The happy Lindor, with a look
That every hope confessed,
Her glowing hand exulting took,
And press’d it, as she fearful shook,
In silence to his breast.
Myrtilla felt the spreading flame,
Yet knew not how to chide;
So sweet it mantled o’er her frame,
That, with a smile of pride and shame,
She own’d herself his bride.
No longer then, ye fair, complain,
And call the fates unkind;
The high, the low, the meek, the vain,
Shall each a sympathetick swain,
Another self shall find.
To a Lady Who Spoke Slightingly of Poets.
Oh, censure not the Poet’s art,
Nor think it chills the feeling heart
To love the gentle Muses.
Can that which in a stone or flower,
As if by transmigrating power,
His gen’rous soul infuses;
Can that for social joys impair
The heart that like the lib’ral air
All Nature’s self embraces;
That in the cold Norwegian main,
Or mid the tropic hurricane
Her varied beauty traces;
That in her meanest work can find
A fitness and a grace combin’d
In blest harmonious union,
That even with the cricket holds,
As if by sympathy of souls,
Mysterious communion;
Can that with sordid selfishness
His wide-expanded heart impress,
Whose consciousness is loving;
Who, giving life to all he spies,
His joyous being multiplies,
In youthfulness improving?
Oh, Lady, then, fair queen of Earth,
Thou loveliest of mortal birth,
Spurn not thy truest lover;
Nor censure him whose keener sense
Can feel thy magic influence
Where nought the world discover;
Whose eye on that bewitching face
Can every source unnumber’d trace
Of germinating blisses;
See Sylphids o’er thy forehead weave
The lily-fibred film, and leave
It fix’d with honied kisses;
While some within thy liquid eyes,
Like minnows of a thousand dies
Through lucid waters glancing,
In busy motion to and fro,
The gems of diamond-beetles sow,
Their lustre thus enhancing;
Here some, their little vases fill’d
With blushes for thy cheek distill’d
From roses newly blowing,
Each tiny thirsting pore supply;
And some in quick succession by
The down of peaches strewing;
There others who from hanging bell
Of cowslip caught the dew that fell
While yet the day was breaking,
And o’er thy pouting lips diffuse
The tincture—still its glowing hues
Of purple morn partaking:
Here some, that in the petals prest
Of humid honeysuckles, rest
From nightly fog defended,
Flutter their fragrant wings between,
Like humming-birds that scarce are seen,
They seem with air so blended!
While some, in equal clusters knit.
On either side in circles flit,
Like bees in April swarming,
Their tiny weight each other lend,
And force the yielding cheek to bend,
Thy laughing dimples forming.