Open shall be my wicket-door;
And freely, when you chirp “adieu,”
I’ll wish you well, sweet warbler! too;
I’ll wish you many a summer-hour
On top of tree, or abbey-tow’r. 
When Spring her wasted form retrieves,
And gives your little roof its leaves,
May you (a happy lover) find
A kindred partner to your mind: 
And when, amid the tangled spray,
The sun shall shoot a parting ray,
May all within your mossy nest
Be safe, be merry, and be blest.

LINES TO DELIA,

ON HER WEARING A MUSLIN VEIL.

Say, Delia, why, in muslin shade,
  Ah! say, dost thou conceal those eyes? 
Such little stars were never made,
  I’m sure, to shine thro’ misty skies.

Say, are they wrapt in so much shade,
  That they may more successful rise,
Starting from such soft ambuscade,
  To catch and kill us by surprise?

Or, of their various pow’rs afraid,
  Is it in mercy to our sighs,
Lest love, o’er many a heart betray’d,
  Should sob “a faithful vot’ry dies”?

Then, oh! remove the envious shade;
  Let others wear, who want, disguise: 
We all had sooner die, sweet maid,
  To see, than live without, those eyes.

VERSES

TO THE TOMB OF A FRIEND.

Dearer to me, thou pile of dust! 
  Tho’ with the wild flow’r simply crown’d,
Than the vast dome or beauteous bust,
  By genius form’d, by wit renown’d.

Wave, thou wild flow’r! for ever wave,
  O’er my lov’d relic of delight;
My tears shall bathe her green-rob’d grave
  More than the dews of heav’n by night.

Methinks my Delia bids me go,
  Says, “Florio, dry that fruitless tear! 
Feed not a wild flow’r with thy woe,
  Thy long-lov’d Delia is not here.

“No drop of feeling from her eye
  Now starts to hear thy sorrows speak;
And, did thy bosom know one joy,
  No smile would bloom upon her cheek.

“Pale, wan, and torpid, droops that cheek,
  Whereon thy lip impress’d its red;
Those eyes, which Florio taught to speak,
  Unnotic’d close amid the dead!”

True, true, too idly mourns this heart;
  Why, Mem’ry, dost thou paint the past? 
Why say you saw my Delia part,
  Still press’d, still lov’d her, to the last?

Then, thou wild flow’r, for ever wave! 
  To thee this parting tear is given;
The sigh I offer at her grave
  Shall reach my sainted love in heaven!

TIME AND THE LOVER.

Oh, Time! thy merits who can know? 
  Thy real nature who discover? 
The absent lover calls thee slow,—­
  “Too rapid,” says the happy lover.

With bloom thy cheeks are now refin’d,
  Now to thine eye the tear is given;
At once too cruel and too kind,—­
  A little hell, a little heaven.