3. 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. 41. 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. 5. 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? 6. Oh! cease to affirm that man, since his birth†, And Eden revives in the first kiss of love. *Your shepherds, your pipes," &c.-Private volume.-Ed. "Oh! cease to affirm that man, from his birth," &c.-Privat volume.-ED. 7. When age chills the blood, when our pleasures are past- TO M 1. On! did those eyes, instead of fire, 2. For thou art form'd so heavenly fair, 3. When Nature stamp'd thy beauteous birth, She fear'd that, too divine for earth, The skies might claim thee for their own: 4. Therefore, to guard her dearest work, 5. These might the boldest sylph appal, But who can dare thine ardent gaze? 6. 'Tis said that Berenice's hair In stars adorns the vault of heaven; 7. For did those eyes as planets roll, 1806. TO WOMAN. WOMAN! experience might have told me Oh Memory! thou choicest blessing And hear her plight the willing troth! "Woman, thy vows are traced in sand*” *The last line is almost a literal translation from a Spanish proverb. TO M. S. G. 1. WHEN I dream that you love me, you'll surely forgive; For in visions alone your affection can live,— 2. Then, Morpheus! envelope my faculties fast, Shed o'er me your languor benign; Should the dream of to-night but resemble the last, What rapture celestial is mine! 3. They tell us that slumber, the sister of death, Mortality's emblem is given; To fate how I long to resign my frail breath, If this be a foretaste of heaven! 4. Ah! frown not, sweet lady, unbend your soft brow, Nor deem me too happy in this; If I sin in my dream, I atone for it how, Thus doom'd but to gaze upon bliss. |