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 die.

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 ownI 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;

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 employ?
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!

1 The laurel, for the common uses of the temple, for adorn ing the altars and sweeping the pavement, was supplied by a tree near the fountain of Castalia; but upon all important occasions, they sent to Tempé for their laurel. We find, in Pausanias, that this valley supplied the branches, of which

LOVE AND MARRIAGE. Eque brevi verbo ferre perenne malum.

SECUNDUS, eleg. vii.

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 spouse.

Love will never bear enslaving;

Summer garments suit him best; Bliss itself is not worth having, If we're by compulsion blest.

ANACREONTIC.

I FILL'D to thee, to thee I drank,
I nothing did but drink and fill;
The bowl by turns was bright and blank,
'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!