"E'er yet, o'er mortal brow, let shine "Such effluence of Love Divine, "As shall to-night, blest maid, o'er thine." Happy the maid, whom heaven allows To break for heaven her virgin vows! Happy the maid!- her robe of shame Is whiten'd by a heavenly flame, Whose glory, with a ling'ring trace, Shines through and deifies her race!! "Tis thus the world's obtrusive wrongs Obscure with malice keen Some timid heart, which only longs FRAGMENT. PITY me, love! I'll pity thee, With wearied sense and wakeful eye: Is murmur'd out in sighs for thee. A NIGHT THOUGHT. How oft a cloud, with envious veil, Obscures yon bashful light, Which seems so modestly to steal Along the waste of night! THE KISS. GROW to my lip, thou sacred kiss, In sighs at morn, and dreams at night, SONG. THINK on that look whose melting ray Think on thy ev'ry smile and glance, On all thou hast to charm and move; And then forgive my bosom's trance, Nor tell me it is sin to love. Oh, not to love thee were the sin; For sure, if Fate's decrees be done, Thou, thou art destin'd still to win, As I am destin'd to be won! 1 Fontenelle, in his playful rifacimento of the learned materials of Van-Dale, has related in his own inimitable manner an adventure of this kind which was detected and exposed at Alexandria. See L'Histoire des Oracles, dissert. 2. chap. vii. Crebillon, too, in one of his most amusing little stories, has made the Génie Mange-Taupes, of the Isle Jonquille, assert this privilege of spiritual beings in a manner rather formidable to the husbands of the island. SONG. ON THE BIRTHDAY OF MRS. WRITTEN IN IRELAND. 1799. Of all my happiest hours of joy, And even I have had my measure, When hearts were full, and ev'ry eye Hath kindled with the light of pleasure, An hour like this I ne'er was given, So full of friendship's purest blisses; Then come, my friends, this hour improve, Be thus with joy remember'd ever ! Oh banish ev'ry thought to-night, Which could disturb our soul's communion; Abandon'd thus to dear delight, We'll ev'n for once forget the Union! On that let statesmen try their pow'rs, And tremble o'er the rights they'd die for; The union of the soul be ours, And ev'ry union else we sigh for. Then come, my friends, &c. In ev'ry eye around I mark The feelings of the heart o'erflowing; From ev'ry soul I catch the spark Of sympathy, in friendship glowing. Oh! that we ne'er were doom'd to lose 'em ; Then come, my friends, &c. For me, whate'er my span of years, Or live, as now, for mirth and loving; And drink a health to bliss that's over! SONG. 1 MARY, I believ'd thee true, And I was blest in thus believing; These words were written to the pathetic Scotch air "Galla Water." But now I mourn that e'er I knew A girl so fair and so deceiving. Fare thee well. Few have ever lov'd like me, Yes, I have lov'd thee too sincerely! And few have e'er deceiv'd like thee,— Alas! deceiv'd me too severely. Fare thee well!-yet think awhile On one whose bosom bleeds to doubt thee; Who now would rather trust that smile, And die with thee than live without thee. Fare thee well! I'll think of thee, Thou leav'st me many a bitter token; For see, distracting woman, see, My peace is gone, my heart is broken!Fare thee well! MORALITY. A FAMILIAR EPISTLE. ADDRESSED TO J. AT-NS-N, ESQ. M. R. I. A. THOUGH long at school and college dosing, I must confess, my searches past, "Tis like the rainbow's shifting zone, The doctors of the Porch advise, As modes of being great and wise, That we should cease to own or know The luxuries that from feeling flow: — "Reason alone must claim direction, "And Apathy's the soul's perfection. But thus it is, all sects we see Have watchwords of morality: Some cry out Venus, others Jove; Here 'tis Religion, there 'tis Love. But while they thus so widely wander, While mystics dream, and doctors ponder; And some, in dialectics firm, Seek virtue in a middle term; While thus they strive, in Heaven's defiance, ! Aristippus. That Epictetus blam'd that tear, Oh! when I've seen the morning beam Floating within the dimpled stream; While Nature, wak'ning from the night, Has just put on her robes of light, Have I, with cold optician's gaze, Explor❜d the doctrine of those rays? No, pedants, I have left to you Nicely to sep'rate hue from hue. Go, give that moment up to art, When Heaven and nature claim the heart; And, dull to all their best attraction, Go-measure angles of refraction. While I, in feeling's sweet romance, Look on each daybeam as a glance From the great eye of Him above, Wak'ning his world with looks of love! THE TELL-TALE LYRE. I've heard, there was in ancient days 'Twas play'd on by the gentlest sighs, And to their breath it breath'd again In such entrancing melodies As ear had never drunk till then! Not harmony's serenest touch So stilly could the notes prolong; They were not heavenly song so much As they were dreams of heavenly song! If sad the heart, whose murm'ring air Or if the sigh, serene and light, Was but the breath of fancied woes, The string, that felt its airy flight, Soon whisper'd it to kind repose. And when young lovers talk'd alone, If, mid their bliss that Lyre was near, It made their accents all its own, And sent forth notes that Heaven might hear. |