due decorum halts,
And lends her longest petticoat to “Waltz.”

  Observant Travellers of every time!
Ye Quartos published upon every clime!
0 say, shall dull Romaika’s heavy round,
Fandango’s wriggle, or Bolero’s bound;
Can Egypt’s Almas—tantalising group—
Columbia’s caperers to the warlike Whoop—
Can aught from cold Kamschatka to Cape Horn
With Waltz compare, or after Waltz be born?
Ah, no! from Morier’s pages down to Galt’s,
Each tourist pens a paragraph for “Waltz.”

  Shades of those Belles whose reign began of yore,
With George the Third’s—and ended long before!—
Though in your daughters’ daughters yet you thrive,
Burst from your lead, and be yourselves alive!
Back to the Ball-room speed your spectred host,
Fool’s Paradise is dull to that you lost.
No treacherous powder bids Conjecture quake;
No stiff-starched stays make meddling fingers ache;
(Transferred to those ambiguous things that ape
Goats in their visage, women in their shape;)
No damsel faints when rather closely pressed,
But more caressing seems when most caressed;
Superfluous Hartshorn, and reviving Salts,
Both banished by the sovereign cordial “Waltz.”

  Seductive Waltz!—though on thy native shore
Even Werter’s self proclaimed thee half a *****;
Werter—to decent vice though much inclined,
Yet warm, not wanton; dazzled, but not blind—
Though gentle Genlis, in her strife with Staël,
Would even proscribe thee from a Paris ball;
The fashion hails—from Countesses to Queens,
And maids and valets waltz behind the scenes;
Wide and more wide thy witching circle spreads,
And turns—if nothing else—at least our heads;
With thee even clumsy cits attempt to bounce,
And cockney’s practise what they can’t pronounce.
Gods! how the glorious theme my strain exalts,
And Rhyme finds partner Rhyme in praise of “Waltz!”
Blest was the time Waltz chose for her début!
The Court, the Regent, like herself were new;
New face for friends, for foes some new rewards;
New ornaments for black-and royal Guards;
New laws to hang the rogues that roared for bread;
New coins (most new) to follow those that fled;
New victories—nor can we prize them less,
Though Jenky wonders at his own success;
New wars, because the old succeed so well,
That most survivors envy those who fell;
New mistresses—no, old—and yet ’tis true,
Though they be old, the thing is something new;
Each new, quite new—(except some ancient tricks),
New white-sticks—gold-sticks—broom-sticks—all new sticks!
With vests or ribands—decked alike in hue,
New troopers strut, new turncoats blush in blue:
So saith the Muse: my——, what say you?
Such was the time when Waltz might best maintain
Her new preferments in this novel reign;
Such was the time, nor ever yet was such;
Hoops are  more, and petticoats not much;
Morals and Minuets, Virtue and her stays,
And tell-tale powder—all have had their days.
The Ball begins—the honours of the house
First duly done by daughter or by spouse,
Some Potentate—or royal or serene—
With Kent’s gay grace, or sapient Gloster’s mien,
Leads forth the ready dame, whose rising flush
Might once have been mistaken for a blush.
From where the garb just leaves the ***** free,
That spot where hearts were once supposed to be;
Round all the confines of the yielded waist,
The strangest hand may wander undisplaced:
The lady’s in return may grasp as much
As princely paunches offer to her touch.
Pleased round the chalky floor how well they trip
One hand reposing on the royal hip!
The other to the shoulder no less royal
Ascending with affection truly loyal!
Thus front to front the partners move or stand,
The foot may rest, but none withdraw the hand;
And all in turn may follow in their rank,
The Earl of—Asterisk—and Lady—Blank;
Sir—Such-a-one—with those of fashion’s host,
For whose blest surnames—vide “Morning Post.”
(Or if for that impartial print too late,
Search Doctors’ Commons six months from my date)—
Thus all and each, in movement swift or slow,
The genial contact gently undergo;
Till some might marvel, with the modest Turk,
If “nothing follows all this palming work?”
True, honest Mirza!—you may trust my rhyme—
Something does follow at a fitter time;
The breast thus publicly resigned to man,
In private may resist him—if it can.

  O ye who loved our Grandmothers of yore,
Fitzpatrick, Sheridan, and many more!
And thou, my Prince! whose sovereign taste and will
It is to love the lovely beldames still!
Thou Ghost of Queensberry! whose judging Sprite
Satan may spare to peep a single night,
Pronounce—if ever in your days of bliss
Asmodeus struck so bright a stroke as this;
To teach the young ideas how to rise,
Flush in the cheek, and languish in the eyes;
Rush to the heart, and lighten through the frame,
With half-told wish, and ill-dissembled flame,
For prurient Nature still will storm the breast—
Who, tempted thus, can answer for the rest?

  But ye—who never felt a single thought
For what our Morals are to be, or ought;
Who wisely wish the charms you view to reap,
Say—would you make those beauties quite so cheap?
Hot from the hands promiscuously applied,
Round the slight waist, or down the glowing side,
Where were the rapture then to clasp the form
From this lewd grasp and lawless contact warm?
At once Love’s most endearing thought resign,
To press the hand so pressed by none but thine;
To gaze upon that eye which never met
Another’s ardent look without regret;
Approach the lip which all, without restraint,
Come near enough—if not to touch—to taint;
If such thou lovest—love her then no more,
Or give—like her—caresses to a score;
Her Mind with these is gone, and with it go
The little left behind it to bestow.

  Voluptuous Waltz! and dare I thus blaspheme?
Thy bard forgot thy praises were his theme.
Terpsichore forgive!—at every Ball
My wife now waltzes—and my daughters shall;
My son—(or stop—’tis needless to inquire—
These little accidents should ne’er transpire;
Some ages hence our genealogic tree
Will wear as green a bough for him as me)—
Waltzing shall rear, to make our name amends
Grandsons for me—in heirs to all his friends.

High in the midst, surrounded by his peers,
Magnus his ample front sublime uprears:
Plac’d on his chair of state, he seems a God,
While Sophs and Freshmen tremble at his nod;
As all around sit wrapt in speechless gloom,
His voice, in thunder, shakes the sounding dome;
Denouncing dire reproach to luckless fools,
Unskill’d to plod in mathematic rules.

Happy the youth! in Euclid’s axioms tried,
Though little vers’d in any art beside;
Who, scarcely skill’d an English line to pen,
Scans Attic metres with a critic’s ken.

What! though he knows not how his fathers bled,
When civil discord pil’d the fields with dead,
When Edward bade his conquering bands advance,
Or Henry trampled on the crest of France:
Though marvelling at the name of Magna Charta,
Yet well he recollects the laws of Sparta;
Can tell, what edicts sage Lycurgus made,
While Blackstone’s on the shelf, neglected laid;
Of Grecian dramas vaunts the deathless fame,
Of Avon’s bard, rememb’ring scarce the name.

Such is the youth whose scientific pate
Class-honours, medals, fellowships, await;
Or even, perhaps, the declamation prize,
If to such glorious height, he lifts his eyes.
But lo! no common orator can hope
The envied silver cup within his scope:
Not that our heads much eloquence require,
Th’ ATHENIAN’S glowing style, or TULLY’S fire.
A manner clear or warm is useless, since
We do not try by speaking to convince;
Be other orators of pleasing proud,—
We speak to please ourselves, not move the crowd:
Our gravity prefers the muttering tone,
A proper mixture of the squeak and groan:
No borrow’d grace of action must be seen,
The slightest motion would displease the Dean;
Whilst every staring Graduate would prate,
Against what—he could never imitate.

The man, who hopes t’ obtain the promis’d cup,
Must in one posture stand, and ne’er look up;
Nor stop, but rattle over every word—
No matter what, so it can not be heard:
Thus let him hurry on, nor think to rest:
Who speaks the fastest’s sure to speak the best;
Who utters most within the shortest space,
May, safely, hope to win the wordy race.

The Sons of Science these, who, thus repaid,
Linger in ease in Granta’s sluggish shade;
Where on Cam’s sedgy banks, supine, they lie,
Unknown, unhonour’d live—unwept for die:
Dull as the pictures, which adorn their halls,
They think all learning fix’d within their walls:
In manners rude, in foolish forms precise,
All modern arts affecting to despise;
Yet prizing Bentley’s, Brunck’s, or Porson’s note,
More than the verse on which the critic wrote:
Vain as their honours, heavy as their Ale,
Sad as their wit, and tedious as their tale;
To friendship dead, though not untaught to feel,
When Self and Church demand a Bigot zeal.
With eager haste they court the lord of power,
(Whether ’tis PITT or PETTY rules the hour;)
To him, with suppliant smiles, they bend the head,
While distant mitres to their eyes are spread;
But should a storm o’erwhelm him with disgrace,
They’d fly to seek the next, who fill’d his place.
Such are the men who learning’s treasures guard!
Such is their practice, such is their reward!
This much, at least, we may presume to say—
The premium can’t exceed the price they pay.

Had I a man's fair form, then might my sighs
Be echoed swiftly through that ivory shell,
Thine ear, and find thy gentle heart; so well
Would passion arm me for the enterprise:
But ah! I am no knight whose foeman dies;
No cuirass glistens on my *****'s swell;
I am no happy shepherd of the dell
Whose lips have trembled with a maiden's eyes.
Yet must I dote upon thee,—call thee sweet,
Sweeter by far than Hybla's honied roses
When steeped in dew rich to intoxication.
Ah! I will taste that dew, for me 'tis meet,
And when the moon her pallid face discloses,
I'll gather some by spells, and incantation.

Sweet girl! though only once we met,
That meeting I shall ne’er forget;
And though we ne’er may meet again,
Remembrance will thy form retain;
I would not say, “I love,” but still,
My senses struggle with my will:
In vain to drive thee from my breast,
My thoughts are more and more represt;
In vain I check the rising sighs,
Another to the last replies:
Perhaps, this is not love, but yet,
Our meeting I can ne’er forget.

What, though we never silence broke,
Our eyes a sweeter language spoke;
The tongue in flattering falsehood deals,
And tells a tale it never feels:
Deceit, the guilty lips impart,
And hush the mandates of the heart;
But soul’s interpreters, the eyes,
Spurn such restraint, and scorn disguise.
As thus our glances oft convers’d,
And all our bosoms felt rehears’d,
No spirit, from within, reprov’d us,
Say rather, “’twas the spirit mov’d us.”
Though, what they utter’d, I repress,
Yet I conceive thou’lt partly guess;
For as on thee, my memory ponders,
Perchance to me, thine also wanders.
This, for myself, at least, I’ll say,
Thy form appears through night, through day;
Awake, with it my fancy teems,
In sleep, it smiles in fleeting dreams;
The vision charms the hours away,
And bids me curse Aurora’s ray
For breaking slumbers of delight,
Which make me wish for endless night.
Since, oh! whate’er my future fate,
Shall joy or woe my steps await;
Tempted by love, by storms beset,
Thine image, I can ne’er forget.

Alas! again no more we meet,
No more our former looks repeat;
Then, let me breathe this parting prayer,
The dictate of my *****’s care:
“May Heaven so guard my lovely quaker,
That anguish never can o’ertake her;
That peace and virtue ne’er forsake her,
But bliss be aye her heart’s partaker!
Oh! may the happy mortal, fated
To be, by dearest ties, related,
For her, each hour, new joys discover,
And lose the husband in the lover!
May that fair ***** never know
What ’tis to feel the restless woe,
Which stings the soul, with vain regret,
Of him, who never can forget!”

Rail on, Rail on, ye heartless crew!
My strains were never meant for you;
Remorseless Rancour still reveal,
And **** the verse you cannot feel.
Invoke those kindred passions’ aid,
Whose baleful stings your ******* pervade;
Crush, if you can, the hopes of youth,
Trampling regardless on the Truth:
Truth’s Records you consult in vain,
She will not blast her native strain;
She will assist her votary’s cause,
His will at least be her applause,
Your prayer the gentle Power will spurn;
To Fiction’s motley altar turn,
Who joyful in the fond address
Her favoured worshippers will bless:
And lo! she holds a magic glass,
Where Images reflected pass,
Bent on your knees the Boon receive—
This will assist you to deceive—
The glittering gift was made for you,
Now hold it up to public view;
Lest evil unforeseen betide,
A Mask each canker’d brow shall hide,
(Whilst Truth my sole desire is nigh,
Prepared the danger to defy,)
“There is the Maid’s perverted name,
And there the Poet’s guilty Flame,
Gloaming a deep phosphoric fire,
Threatening—but ere it spreads, retire.
Says Truth Up Virgins, do not fear!
The Comet rolls its Influence here;
’Tis Scandal’s Mirror you perceive,
These dazzling Meteors but deceive—
Approach and touch—Nay do not turn
It blazes there, but will not burn.”—
At once the shivering Mirror flies,
Teeming no more with varnished Lies;
The baffled friends of Fiction start,
Too late desiring to depart—
Truth poising high Ithuriel’s spear
Bids every Fiend unmask’d appear,
The vizard tears from every face,
And dooms them to a dire disgrace.
For e’er they compass their escape,
Each takes perforce a native shape—
The Leader of the wrathful Band,
Behold a portly Female stand!
She raves, impelled by private pique,
This mean unjust revenge to seek;
From vice to save this virtuous Age,
Thus does she vent indecent rage!
What child has she of promise fair,
Who claims a fostering Mother’s care?
Whose Innocence requires defence,
Or forms at least a smooth pretence,
Thus to disturb a harmless Boy,
His humble hope, and peace annoy?
She need not fear the amorous rhyme,
Love will not tempt her future time,
For her his wings have ceased to spread,
No more he flutters round her head;
Her day’s Meridian now is past,
The clouds of Age her Sun o’ercast;
To her the strain was never sent,
For feeling Souls alone ’twas meant—
The verse she seized, unask’d, unbade,
And ****’d, ere yet the whole was read!
Yes! for one single erring verse,
Pronounced an unrelenting Curse;
Yes! at a first and transient view,
Condemned a heart she never knew.—
Can such a verdict then decide,
Which springs from disappointed pride?
Without a wondrous share of Wit,
To judge is such a Matron fit?
The rest of the censorious throng
Who to this zealous Band belong,
To her a general homage pay,
And right or wrong her wish obey:
Why should I point my pen of steel
To break “such flies upon the wheel?”
With minds to Truth and Sense unknown,
Who dare not call their words their own.
Rail on, Rail on, ye heartless Crew!
Your Leader’s grand design pursue:
Secure behind her ample shield,
Yours is the harvest of the field.—
My path with thorns you cannot strew,
Nay more, my warmest thanks are due;
When such as you revile my Name,
Bright beams the rising Sun of Fame,
Chasing the shades of envious night,
Outshining every critic Light.—
Such, such as you will serve to show
Each radiant tint with higher glow.
Vain is the feeble cheerless toil,
Your efforts on yourselves recoil;
Then Glory still for me you raise,
Yours is the Censure, mine the Praise.

Oh! had my Fate been join’d with thine,
  As once this pledge appear’d a token,
These follies had not, then, been mine,
  For, then, my peace had not been broken.

To thee, these early faults I owe,
  To thee, the wise and old reproving:
They know my sins, but do not know
  ’Twas thine to break the bonds of loving.

For once my soul, like thine, was pure,
  And all its rising fires could smother;
But, now, thy vows no more endure,
  Bestow’d by thee upon another.

Perhaps, his peace I could destroy,
  And spoil the blisses that await him;
Yet let my Rival smile in joy,
  For thy dear sake, I cannot hate him.

Ah! since thy angel form is gone,
  My heart no more can rest with any;
But what it sought in thee alone,
  Attempts, alas! to find in many.

Then, fare thee well, deceitful Maid!
  ’Twere vain and fruitless to regret thee;
Nor Hope, nor Memory yield their aid,
  But Pride may teach me to forget thee.

Yet all this giddy waste of years,
  This tiresome round of palling pleasures;
These varied loves, these matrons’ fears,
  These thoughtless strains to Passion’s measures—

If thou wert mine, had all been hush’d:—
  This cheek, now pale from early riot,
With Passion’s hectic ne’er had flush’d,
  But bloom’d in calm domestic quiet.

Yes, once the rural Scene was sweet,
  For Nature seem’d to smile before thee;
And once my Breast abhorr’d deceit,—
  For then it beat but to adore thee.

But, now, I seek for other joys—
  To think, would drive my soul to madness;
In thoughtless throngs, and empty noise,
  I conquer half my *****’s sadness.

Yet, even in these, a thought will steal,
  In spite of every vain endeavour;
And fiends might pity what I feel—
  To know that thou art lost for ever.

When Man, expell’d from Eden’s bowers,
  A moment linger’d near the gate,
Each scene recall’d the vanish’d hours,
  And bade him curse his future fate.

But, wandering on through distant climes,
  He learnt to bear his load of grief;
Just gave a sigh to other times,
  And found in busier scenes relief.

Thus, Lady! will it be with me,
  And I must view thy charms no more;
For, while I linger near to thee,
  I sigh for all I knew before.

In flight I shall be surely wise,
  Escaping from temptation’s snare:
I cannot view my Paradise
  Without the wish of dwelling there.

This Band, which bound thy yellow hair
  Is mine, sweet girl! thy pledge of love;
It claims my warmest, dearest care,
  Like relics left of saints above.

Oh! I will wear it next my heart;
  ’Twill bind my soul in bonds to thee:
From me again ’twill ne’er depart,
  But mingle in the grave with me.

The dew I gather from thy lip
  Is not so dear to me as this;
That I but for a moment sip,
  And banquet on a transient bliss:

This will recall each youthful scene,
  E’en when our lives are on the wane;
The leaves of Love will still be green
  When Memory bids them bud again.

These locks, which fondly thus entwine,
In firmer chains our hearts confine,
Than all th’ unmeaning protestations
Which swell with nonsense, love orations.
Our love is fix’d, I think we’ve prov’d it;
Nor time, nor place, nor art have mov’d it;
Then wherefore should we sigh and whine,
With groundless jealousy repine;
With silly whims, and fancies frantic,
Merely to make our love romantic?
Why should you weep, like Lydia Languish,
And fret with self-created anguish?
Or doom the lover you have chosen,
On winter nights to sigh half frozen;
In leafless shades, to sue for pardon,
Only because the scene’s a garden?
For gardens seem, by one consent,
(Since Shakespeare set the precedent;
Since Juliet first declar’d her passion)
To form the place of assignation.
Oh! would some modern muse inspire,
And seat her by a sea-coal fire;
Or had the bard at Christmas written,
And laid the scene of love in Britain;
He surely, in commiseration,
Had chang’d the place of declaration.
In Italy, I’ve no objection,
Warm nights are proper for reflection;
But here our climate is so rigid,
That love itself, is rather frigid:
Think on our chilly situation,
And curb this rage for imitation.
Then let us meet, as oft we’ve done,
Beneath the influence of the sun;
Or, if at midnight I must meet you,
Within your mansion let me greet you:
‘There’, we can love for hours together,
Much better, in such snowy weather,
Than plac’d in all th’ Arcadian groves,
That ever witness’d rural loves;
‘Then’, if my passion fail to please,
Next night I’ll be content to freeze;
No more I’ll give a loose to laughter,
But curse my fate, for ever after.

Oh, Anne, your offences to me have been grievous:
I thought from my wrath no atonement could save you;
But Woman is made to command and deceive us—
I look’d in your face, and I almost forgave you.

I vow’d I could ne’er for a moment respect you,
  Yet thought that a day’s separation was long;
When we met, I determined again to suspect you—
  Your smile soon convinced me suspicion was wrong.

I swore, in a transport of young indignation,
  With fervent contempt evermore to disdain you:
I saw you—my anger became admiration;
  And now, all my wish, all my hope’s to regain you.

With beauty like yours, oh, how vain the contention!
  Thus lowly I sue for forgiveness before you;—
At once to conclude such a fruitless dissension,
  Be false, my sweet Anne, when I cease to adore you!

Oh say not, sweet Anne, that the Fates have decreed
The heart which adores you should wish to dissever;
Such Fates were to me most unkind ones indeed,—
To bear me from Love and from Beauty for ever.

Your frowns, lovely girl, are the Fates which alone
Could bid me from fond admiration refrain;
By these, every hope, every wish were o’erthrown,
Till smiles should restore me to rapture again.

As the ivy and oak, in the forest entwin’d,
The rage of the tempest united must weather;
My love and my life were by nature design’d
To flourish alike, or to perish together.

Then say not, sweet Anne, that the Fates have decreed
  Your lover should bid you a lasting adieu:
Till Fate can ordain that his ***** shall bleed,
  His Soul, his Existence, are centred in you.

Young Oak! when I planted thee deep in the ground,
  I hoped that thy days would be longer than mine;
That thy dark-waving branches would flourish around,
  And ivy thy trunk with its mantle entwine.

Such, such was my hope, when in Infancy’s years,
  On the land of my Fathers I rear’d thee with pride;
They are past, and I water thy stem with my tears,—
  Thy decay, not the weeds that surround thee can hide.

I left thee, my Oak, and, since that fatal hour,
  A stranger has dwelt in the hall of my Sire;
Till Manhood shall crown me, not mine is the power,
  But his, whose neglect may have bade thee expire.

Oh! hardy thou wert—even now little care
  Might revive thy young head, and thy wounds gently
    heal:
But thou wert not fated affection to share—
  For who could suppose that a Stranger would feel?

Ah, droop not, my Oak! lift thy head for a while;
  Ere twice round yon Glory this planet shall run,
The hand of thy Master will teach thee to smile,
  When Infancy’s years of probation are done.

Oh, live then, my Oak! tow’r aloft from the weeds,
  That clog thy young growth, and assist thy decay,
For still in thy ***** are Life’s early seeds,
  And still may thy branches their beauty display.

Oh! yet, if Maturity’s years may be thine,
  Though I shall lie low in the cavern of Death,
On thy leaves yet the day-beam of ages may shine,
  Uninjured by Time, or the rude Winter’s breath.

For centuries still may thy boughs lightly wave
  O’er the corse of thy Lord in thy canopy laid;
While the branches thus gratefully shelter his grave,
  The Chief who survives may recline in thy shade.

And as he, with his boys, shall revisit this spot,
  He will tell them in whispers more softly to tread.
Oh! surely, by these I shall ne’er be forgot;
  Remembrance still hallows the dust of the dead.

And here, will they say, when in Life’s glowing prime,
  Perhaps he has pour’d forth his young simple lay,
And here must he sleep, till the moments of Time
  Are lost in the hours of Eternity’s day.

Ah, heedless girl! why thus disclose
  What ne’er was meant for other ears;
Why thus destroy thine own repose,
  And dig the source of future tears?

Oh, thou wilt weep, imprudent maid,
While lurking envious foes will smile,
For all the follies thou hast said
Of those who spoke but to beguile.

Vain girl! thy lingering woes are nigh,
If thou believ’st what striplings say:
Oh, from the deep temptation fly,
Nor fall the specious spoiler’s prey.

Dost thou repeat, in childish boast,
The words man utters to deceive?
Thy peace, thy hope, thy all is lost,
If thou canst venture to believe.

While now amongst thy female peers
Thou tell’st again the soothing tale,
Canst thou not mark the rising sneers
Duplicity in vain would veil?

These tales in secret silence hush,
Nor make thyself the public gaze:
What modest maid without a blush
Recounts a flattering coxcomb’s praise?

Will not the laughing boy despise
Her who relates each fond conceit—
Who, thinking Heaven is in her eyes,
Yet cannot see the slight deceit?

For she who takes a soft delight
These amorous nothings in revealing,
Must credit all we say or write,
While vanity prevents concealing.

Cease, if you prize your Beauty’s reign!
No jealousy bids me reprove:
One, who is thus from nature vain,
I pity, but I cannot love.

Few years have pass’d since thou and I
  Were firmest friends, at least in name,
And Childhood’s gay sincerity
  Preserved our feelings long the same.

But now, like me, too well thou know’st
  What trifles oft the heart recall;
And those who once have loved the most
  Too soon forget they lov’d at all.

And such the change the heart displays,
  So frail is early friendship’s reign,
A month’s brief lapse, perhaps a day’s,
  Will view thy mind estrang’d again.

If so, it never shall be mine
  To mourn the loss of such a heart;
The fault was Nature’s fault, not thine,
  Which made thee fickle as thou art.

As rolls the Ocean’s changing tide,
  So human feelings ebb and flow;
And who would in a breast confide
  Where stormy passions ever glow?

It boots not that, together bred,
  Our childish days were days of joy:
My spring of life has quickly fled;
  Thou, too, hast ceas’d to be a boy.

And when we bid adieu to youth,
  Slaves to the specious World’s controul,
We sigh a long farewell to truth;
  That World corrupts the noblest soul.

Ah, joyous season! when the mind
  Dares all things boldly but to lie;
When Thought ere spoke is unconfin’d,
  And sparkles in the placid eye.

Not so in Man’s maturer years,
  When Man himself is but a tool;
When Interest sways our hopes and fears,
  And all must love and hate by rule.

With fools in kindred vice the same,
  We learn at length our faults to blend;
And those, and those alone, may claim
  The prostituted name of friend.

Such is the common lot of man:
  Can we then ’scape from folly free?
Can we reverse the general plan,
  Nor be what all in turn must be?

No; for myself, so dark my fate
  Through every turn of life hath been;
Man and the World so much I hate,
  I care not when I quit the scene.

But thou, with spirit frail and light,
  Wilt shine awhile, and pass away;
As glow-worms sparkle through the night,
  But dare not stand the test of day.

Alas! whenever Folly calls
  Where parasites and princes meet,
(For cherish’d first in royal halls,
  The welcome vices kindly greet,)

Ev’n now thou’rt nightly seen to add
  One insect to the fluttering crowd;
And still thy trifling heart is glad
  To join the vain and court the proud.

There dost thou glide from fair to fair,
  Still simpering on with eager haste,
As flies along the gay parterre,
  That taint the flowers they scarcely taste.

But say, what nymph will prize the flame
  Which seems, as marshy vapours move,
To flit along from dame to dame,
  An ignis-fatuus gleam of love?

What friend for thee, howe’er inclin’d,
  Will deign to own a kindred care?
Who will debase his manly mind,
  For friendship every fool may share?

In time forbear; amidst the throng
  No more so base a thing be seen;
No more so idly pass along;
  Be something, any thing, but—mean.

Think’st thou I saw thy beauteous eyes,
  Suffus’d in tears, implore to stay;
And heard unmov’d thy plenteous sighs,
  Which said far more than words can say?

Though keen the grief thy tears exprest,
  When love and hope lay both o’erthrown;
Yet still, my girl, this bleeding breast
  Throbb’d, with deep sorrow, as thine own.

But, when our cheeks with anguish glow’d,
  When thy sweet lips were join’d to mine;
The tears that from my eyelids flow’d
  Were lost in those which fell from thine.

Thou could’st not feel my burning cheek,
  Thy gushing tears had quench’d its flame,
And, as thy tongue essay’d to speak,
  In sighs alone it breath’d my name.

And yet, my girl, we weep in vain,
  In vain our fate in sighs deplore;
Remembrance only can remain,
  But that, will make us weep the more.

Again, thou best belov’d, adieu!
  Ah! if thou canst, o’ercome regret,
Nor let thy mind past joys review,
  Our only hope is, to forget!

You say you love, and yet your eye
  No symptom of that love conveys,
You say you love, yet know not why,
  Your cheek no sign of love betrays.

Ah! did that breast with ardour glow,
With me alone it joy could know,
Or feel with me the listless woe,
  Which racks my heart when far from thee.

Whene’er we meet my blushes rise,
  And mantle through my purpled cheek,
But yet no blush to mine replies,
  Nor e’en your eyes your love bespeak.

Your voice alone declares your flame,
And though so sweet it breathes my name,
Our passions still are not the same;
  Alas! you cannot love like me.

For e’en your lip seems steep’d in snow,
  And though so oft it meets my kiss,
It burns with no responsive glow,
  Nor melts like mine in dewy bliss.

Ah! what are words to love like mine,
Though uttered by a voice like thine,
I still in murmurs must repine,
  And think that love can ne’er be true,

Which meets me with no joyous sign,
  Without a sigh which bids adieu;
How different is my love from thine,
  How keen my grief when leaving you.

Your image fills my anxious breast,
Till day declines adown the West,
And when at night, I sink to rest,
    In dreams your fancied form I view.

’Tis then your breast, no longer cold,
  With equal ardour seems to burn,
While close your arms around me fold,
  Your lips my kiss with warmth return.

Ah! would these joyous moments last;
Vain HOPE! the gay delusion’s past,
That voice!—ah! no, ’tis but the blast,
  Which echoes through the neighbouring grove.

But when awake, your lips I seek,
  And clasp enraptur’d all your charms,
So chill’s the pressure of your cheek,
  I fold a statue in my arms.

If thus, when to my heart embrac’d,
No pleasure in your eyes is trac’d,
You may be prudent, fair, and chaste,
  But ah! my girl, you do not love.

Oh! when shall the grave hide for ever my sorrow?
  Oh! when shall my soul wing her flight from this clay?
The present is hell! and the coming to-morrow
  But brings, with new torture, the curse of to-day.

From my eye flows no tear, from my lips flow no curses,
  I blast not the fiends who have hurl’d me from bliss;
For poor is the soul which, bewailing, rehearses
  Its querulous grief, when in anguish like this—

Was my eye, ’stead of tears, with red fury flakes bright’ning,
  Would my lips breathe a flame which no stream could assuage,
On our foes should my glance launch in vengeance its lightning,
  With transport my tongue give a loose to its rage.

But now tears and curses, alike unavailing,
  Would add to the souls of our tyrants delight;
Could they view us our sad separation bewailing,
  Their merciless hearts would rejoice at the sight.

Yet, still, though we bend with a feign’d resignation,
  Life beams not for us with one ray that can cheer;
Love and Hope upon earth bring no more consolation,
  In the grave is our hope, for in life is our fear.

Oh! when, my ador’d, in the tomb will they place me,
  Since, in life, love and friendship for ever are fled?
If again in the mansion of death I embrace thee,
  Perhaps they will leave unmolested—the dead.

When I hear you express an affection so warm,
  Ne’er think, my belov’d, that I do not believe;
For your lip would the soul of suspicion disarm,
  And your eye beams a ray which can never deceive.

Yet still, this fond ***** regrets, while adoring,
  That love, like the leaf, must fall into the sear,
That Age will come on, when Remembrance, deploring,
Contemplates the scenes of her youth, with a tear;

That the time must arrive, when, no longer retaining
  Their auburn, those locks must wave thin to the breeze,
When a few silver hairs of those tresses remaining,
  Prove nature a prey to decay and disease.

Tis this, my belov’d, which spreads gloom o’er my features,
  Though I ne’er shall presume to arraign the decree
Which God has proclaim’d as the fate of his creatures,
  In the death which one day will deprive you of me.

Mistake not, sweet sceptic, the cause of emotion,
  No doubt can the mind of your lover invade;
He worships each look with such faithful devotion,
  A smile can enchant, or a tear can dissuade.

But as death, my belov’d, soon or late shall o’ertake us,
  And our *******, which alive with such sympathy glow,
Will sleep in the grave, till the blast shall awake us,
  When calling the dead, in Earth’s ***** laid low.

Oh! then let us drain, while we may, draughts of pleasure,
  Which from passion, like ours, must unceasingly flow;
Let us pass round the cup of Love’s bliss in full measure,
  And quaff the contents as our nectar below.

In thee, I fondly hop’d to clasp
  A friend, whom death alone could sever;
Till envy, with malignant grasp,
  Detach’d thee from my breast for ever.


True, she has forc’d thee from my breast,
  Yet, in my heart, thou keep’st thy seat;
There, there, thine image still must rest,
  Until that heart shall cease to beat.

And, when the grave restores her dead,
  When life again to dust is given,
On thy dear breast I’ll lay my head—
  Without thee! where would be my Heaven?

Let Folly smile, to view the names
  Of thee and me, in Friendship twin’d;
Yet Virtue will have greater claims
  To love, than rank with vice combin’d.

And though unequal is thy fate,
  Since title deck’d my higher birth;
Yet envy not this gaudy state,
  Thine is the pride of modest worth.

Our souls at least congenial meet,
  Nor can thy lot my rank disgrace;
Our ******* is not less sweet,
  Since worth of rank supplies the place.

“Nil ego contulerim jucundo sanus amico.”—HORACE.


Dear LONG, in this sequester’d scene,
  While all around in slumber lie,
The joyous days, which ours have been
  Come rolling fresh on Fancy’s eye;
Thus, if, amidst the gathering storm,
While clouds the darken’d noon deform,
Yon heaven assumes a varied glow,
I hail the sky’s celestial bow,
Which spreads the sign of future peace,
And bids the war of tempests cease.
Ah! though the present brings but pain,
I think those days may come again;
Or if, in melancholy mood,
Some lurking envious fear intrude,
To check my *****’s fondest thought,
  And interrupt the golden dream,
I crush the fiend with malice fraught,
  And, still, indulge my wonted theme.
Although we ne’er again can trace,
  In Granta’s vale, the pedant’s lore,
Nor through the groves of Ida chase
  Our raptured visions, as before;
Though Youth has flown on rosy pinion,
And Manhood claims his stern dominion,
Age will not every hope destroy,
But yield some hours of sober joy.

  Yes, I will hope that Time’s broad wing
Will shed around some dews of spring:
But, if his scythe must sweep the flowers
Which bloom among the fairy bowers,
Where smiling Youth delights to dwell,
And hearts with early rapture swell;
If frowning Age, with cold controul,
Confines the current of the soul,
Congeals the tear of Pity’s eye,
Or checks the sympathetic sigh,
Or hears, unmov’d, Misfortune’s groan
And bids me feel for self alone;
Oh! may my ***** never learn
  To soothe its wonted heedless flow;
Still, still, despise the censor stern,
  But ne’er forget another’s woe.
Yes, as you knew me in the days,
  O’er which Remembrance yet delays,
Still may I rove untutor’d, wild,
  And even in age, at heart a child.

Though, now, on airy visions borne,
  To you my soul is still the same.
Oft has it been my fate to mourn,
  And all my former joys are tame:
But, hence! ye hours of sable hue!
  Your frowns are gone, my sorrows o’er:
By every bliss my childhood knew,
  I’ll think upon your shade no more.
Thus, when the whirlwind’s rage is past,
  And caves their sullen roar enclose
We heed no more the wintry blast,
  When lull’d by zephyr to repose.
Full often has my infant Muse,
  Attun’d to love her languid lyre;
But, now, without a theme to choose,
  The strains in stolen sighs expire.
My youthful nymphs, alas! are flown;
  E——is a wife, and C——a mother,
And Carolina sighs alone,
  And Mary’s given to another;
And Cora’s eye, which roll’d on me,
  Can now no more my love recall—
In truth, dear LONG, ’twas time to flee—
  For Cora’s eye will shine on all.
And though the Sun, with genial rays,
His beams alike to all displays,
And every lady’s eye’s a sun,
These last should be confin’d to one.
The soul’s meridian don’t become her,
Whose Sun displays a general summer!
Thus faint is every former flame,
And Passion’s self is now a name;
As, when the ebbing flames are low,
  The aid which once improv’d their light,
And bade them burn with fiercer glow,
  Now quenches all their sparks in night;
Thus has it been with Passion’s fires,
  As many a boy and girl remembers,
While all the force of love expires,
  Extinguish’d with the dying embers.

  But now, dear LONG, ’tis midnight’s noon,
And clouds obscure the watery moon,
Whose beauties I shall not rehearse,
Describ’d in every stripling’s verse;
For why should I the path go o’er
Which every bard has trod before?
Yet ere yon silver lamp of night
  Has thrice perform’d her stated round,
Has thrice retrac’d her path of light,
  And chas’d away the gloom profound,
I trust, that we, my gentle Friend,
Shall see her rolling orbit wend,
Above the dear-lov’d peaceful seat,
Which once contain’d our youth’s retreat;
And, then, with those our childhood knew,
We’ll mingle in the festive crew;
While many a tale of former day
Shall wing the laughing hours away;
And all the flow of souls shall pour
The sacred intellectual shower,
Nor cease, till Luna’s waning horn,
Scarce glimmers through the mist of Morn.

Eliza! what fools are the Mussulman sect,
  Who, to woman, deny the soul’s future existence;
Could they see thee, Eliza! they’d own their defect,
  And this doctrine would meet with a general resistance.

Had their Prophet possess’d half an atom of sense,
  He ne’er would have woman from Paradise driven;
Instead of his Houris, a flimsy pretence,
  With woman alone he had peopled his Heaven.

Yet, still, to increase your calamities more,
  Not content with depriving your bodies of spirit,
He allots one poor husband to share amongst four!—
  With souls you’d dispense; but, this last, who could bear it?

His religion to please neither party is made;
  On husbands ’tis hard, to the wives most uncivil;
Still I can’t contradict, what so oft has been said,
  “Though women are angels, yet wedlock’s the devil.”

This terrible truth, even Scripture has told,
  Ye Benedicks! hear me, and listen with rapture;
If a glimpse of redemption you wish to behold,
  Of ST. MATT.—read the second and twentieth chapter.

’Tis surely enough upon earth to be vex’d,
  With wives who eternal confusion are spreading;
“But in Heaven” (so runs the Evangelists’ Text)
  “We neither have giving in marriage, or wedding.”

From this we suppose, (as indeed well we may,)
  That should Saints after death, with their spouses put up more,
And wives, as in life, aim at absolute sway,
  All Heaven would ring with the conjugal uproar.

Distraction and Discord would follow in course,
  Nor MATTHEW, nor MARK, nor ST. PAUL, can deny it,
The only expedient is general divorce,
  To prevent universal disturbance and riot.

But though husband and wife, shall at length be disjoin’d,
  Yet woman and man ne’er were meant to dissever,
Our chains once dissolv’d, and our hearts unconfin’d,
  We’ll love without bonds, but we’ll love you for ever.

Though souls are denied you by fools and by rakes,
  Should you own it yourselves, I would even then doubt you,
Your nature so much of celestial partakes,
  The Garden of Eden would wither without you.

Oh! might I kiss those eyes of fire,
A million scarce would quench desire;
Still would I steep my lips in bliss,
And dwell an age on every kiss;
Nor then my soul should sated be,
Still would I kiss and cling to thee:
Nought should my kiss from thine dissever,
Still would we kiss and kiss for ever;
E’en though the numbers did exceed
The yellow harvest’s countless seed;
To part would be a vain endeavour:
Could I desist?—ah! never—never.