Oh! sweet is the tear on that languishing smile,
That smile, which is loveliest then ;

And if such are the drops that delight can beguile,
Thou shalt weep them again and again.

LIGHT SOUNDS THE HARP.

LIGHT Sounds the harp when the combat is over,
When heroes are resting, and joy is in bloom;
When laurels hang loose from the brow of the
lover,

And Cupid makes wings of the warrior's plume.
But, when the foe returns,
Again the hero burns;

High flames the sword in his hand once more :
The clang of mingling arms

Is then the sound that charms,
And brazen notes of war, that stirring trumpets
pour ;-

Then, again comes the Harp, when the combat is

over

When heroes are resting, and Joy is in bloomWhen laurels hang loose from the brow of the lover,

And Cupid makes wings of the warrior's plume.

Light went the harp when the War-God, reclining,
Lay lull'd on the white arm of Beauty to rest,
When round his rich armour the myrtle hung
twining,

And flights of young doves made his helmet
their nest.

But, when the battle came,
The hero's eye breath'd flame :

Soon from his neck the white arm was flung;

While, to his wak'ning ear,

No other sounds were dear

When your lip has met mine, in communion so
sweet,

Have we felt as if virtue forbid it?
Have we felt as if heav'n denied them to meet ?-
No, rather 'twas heav'n that did it.

But brazen notes of war, by thousand trumpets So innocent, love, is the joy we then sip,

Still flying from Nature to study her laws,
And dulling delight by exploring its cause,
You forget how superior, for mortals below,
Is the fiction they dream to the truth that they
know.

Oh! who, that has e'er enjoyed rapture complete,
Would ask how we feel it, or why it is sweet;
How rays are confus'd, or how particles fly
Through the medium refin'd of a glance or a sigh;
Is there one, who but once would not rather have
known it,

Than written, with Harvey, whole volumes upon it?

As for you, my sweet-voiced and invisible love,
You must surely be one of those spirits, that rove
By the bank where, at twilight, the poet reclines,
When the star of the west on his solitude shines,
And the magical fingers of fancy have hung
Every breeze with a sigh, every leaf with a tongue.
Oh! hint to him then, 'tis retirement alone
Can hallow his harp or ennoble its tone;
Like you, with a veil of seclusion between,
His song to the world let him utter unseen,
And like you, a legitimate child of the spheres,
Escape from the eye to enrapture the ears.

Sweet spirit of mystery! how I should love,
In the wearisome ways I am fated to rove,
To have you thus ever invisibly nigh,

Inhaling for ever your song and your sigh!
Mid the crowds of the world and the murmurs of
care,

I might sometimes converse with my nymph of the
air,

And turn with distaste from the clamorous crew,
To steal in the pauses one whisper from you.

Then, come and be near me, for ever be mine,
We shall hold in the air a communion divine,
As sweet as, of old, was imagin'd to dwell
In the grotto of Numa, or Socrates' cell.
And oft, at those lingering moments of night,
When the heart's busy thoughts have put slumber

to flight,

You shall come to my pillow and tell me of love,
Such as angel to angel might whisper above.
Sweet spirit!-and then, could you borrow the

tone

known,

That you're not a true daughter of ether and light, Of that voice, to my ear like some fairy-song
Nor have any concern with those fanciful forms
That dance upon rainbows and ride upon storms;
That, in short, you're a woman; your lip and

your eye

As mortal as ever drew gods from the sky.
But I will not believe them-no, Science, to you
I have long bid a last and a careless adieu :

The voice of the one upon earth, who has twin'd
With her being for ever my heart and my mind,
Though lonely and far from the light of her smile,
An exile, and weary and hopeless the while,
Could you shed for a moment her voice on my ear,
I will think, for that moment, that Cara is near;