Ah! what are words to love like mine, And think that love can ne'er be true, Which meets me with no joyous sign, How keen my grief when leaving you. Your image fills my anxious breast, 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. 30 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 beloved, 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 beloved, soon or late shall o'ertake us, And our breasts, which alive with such sympathy glow, Will sleep in the grave till the blast shall awake us, When calling the dead, in earth's bosom laid low, Oh! then let us drain, while we may, draughts of pleasure, Which from passion like ours may unceasingly flow; Let us pass round the cup of love's bliss in full measure, And quaff the contents as our nectar below. 1805. TO CAROLINE Он 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-mor row 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 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 disposed 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: Hope, that could vary like the rainbow's hue, And gild their pinions as the moments flew; Peace, that reflection never frown'd away, By dreams of ill to cloud some future day; Friendship, whose truth let childhood only tell, Alas! they love not long, who love so well. To these adieu! nor let me linger o'er Scenes hail'd, as exiles hail their native shore, 89 Receding slowly through the dark-blue deep, Beheld by eyes that mourn yet cannot weep. Dorset, farewell! I will not ask one part Of sad remembrance in so young a heart; The coming morrow from thy youthful mind Will sweep my name, nor leave a trace behind. And yet, perhaps, in some maturer year, Since chance has thrown us in the self-same sphere, Since the same senate, nay, the same debate, May one day claim our suffrage for the state, We hence may meet, and pass each other by, Still, if the wishes of a heart untaught If these, but let me cease the lengthen'd strain, Oh! if these wishes are not breathed in There, in apartments small and damp, He surely well deserves to gain them, Who sacrifices hours of rest To scan precisely metres Attic; Or agitates his anxious breast In solving problems mathematic: Who reads false quantities in Seale, Still, harmless are these occupations, Which bring together the imprudent, Whose daring revels shock the sight, When vice and infamy combine, When drunkenness and dice invite, As every sense is steep'd in wine. Not so the methodistic crew, Who plans of reformation lay: In humble attitude they sue, And for the sins of others pray, Forgetting that their pride of spirit, Their exultation in their trial, Detracts most largely from the merit Of all their boasted self-denial. 30 4C 'Tis morn: from these I turn my sight. What scene is this which meets the eye? A numerous crowd, array'd in white, Across the green in numbers fly. 60 |