Oh! if thou hover'st round my walk, While, under every well-known tree, I to thy fancied Shadow talk, And every tear is full of thee: Should then the weary eye of grief, Oh, visit thou my soothing dream! TO AMANDA. UNLESS with my Amanda blest, Awaken'd by the genial year, In vain the birds around me sing; In vain the freshening fields appear: Without my Love there is no spring. BASHFUL LOVE. IIARD is the fate of him who loves, But to the sympathetic groves, But to the lonely listening plain. Oh! when she blesses next your shade; Oh! when her footsteps next are seen, In flowery tracts along the mead, In fresher mazes o'er the green; Ye gentle Spirits of the Vale, To whom the tears of love are dear, And sigh my sorrows in her ear: Oh, tell her what she cannot blame, Not her own guardian angel eyes But if, at first, her virgin fear Should start at Love's suspected name, With that of Friendship sooth her earTrue love and friendship are the same! THE NIGHTINGALE. O NIGHTINGALE, best poet of the grove! O lend that strain, sweet Nightingale to me! "Tis mine, alas! to mourn my wretched fate: You, happy birds! by nature's simple laws Lead your soft lives, sustain'd by nature's fare; You dwell wherever roving fancy draws, And love and song is all your pleasing care: But we, vain slaves of interest and of pride, Dare not be blest, lest envious tongue should blame; And hence, in vain I languish for my bride : O mourn with me, sweet bird! my helpless flame. TO DELIA. FAINT is my bounded bliss: not I refuse A while I'll weave the roofs of jasmine bowers, Of these lov'd flowers the lifeless corse may share, As when their master smil'd to see them glow: The sequent morn shall wake the silvan quire; While the rude hearse conveys me slow away, O DELIA! cheer'd by thy superior praise, To raise the moments crown'd with bliss and thee! VENUS AND FLORIO. THE star of Venus ushers in the day, The first the loveliest of the train that shine! The star of Venus lends her brightest ray When other stars their friendly beams resign. Still in my breast one soft desire remains, Pure as that star, from guilt, from interest free: Has gentle DELIA trip'd across the plains, And need I, Florio, name that wish to thee? While, cloy'd to find the scenes of life the same, I tune with careless hand my languid lays, Some secret impulse wakes my former flame, And fires my strain with hopes of brighter days. I slept not long beneath yon rural bowers; And lo! my crook with flowers adorn'd I see: Has gentle DELIA bound my crook with flowers, And need I, Florio, name my hopes to thee? BEAUTY'S UNIVERSAL POWER. PERHAPS it is not love (said I) That melts my soul, when FLAVIA's nigh; The beauties of her polish'd mind, 'It is not love ;'-averse to bear The servile chain that lovers wear! Let, let me all my fears remove, Oh! when did wit so brightly shine A PASTORAL BALLAD-IN FOUR PARTS. ABSENCE. YE shepherds so cheerful and gay, Nor talk of the change that ye find; I have left my dear Phillis behind. Now I know what it is to have strove And to leave her we love and admire. I have bade my dear Phillis farewell! Since Phillis vouchsaf'd me a look, |