LESBIA! since far from you I've ranged,
Our souls with fond affection glow not;
You say 't is I, not you, have changed,
I'd tell you why, but yet I know not.
Your polish'd brow no cares have crost;
And, Lesbia! we are not much older,
Since, trembling, first my heart I lost,
Or told my love, with hope grown bolder.
Sixteen was then our utmost age,
Two years have lingering past away, love! And not new thoughts our minds engage, At least I feel disposed to stray, love!
"T is I that am alone to blame,
I, that am guilty of love's treason; Since your sweet breast is still the same, Caprice must be my only reason.
I do not, love! suspect your truth,
With jealous doubt my bosom heaves not;
Warm was the passion of my youth,
One trace of dark deceit it leaves not.
No, no, my flame was not pretended;
For, oh! I loved you most sincerely;
And though our dream at last is ended-
My bosom still esteems you dearly.
No more we meet in yonder bowers;
Absence has made me prone to roving;
But older, firmer hearts than ours
Have found monotony in loving.
Your cheek's soft bloom is unimpair'd,
New beauties still are daily bright'ning,
Your eye for conquest beams prepared,
The forge of love's resistless lightning.
Arm'd thus, to make their bosoms bleed,
Many will throng to sigh like me, love!
More constant they may prove, indeed;
Fonder, alas! they ne'er can be, love!
THE roses of love glad the garden of life,
Though nurtured 'mid weeds dropping pestilent dew,
Till time crops the leaves with unmerciful knife,
Or prunes them for ever, in love's last adieu!
In vain with endearments we soothe the sad heart,
In vain do we vow for an age to be true;
The chance of an hour may command us to part,
Or death disunite us in love's last adieu !
Still Hope, breathing peace through the grief-swollen breast,
Will whisper, "Our meeting we yet may renew:"
With this dream of deceit half our sorrow 's represt,
Nor taste we the poison of love's last adieu !
Oh! mark you yon pair: in the sunshine of youth
Love twined round their childhood his flow'rs as they grew; They flourish awhile in the season of truth,
Till chill'd by the winter of love's last adieu !
Sweet lady! why thus doth a tear steal its way
Down a cheek which outrivals thy bosom in hue?
Yet why do I ask ?—to distraction a prey,
Thy reason has perish'd with love's last adieu!
Oh! who is yon misanthrope, shunning mankind ?
From cities to caves of the forest he flew :
There, raving, he howls his complaint to the wind;
The mountains reverberate love's last adieu!
Now hate rules a heart which in love's easy chains
Once passion's tumultuous blandishments knew ;
Despair now inflames the dark tide of his veins;
He ponders in frenzy on love's last adieu !
How he envies the wretch with a soul wrapt in steel!
His pleasures are scarce, yet his troubles are few,
Who laughs at the pang that he never can feel,
And dreads not the anguish of love's last adieu!
Youth flies, life decays, even hope is o'ercast;
No more with love's former devotion we sue;
He spreads his young wing, he retires with the blast ;
The shroud of affection is love's last adieu !
In this life of probation for rapture divine,
Astrea declares that some penance is due ;
From him who has worshipp'd at love's gentle shrine,
The atonement is ample in love's last adieu!
Who kneels to the god, on his altar of light
Must myrtle and cypress alternately strew:
His myrtle, an emblem of purest delight;
His cypress, the garland of love's last adieu!
IN law an infant,* and in years a boy,
In mind a slave to every vicious joy;
From every sense of shame and virtue wean'd;
In lies an adept, in deceit a fiend;
Versed in hypocrisy, while yet a child
Fickle as wind, of inclinations wild;
Woman his dupe, his heedless friend a tool;
Old in the world, tho' scarcely broke from school;
Damætas ran through all the maze of sin,
And found the goal, when others just begin.
Even still conflicting passions shake his soul,
And bid him drain the dregs of pleasure's bowl;
But, pall'd with vice, he breaks his former chain,
And, what was once his bliss, appears his bane.
MARION! why that pensive brow?
What disgust to life hast thou?
Change that discontented air;
Frowns become not one so fair.
'Tis not love disturbs thy rest,
Love's a stranger to thy breast;
He in dimpling smiles appears,
Or mourns in sweetly timid tears,
Or bends the languid eyelid down,
But shuns the cold forbidding frown.
* In law, every person is an infant who has not attained the age of twenty-one.
Then resume thy former fire,
Some will love, and all admire ;
While that icy aspect chills us,
Nought but cool indifference thrills us.
Wouldst thou wandering hearts beguile,
Smile, at least, or seem to smile;
Eyes like thine were never meant
To hide their orbs in dark restraint;
Spite of all thou fain wouldst say,
Still in truant beams they play.
Thy lips, but here my modest Muse
Her impulse chaste must needs refuse.
She blushes, curtsies, frowns,-in short she
Dreads lest the subject should transport me ;
And flying off, in search of reason,
Brings prudence back in proper season.
All I shall therefore say (whate'er
I think is neither here nor there),
Is that such lips, of looks endearing,
Were form'd for better things than sneering.
Of soothing compliments divested,
Advice at least's disinterested;
Such is my artless song to thee,
From all the flow of flattery free;
Counsel, like mine, is as a brother's,
My heart is given to some others;
That is to say, unskill'd to cozen,
It shares itself amongst a dozen.
Marion, adieu! oh! prithee slight not
This warning, though it may delight not;
And, lest my precepts be displeasing
To those who think remonstrance teazing,
At once I'll tell thee our opinion,
Concerning woman's soft dominion :
Howe'er we gaze with admiration
On
eyes of blue, or lips carnation;
Howe'er the flowing locks attract us,
Howe'er those beauties may
distract us,
Still fickle, we are prone to rove,
These cannot fix our souls to love;
It is not too severe a stricture
To say they form a pretty picture.
But wouldst thou see the secret chain
Which binds us in humble train,
your
To hail you queens of all creation,
Know, in a word, 't is-Animation.
How sweetly shines, through azure skies,
The lamp of heaven on Lora's shore,
Where Alva's hoary turrets rise,
And hear the din of arms no more.
But often has yon rolling moon
On Alva's casques of silver play'd,
And view'd. at midnight's silent noon,
Her chiefs in gleaming mail array'd:
And on the crimson'd rocks beneath,
Which scowl o'er ocean's sullen flow,
Pale in the scatter'd ranks of death,
She saw the gasping warrior low;
While many an eye, which ne'er again
Could mark the rising orb of day,
Turn'd feebly from the gory plain,
Beheld in death her fading ray.
And, when that gale is fierce and high,
A sound is heard in yonder hall;
It rises hoarsely through the sky,
And vibrates o'er the mouldering wall.
* The catastrophe of this tale was suggested by the story of "Jeronymo and Lorenzo," in the first volume of "The Armenian, or Ghost-Seer." It also bears some resemblance to a scene in the third act of "Macbeth."
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