TO JULIA.

THOUGH Fate, my girl, may bid us part,
Our souls it cannot, shall not sever;
The heart will seek its kindred heart,
And cling to it as close as ever.

But must we, must we part indeed?
Is all our dream of rapture over?
And does not Julia's bosom bleed

To leave so dear, so fond a lover?

Does she too mourn?-Perhaps she may; Perhaps she mourns our bliss so fleeting⚫ But why is Julia's eye so gay,

If Julia's heart like mine is beating?

I oft have lov'd that sunny glow

Of gladness in her blue eye gleamingBut can the bosom bleed with woe,

While joy is in the glances beaming? No, no!-Yet, love, I will not chide; Although your heart were fond of roving, Ivor that, nor all the world beside

Could keep your faithful boy from loving

You'll soon be distant from his eye,

And, with you, all that's worth possessing Oh! then it will be sweet to die,

When life has lost its only blessing!

Το

SWEET lady, look not thus again:

Those bright deluding smiles recall
A maid re member'd now with pain,
Who was my love, my life, my all!
Oh! while this heart bewilder'd took
Sweet poison from her thrilling eye,
Thus would she smile, and lisp, and look,
And I would hear, and gaze, and sigh!

Yes, I did love her-wildly love-
She was her sex's best deceiver!
And oft she swore she'd never rove-

And I was destin'd to believe her!

Then, lady, do not wear the smile

Of one whose smile could thus betray; Alas! I think the lovely wile

Again could steal my heart away.

For, when those spells that charm'd my mind,
On lips so pure as thine I see,

I fear the heart which she resign'd
Will err again, and fly to thee!

NATURE'S LABELS.

A FRAGMENT.

In vain we fondly strive to trace

The soul's reflection in the face;

In vain we dwell on lines and crosses,
Crooked mouth, or short proboscis;
Boobies have look'd as wise and bright
As Plato or the Stagirite:

And many a sage and learned skull
Has peep'd through windows dark and dul.
Since then, though art do all it can,
We ne'er can reach the inward man,
Nor (howsoe'er "learn'd Thebans" doubt)
The inward woman, from without,
Methinks 'twere well if Nature could
(And Nature could, if Nature would)
Some pithy, short descriptions write,
On tablets large, in black and white,
Which she might hang about our throttles,
Like labels upon physic-bottles;

And where all men might read-but stay-
As dialectic sages say,

The argument most apt and ample
For common use is the example.

For instance, then, if Nature's care Had not portray'd, in lines so fair, The inward soul of Lucy L-nd-n, This is the label she'd have pinn'd on.

LABEL FIRST.

Within this form there lies enshrin'd
The purest, brightest gem of mind.

Though Feeling's hand may sometimes throw
Upon its charms the shade of woe,

The lustre of the gem, when veil'd,

Shall be but mellow'd, not conceal'd.

Now, sirs, imagine, if you're able,
That Nature wrote a second label,
They're her own words,-at least suppose so-
And boldly pin it on Pomposo.

LABEL SECOND.

When I compos'd the fustian brain
Of this redoubted Captain Vain,
I had at hand but few ingredients,
And so was forc'd to use expedients
I put therein some small discerning,
A grain of sense, a grain of learning;
And when I saw the void behind.
I fill'd it up with-froth and wind'

TO JULIA.

ON HER BIRTHDAY

WHEN Time was entwining the garland of years,
Which to crown my beloved was given,
Though some of the leaves might be sullied with tears,
Yet the flow'rs were all gather'd in heaven.

And long may this garland be sweet to the eye,
May its verdure for ever be new;

Young Love shall enrich it with many a sigh,
And Sympathy nurse it with dew.

A REFLECTION AT SEA.

SEE how, beneath the moonbeam's smile,
Yon little billow heaves its breast,
And foams and sparkles for awhile,-
Then murmuring subsides to rest.

Thus man, the sport of bliss and care,
Rises on time's eventful sea;

And, having swell'd a moment there,
Thus melts into eternity!

CLORIS AND FANNY. CLORIS! if I were Persia's king,

I'd make my graceful queen of thee; While FANNY, wild and artless thing, Should but thy humble handmaid be.

There is but one objection in it-
That, verily, I'm much afraid
I should, in some unlucky minute,
Forsake the mistress for the maid.

THE SHIELD.

SAY, did you not hear a voice of death!
And did you not mark the paly form
Which rode on the silvery mist of the heath,
And sung a ghostly dirge in the storm?
Was it the wailing bird of the gloom,

That shrieks on the house of woe all night! Or a shiv'ring fiend that flew to a tomb,

To howl and to feed till the glance of light? 'Twas not the death-bird's cry from the wood, For shiv'ring fiend that hung on the blast; 'Twas the shade of Helderic-man of bloodIt screams for the guilt of days that are past.

Last night, 'tis in vain to deny it,

Your Soul took a fancy to roam,
For I heard her, on tiptoe so quiet,
Come ask, whether mine was at home.

And mine let her in with delight,

And they talk'd and they laugh'd the time through; For, when souls come together at night,

There is no saying what they mayn't do!

And your little Soul, heaven bless her!
Had much to complain and to say,
Of how sadly you wrong and oppress her
By keeping her prison'd all day.

I. I happen," said she, "but to steal
"For a peep now and then to her eye,
Or, to quiet the fever I feel,
"Just venture abroad on a sigh;

In an instant she frightens me in

"With some phantom of prudence or terror,
For fear I should stray into sin,
"Or, what is still worse, into error!

So, instead of displaying my graces,
"By daylight, in language and mien,
"I am shut up in corners and places,
“Where truly I blush to be seen!"
Upon hearing this piteous confession,
My Soul, looking tenderly at her,
Declar'd, as for grace and discretion,

He did not know much of the matter;
"But, to-morrow, sweet Spirit!" he said,
"Be at home after midnight, and then
"I will come when your lady's in bed,
"And we'll talk o'er the subject again."

So she whisper'd a word in his ear,
I suppose to her door to direct him,
And, just after midnight, my dear,
Your polite little soul may expect him

TO ROSA.

WRITTEN DURING ILLNESS.

THE wisest soul, by anguish torn,
Will soon unlearn the lore it knew;
And when the shrining casket's worn,
The gem within will tarnish too.

But love's an essence of the soul,
Which sinks not with this chain of clay;
Which throbs beyond the chill control
Of with'ring pain or pale decay.
And surely, when the touch of Death
Dissolves the spirit's earthly ties,
Love still attends th' immortal breath,
And makes it purer for the skies!

NEVER mind how the pedagogue proses,
You went not antiquity's stamp;
A lip, that such fragrance discloses,

Oh! never should smell of the lamp.

Old Cloe, whose withering kiss

Hath long set the Loves at defiance,
Now, done with the science of bliss,
May take to the blisses of science.
But for you to be buried in books-
Ah, Fanny, they're pitiful sages,
Who could not in one of your looks
Read more than in millions of pages.
Astronomy finds in those eyes

Better light than she studies above;
And Music would borrow your sighs
As the melody fittest for Love.

Your Arithmetic only can trip

If to count your own charms you endeavour; And eloquence glows on your lip

When you swear, that you'll love me for ever.

Thus you see, what a brilliant alliance
Of arts is assembled in you;-
A course of more exquisite science
Man never need wish to pursue.

And, oh!-if a Fellow like me

May confer a diploma of hearts, With my lip thus I seal your degree, My divine little Mistress of Arts!

ON THE DEATH OF A LADY.

SWEET spirit! if thy airy sleep

Nor sees my tears nor hears my sighs, Then will I weep, in anguish weep,

Till the last heart's drop fills mine eyes.

But if thy sainted soul can feel,

And mingles in our misery;
Then, then my breaking heart I'll seal-
Thou shalt not hear one sigh from me.

The beam of morn was on the stream,
But sullen clouds the day deform:
Like thee was that young, orient beam,
Like death, alas, that sullen storm!

Thou wert not form'd for living here,
So link'd thy soul was with the sky;
Yet, ah, we held thee all so dear,
We thought thou wert not form'd to un

With olive-branch I bound thy head,
Heart's ease along thy path I shed,

Which was to bloom through all thy years
Nor yet did I forget to bind
Love's roses, with his myrtle twin'd,
And dew'd by sympathetic tear.

Such was the wild but precious boon
Which Fancy, at her magic noon,

Bade me to Nona's image pay;
And where it thus my fate to be
Thy little guardian deity,

How blest around thy steps I'd play.

Thy life in peace should glide along,
Calm as some lonely shepherd's song

That's heard at distance in the grove;
No cloud should ever dim thy sky,
No thorns along thy pathway lie,

But all be beauty, peace, and love.
Indulgent Time should never bring
To thee one blight upon his wing,

So gently o'er thy brow he'd fly;
And death itself should but be felt
Like that of daybeams, when they melt,
Bright to the last, in evening's sky!

INCONSTANCY.

AND do I then wonder that Julia deceives me,
When surely there's nothing in nature more common
She vows to be true, and while vowing she leaves me→
And could I expect any more from a woman?

Oh, woman! your heart is a pitiful treasure;
And Mahomet's doctrine was not too severe,
When he held that you were but materials of pleasure,
And reason and thinking were out of your sphere

By your heart, when the fond sighing lover can win it,
He thinks that an age of anxiety's paid;
But, oh, while he's blest, let him die at the minute-
If he live but a day, he'll be surely betray'd.

ELEGIAC STANZAS,

SUPPOSED TO BE WRITTEN BY JULIA, ON THE DEATH
OF HER BROTHER.

THOUGH Sorrow long has worn my heart;
Though every day I've counted o'er
Hath brought a new and quick'ning smart
To wounds that rankled fresh before;

Though in my earliest life bereft
Of tender links by nature tied;
Though hope deceiv'd, and pleasure left,
Though friends betray'd and foes belied;

I still had hopes-for hope will stay
After the sunset of delight;

So like the star which ushers day,
We scarce can think it heralds night!--

I hop'd that, after all its strife,
My weary heart at length should rest,
And, fainting from the waves of life,
Find harbour in a brother's breast.

That brother's breast was warm with truth,
Was bright with honour's purest ray;
He was the dearest, gentlest youth-
Ah, why then was he torn away?

He should have stay'd, have linger'd here
To soothe his Julia's every woe;
He should have chas'd each bitter tear,
And not have ca is'd those tears to flow

We saw within his soul expand

The fruits of genius, nurs'd by taste;
While Science, with a fost'ring hand,
Upon his brow her chaplet plac'd

We saw, by bright degrees, his mind

Grow rich in all that makes men dear;Enlighten'd, social, and refin'd,

In friendship firm, in love sincere.

Such was the youth we lov'd so well,
And such the hopes that fate denied ;-
We lov'd, but ah! could scarcely tell
How deep, how dearly, till he died!

Close as the fondest links could strain,
Twin'd with my very heart he grew;
And by that fate which breaks the chain,
The heart is almost broken .oo.

TO THE LARGE AND BEAUTIFUL MISS....

IN ALLUSION TO SOME PARTNERSHIP IN A LOTTERY SHARE

IN wedlock a species of lottery lies,

Where in blanks and in prizes we deal;
But how comes it that you, such a capital prize,
Should so long have remain'd in the wheel?

If ever, by Fortune's indulgent decree,
To me such a ticket should roll,

A sixteenth, Heav'n knows! were sufficient for me;
For what could I do with the whole?

A DREAM.

I THOUGHT this heart enkindled lay On Cupid's burning shrine:

I thought he stole thy heart away,
And plac'd it near to mine.

I saw thy heart begin to melt,
Like ice before the sun;
Till both a glow congenial felt,
And mingled into one!

ΤΟ

WITH all my Joul, then, let us part,

Since both are anxious to be free;
And I will send you home your heart,
If you will send back mine to me.

We've had some happy hours together,
But joy must often change its wing;
And spring would be but gloomy weather,
If we had nothing else but spring.

'Tis not that I expect to find

A more devoted, fond and true one, With rosier cheek or sweeter mindEnough for me that she's a new one. Thus let us leave the bower of love,

Where we have loiter'd long in bliss; And you may down that pathway rove, While I shall take my way through this

ANACREONTIC.

"SHE never look'd so kind before"Yet why the wanton's smile recall? "I've seen this witchery o'er and o'er, ""Tis hollow, vain, and heartless all!"

Thus I said and, sighing, drain'd

The cup which she so late had tasted;
Upon whose rim still fresh remain'
The breath, so oft in falsehood wasted.

I took the harp, and would have sung
As if 'twere not of her I sang;
But still the notes on Lamia hung-

On whom cut Lainia could they hang? Those eyes of hers, that floating shine, Like diamonds ir some Eastern river; hat kiss, for whia, if worlds were mine, A world for ever ass I'd give her.

That frame so delicate, yet warm'd
With flushes of love's genial hue;
A mould transparent, as if form'd

To let the spirit's light shine through

Of these I sung, and notes and words
Were sweet, as if the very air
From Lamia's lip hung o'er the chords,
And Lamia's voice still warbled there!
But when, alas, I turn'd the theme,
And when of vows and oaths I spcke,
Of truth and hope's seducing dream-
The chord beneath my finger broke.

False harp! false woman!-such, oh, such
Are lutes too frail and hearts too willing;
Any hand, whate'er its touch,

Can set their chords or pulses thrilling.

And when that thrill is most awake,

And when you think Heaven's joys await you The nymph will change, the chord will breakOh Love, oh Music, how I hate you!

TO JULIA.

I SAW the peasant's hand unkind From yonder oak the ivy sever; They seem'd in very being twin'd; Yet now the oak is fresh as ever!

Not so the widow'd ivy shines:

Torn from its dear and only stay,
In drooping widowhood it pines,
And scatters all its bloom away.

Thus, Julia, did our hearts entwine,
Till fate disturb'd their tender ties:
Thus gay indifference blooms in thine,
While mine, deserted, droops and dies!

HYMN OF A VIRGIN OF DELPHI,

AT THE TOMB OF HER MOTHER

Он, lost, for ever lost-no more
Shall Vesper light our dewy way
Along the rocks of Crissa's shore,
To hymn the fading fires of day;
No more to Tempé's distant vale

In holy musings shall we roam,
Through summer's glow and winter's gale,
To bear the mystic chaplets home.
'Twas then my soul's expanding zeal,
By nature warm'd and led by thee,
In every breeze was taught to feel
The breathings of a Deity.
Guide of my heart! still hovering round,
Thy looks, thy words are still my own-
I see thee raising from the ground

Some laurel, by the winds o'erthrown, And hear thee say, "This humble bough "Was planted for a doom divine; "And, though it droop in languor now, "Shall flourish on the Delphic shrine! "Thus, in the vale of earthly sense,

"Though sunk awhile the spirit lies, "A viewless hand shall cull it thence, "To bloom immortal in the skies."

All that the young should feel and know,
By thee was taught so sweetly well,
Thy words fell soft as vernal snow,
And all was brightness where they fell
Fond soother of my infant tear,

Fond sharer of my infant joy,
Is not thy shade still ling'ring here?
Am I not still thy soul's empley?
Oh yes-and, as in former days,

When, meeting on the sacred mount, Our nymphs awak'd their choral lays, And danc'd around Cassotis' fount;

As then, 'twas all thy wish and care,
That mine should be the simplest mien,
My lyre and voice the sweetest there,

My foot the lightest o'er the green:
So still, each look and step to mould,
Thy guardian care is round me spread,
Arranging every snowy fold,

And guiding every mazy tread.
And, when I lead the hymning choir,
Thy spirit still, unseen and free,
Hovers between my lip and lyre,

And weds them into harmony.

Flow, Plistus, flow, thy murmuring wave
Shall never drop its silv'ry tear
Upon so pure, so blest a grave,
To memory so entirely dear!

LOVE AND MARRIAGE
STILL the question I must parry,
Still a wayward truant prove:
Where I love, I must not marry;
Where I marry, cannot love.
Were she fairest of creation,
With the least presuming mind;
Learned without affectation;
Not deceitful, yet refin'd;

Wise enough, but never rigid;
Gay, but not too lightly free;
Chaste as snow, and yet not frigid;
Fond, yet satisfied with me:

Were she all this ten times over,

All that heav'n to earth allows, I should be too much her lover

Ever to become her spouseLove will never bear enslaving; Summer garments suit him best; Bliss itself is not worth having, If we're by compulsion blest.

TO JULIA.

OUR hearts, my love, were form'd to be The genuine twins of Sympathy,

They live with one sensation: In joy or grief, but most in love, Like chords in unison they move, And thrill with like vibration.

How oft I've heard thee fondly say,
Thy vital pulse shall cease to play
When mine no more is moving;
Since, now, to feel a joy alone
Were worse to thee than feeling none
So twinn'd are we in loving!

THE SNAKE.

My Love and I, the other day,
Within a myrtle arbour lay,
When near us, from a rosy bed,
A little Snake put forth its head.

"See," said the maid with thoughtful eyes— "Yonder the fatal emblem lies!

"Who could expect such hidden harm

"Beneath the rose's smiling charm >"

Never did grave remark occur

Less à-propos than this from her

I rose to kill the snake, but she, Half-smiling, pray'd it might not be. "No," said the maiden-And, alas,

Her eyes spoke volumes while she said it"Long as the snake is in the grass,

"One may, perhaps, have cause to dread i: "But, when its wicked eyes appear,

"And when we know for what they wink sc, One must be very simple, dear,

"To let it wound one-don't you think so?"

TO ROSA.

Is the song of Rosa mute?

Once more such lays inspir'd ner lute! Never doth a sweeter song

Steal the breezy lyre along,

When the wind, in odours dying,
Wooes it with enamour'd sighing

Is my Rosa's lute unstrung?
Once a tale of peace it sung
To her lover's throbbing breast-
Then was he divinely blest!
Ah! but Rosa loves no more,
Therefore Rosa's song is o'er;
And her lute neglected lies;
And her boy forgotten sighs.
Silent lute-forgotten lover-
Rosa's love and song are over!

ELEGIAC STANZAS. WHEN wearied wretches sink to sleep, How heavenly soft their slumbers lie! How sweet is death to those who weep, To those who weep and long to die!

Saw you the soft and grassy bed,

Where flow'rets deck the green earth's breast' "Tis there I wish to lay my head,

'Tis there I wish to sleep at rest.

Oh, let not tears embalm my tomb,-
None but the dews at twilight given!
Oh, let not sighs disturb the gloor:
None but the whisp'ring winds of heaven

THE TEAR.

ON beds of snow the moonbeam slept,
And chilly was the midnight gloom,
When by the damp grave Ellen wept-
Fond maid! it was her Lindor's tomb!

A warm tear gush'd, the wintry air
Congeal'd it as it flow'd away:
All night it lay an ice-drop there,
At morn it glitter'd in the ray.

An angel, wand'ring from her sphere,
Who saw this bright, this frozen gem,
To dew-ey'd Pity brought the tear,
And hung it on her diadem?

ANACREONTIC.

I FILL'D to thee, to thee I drank,
I nothing did but drink and fill;
The bowl by turns was bright and lank,
'Twas drinking, filling, drinking still.

At length I bid an artist paint

Thy image in this ample cup, That I might see the dimpled saint To whom I quaff'd my nectar up

Behold, how bright that purple lip Now blushes through the wave at me Every roseate drop I sip

Is just like kissing wine from thee

And still I drink the more for this:

For, ever when the draught I drain, Thy lip invites another kiss,

And-in the nectar flows again.

So, here's to thee, my gentle dear,
And may that eyelid never shine
Beneath a darker, bitterer tear

Than bathes it in this bowl of mine!