HERE recline you, gentle maid,
Sweet in this embowering shade;
Sweet the young, the modest trees,
Ruffled by the kissing breeze;
Sweet the little founts that weep,
Lulling soft the mind to sleep;
Hark! they whisper as they roll,
Calm persuasion to the soul;
Tell me, tell me, is not this
All a stilly scene of bliss?
Who, my girl, would pass it by?
Surely neither you nor I.
ONE day the Muses twined the hands
Of infant Love with flow'ry bands;
And to celestial Beauty gave
The captive infant for her slave.
His mother comes, with many a toy,
To ransom her beloved boy;
His mother sues, but all in vain,
He ne'er will leave his chains again
Even should they take his chains away,
The little captive still would stay.
"If this," he cries, 66 a bondage be,
Oh, who could wish for liberty ?"
OBSERVE when mother earth is dry,
She drinks the droppings of the sky,
And then the dewy cordial gives
To ev'ry thirsty plant that lives.
The vapors, which at evening weep,
Are beverage to the swelling deep;
And when the rosy sun appears,
He drinks the ocean's misty tears.
The moon too quaffs her paly stream
Of lustre, from the solar beam.
Then, hence with all your sober thir.king!
Since Nature's holy law is drinking;
I'll make the laws of nature mine,
And pledge the universe in wine.
THE Phrygian rock, that braves the storm,
Was once a weeping matron's form;
And Progue, hapless, frantic maid,
Is now a swallow in the shade.
Oh! that a mirror's form were mine,
That I might catch that smile divine;
And like my own fond fancy be,
Reflecting thee, and only thee;
Or could I be the robe which holds
That graceful form within its folds;
Or, turn'd into a fountain, lave
Thy beauties in my circling wave.
Would I were perfume for thy hair,
To breathe my soul in fragrance there;
Or, better still, the zone, that lies
Close to thy breast, and feels its sighs!
Or e'en those envious pearls that show
So faintly round that neck of snow —
Yes, I would be a happy gem,
Like them to hang, to fade like them.
What more would thy Anacreon be?
Or, any thing that touches thee ;
Nay, sandals for those airy feet-
E'en to be trod by them were sweet!
1 CFTEN wish this languid lyre, This warbler of my soul's desire,
Could raise the breath of song sublime,
To men of fame, in former time.
But when the soaring theme I try,
Along the chords my numbers die,
And whisper, with dissolving tone,
"Our sighs are given to love alone!"
Indignant at the feeble lay,
I tore the panting chords away,
Attuned them to a nobler swell,
And struck again the breathing shell;
In all the glow of epic fire,
To Hercules I wake the lyre.
But still its fainting sighs repeat,
"The tale of love alone is sweet!"
Then fare thee well, seductive dream,
That mad'st me follow Glory's theme;
For thou my lyre, and thou my heart,
Shall never more in spirit part;
And all that one has felt so well
The other shall as sweetly tell!
To all that breathe the air of heaven,
Some boon of strength has Nature given.
In forming the majestic bull,
She fenced with wreathed horns his skull
A hoof of strength she lent the steed,
And wing'd the timorous hare with speed.
She gave the lion fangs of terror,
And o'er the ocean's crystal mirror,
Taught the unnumber'd scaly throng
To trace their liquid path along;
While for the umbrage of the grove,
She plumed the warbling world of love.
To man she gave, in that proud hour,
The boon of intellectual power,
Then, what, oh woman, what, for thee,
Was left in Nature's treasury?
She gave thee beauty — mightier far
Than all the pomp and power of war.
Nor steel, nor fire itself hath power
Like woman in her conquering hour.
Be thou but fair, mankind adore thee,
Smile, and a world is weak before thee!
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