Forgetful of her broken vows,
When gazing on that form divine,
Her injur❜d vassal trembling bows,
Nor dares her slave repine.
HERE end my chains, and thraldom cease,
If not in joy, I'll live at least in peace;
Since for the pleasures of an hour
We must endure an age of pain,
I'll be this abject thing no more :
Love, give me back my heart again!
Despair tormented first my breast,
Now falsehood, a more cruel guest:
O! for the peace of human kind,
Make women longer true, or sooner kind;
With justice, or with mercy reign,
O Love! or give me back my heart again!
WHEN I think on your truth, I doubt you no more,
I blame all the fears I gave way to before:
I say to my heart, "be at rest, and believe
That whom once she has chosen she never will leave."
But, ah! when I think on each ravishing grace
That plays in the smiles of that heavenly face,
My heart beats again; I again apprehend
Some fortunate rival in every friend.
These painful suspicious you cannot remove;
Since you neither can lessen your charms, nor my love:
But doubts caus'd by passion you never can blame;
For they are not ill-founded, or you feel the same.
LULL'D in the arms of him she lov'd,
IANTHE sigh'd the kindest things:
Her fond surrender he approv'd
With smiles; and thus, enamour'd, sings.
"How sweet are lovers' vows by night,.
Lap'd in a honey-suckle grove!
When Venus sheds her gentle light,
And sooths the yielding soul to love.
Soft as the silent-footed dews
That steal upon the star-light hours;
Warm as a love-sick poet's muse;
And fragrant as the breath of flow'rs.
To hear our vows the moon grows pale,
And pants Endymion's warmth to prove;
While emulous, the Nightingale
Thick-warbling trills her lay of love.
The silver-sounding shining spheres
That animate the glowing skies,
Nor charm so much, as thou, my ears,
Nor bless so much, as thou, my eyes.
Thus let me clasp thee to my heart,
Thus sink in softness on thy breast!
No cares shall haunt us, danger part,
For ever loving, ever blest,
Censorious envy dares not blame,
The passion which thy truth inspires:
Ye stars, bear witness that my flame
Is chaste as your eternal fires."
Love saw them (hid among the boughs),
And heard him sing their mutual bliss!
'Enjoy,' cried he, 'IANTHE'S Vows;
But, oh! I envy thee her kiss."
TO IANTHE. A HYMN TO MAY.
WHERE lives the man (if such a man there be)
In idle wilderness or desert drear,
To beauty's sacred power an enemy?
Let foul fiends harrow him; I'll drop no tear.
I deem that carl by beauty's power unmov'd
Hated of Heaven, of none but Hell approv'd;
O may he never love, O never be belov'd!
Hard is his heart, unmelted by thee, May!
Unconscious of love's nectar-tickling sting,
And, unrelenting, cold to beauty's ray;
Beauty the mother and the child of spring!
Beauty and wit declare the sexes even;
Beauty to woman, wit to man is given;
Neither the slime of earth, but each the fire of Heaven.
Alliance sweet! let beauty wit approve,
As flowers to sunshine ope the ready breast;
Wit beauty loves, and nothing else can love;
The best alone is grateful to the best :
Perfection has no other parallel!
Can light with darkness, doves with ravens dwell?
As soon, perdie, shall Heaven communion hold with Hell.
Come then, IANTHE! milder than the Spring,
And grateful as the rosy month of May,
O come; the birds the hymn of Nature sing
Enchanting wild, from every bush and spray :
Swell the green-gems and teem along the vine,
A fragrant promise of the future wine;
The spirits to exalt, the genius to refine!
Let us our steps direct where father Thames
In silver windings draws his humid train,
And pours, where'er he rolls his naval streams,
Pomp on the city, plenty o'er the plain.
Or by the banks of Isis shall we stray,
(Ah, why so long from Isis banks away?)
Where thousand damsels dance, and thousand shepherds play.
Or choose you rather Theron's calm retreat,
Embosom'd, Surrey, in thy verdant vale,
At once the muses' and the graces' seat!
There gently listen to my faithful tale;
Along the dew-bright parterres let us rove;
Or taste the odours of the mazy-grove:
Hark! how the turtles coo;-I languish, too, with love!
Amid the pleasaunce of Areadian scenes,
Love steals his silent arrows on my breast;
Nor falls of water, nor enamell'd greens,
Can soothe my languish, or invite to rest.
You, dear IANTHE! you alone impart
Balm to my wounds, and cordial to my smart:
The apple of my eye, the life-blood of my heart.
With line of silk, with hook of barbed steel,
Beneath this oaken umbrage let us lay,
And from the water's crystal bosom steal
Upon the grassy bank the finny prey :
The perch, with purple speckled manifold;
The eel, in silver labrinth self roll'd;
And carp, all-burnish'd o'er with drops of scaly gold.
Or shall the meads invite, with Iris' hues
And nature's pencil gay diversify'd,
(For now the sun has lick'd away the dews);
Fair flushing, and bedeck'd like virgin bride?
Thither (for they invite us) we'll repair;
Collect and weave whate'er is sweet and fair,
A posy for thy breast, a garland for thy hair.
Fair is the lilly, clad in balmy snow;
Sweet is the rose, of spring the smiling eye:
Nipt by the winds, their heads the lilies bow;
Cropt by the hand, the roses fade and die.
Though now in pride of youth and beauty drest,
O think, IANTHE, cruel time lays waste
The roses of the cheek, the lilies of the breast.
Weep not; but rather, taught by this, improve
The present freshness of thy springing prime:
Bestow thy graces on the God of love,
Too precious for the wither'd arms of Time.
In chaste endearments, innocently gay,
IANTHE! now, now love thy spring away;
Ere cold October blasts despoil the bloom of May!
TELL me, thou Soul of her I love,
Ah! tell me, whither art thou fled;
To what delightful world above,
Appointed for the happy dead?
Or dost thou, free, at pleasure roam,
And sometimes share thy lover's woe,
Where, void of thee, his cheerless home
Can now, alas! no comfort know?
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