Oh, ’tis a touching thing, to make one weep,—­
A tender infant with its curtain’d eye,
Breathing as it would neither live nor die
With that unchanging countenance of sleep! 
As if its silent dream, serene and deep,
Had lined its slumber with a still blue sky
So that the passive cheeks unconscious lie
With no more life than roses—­just to keep
The blushes warm, and the mild, odorous breath. 
O blossom boy! so calm is thy repose. 
So sweet a compromise of life and death,
’Tis pity those fair buds should e’er unclose
For memory to stain their inward leaf,
Tinging thy dreams with unacquainted grief.

TO A SLEEPING CHILD.

II.

Thine eyelids slept so beauteously, I deem’d
No eyes could wake so beautiful as they: 
Thy rosy cheeks in such still slumbers lay,
I loved their peacefulness, nor ever dream’d
Of dimples:—­for those parted lips so seem’d,
I never thought a smile could sweetlier play,
Nor that so graceful life could chase away
Thy graceful death,—­till those blue eyes upbeam’d. 
Now slumber lies in dimpled eddies drown’d
And roses bloom more rosily for joy,
And odorous silence ripens into sound,
And fingers move to sound.—­All-beauteous boy! 
How thou dost waken into smiles, and prove,
If not more lovely thou art more like Love!

TO FANCY.

Most delicate Ariel! submissive thing,
Won by the mind’s high magic to its hest—­
Invisible embassy, or secret guest,—­
Weighing the light air on a lighter wing;—­
Whether into the midnight moon, to bring
Illuminate visions to the eye of rest,—­
Or rich romances from the florid West,—­
Or to the sea, for mystic whispering,—­
Still by thy charm’d allegiance to the will,
The fruitful wishes prosper in the brain,
As by the fingering of fairy skill,—­
Moonlight, and waters, and soft music’s strain,
Odors, and blooms, and my Miranda’s smile,
Making this dull world an enchanted isle.

FAIR INES.

O Saw ye not fair Ines? 
She’s gone into the West,
To dazzle when the sun is down,
And rob the world of rest: 
She took our daylight with her,
The smiles that we love best,
With morning blushes on her cheek,
And pearls upon her breast.

O turn again, fair Ines,
Before the fall of night,
For fear the moon should shine alone,
And stars unrivall’d bright;
And blessed will the lover be
That walks beneath their light,
And breathes the love against thy cheek
I dare not even write!

Would I had been, fair Ines,
That gallant cavalier,
Who rode so gaily by thy side,
And whisper’d thee so near! 
Were there no bonny dames at home,
Or no true lovers here,
That he should cross the seas to win
The dearest of the dear?