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,
Beside some sympathetic stream,
In slumber find a short relief,

Oh, visit thou my soothing dream!

TO AMANDA.

UNLESS with my Amanda blest,
In vain I twine the woodbine bower;
Unless to deck her sweeter breast,
In vain I rear the breathing flower!

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,
Yet dares not tell his trembling pain

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,
From dying lilies waft a gale,

And sigh my sorrows in her ear:

Oh, tell her what she cannot blame,
Though fear my tongue must ever bind;
Oh, tell her, that my virtuous flame
Is as her spotless soul refin'd.

Not her own guardian angel eyes
With chaster tenderness his care;
Not purer her own wishes rise,
Not holier her own sighs in pray'r.

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!
That plaintive strain can ne'er belong to thee,
Blest in the full possession of thy love :

O lend that strain, sweet Nightingale to me!

"Tis mine, alas! to mourn my wretched fate:
I love a maid who all my bosom charms,
Yet lose my days without this lovely mate;
Inhuman fortune keeps her from my arms.

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
To range where daisies open, rivers roll,
Whose prose or song the languid hours amuse,
And sooth the fond impatience of my soul.

A while I'll weave the roofs of jasmine bowers,
And urge with trivial cares the loitering year;
A while I'll prune my grove, protect my flowers,
Then, unlamented, press an early bier!

Of these lov'd flowers the lifeless corse may share,
Some hireling hand a fading wreath bestow;
The rest will breathe as sweet, will glow as fair

As when their master smil'd to see them glow:

The sequent morn shall wake the silvan quire;
The kid again shall wanton ere 'tis noon;
Nature will smile, will wear her best attire:
Oh, let not gentle DELIA smile so soon !—

While the rude hearse conveys me slow away,
And careless eyes my vulgar fate proclaim,
Let thy kind tear my utmost worth o'erpay,
And, softly sighing, vindicate my fame.

O DELIA! cheer'd by thy superior praise,
I bless the silent path the Fates decree;
Pleas'd, from the list of my inglorious days,

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;
Where wit and sense like her's agree,
One may be pleas'd, and yet be free.

The beauties of her polish'd mind,
It needs no lover's eyes to find;
The hermit, freezing in his cell,
Might wish the gentle FLAVIA well.

'It is not love ;'-averse to bear The servile chain that lovers wear!

Let, let me all my fears remove,
My doubts dispel-it is not love!

Oh! when did wit so brightly shine
In any form less fair than thine?
It is it is Love's subtle fire;
And under friendship lurks desire.!

A PASTORAL BALLAD-IN FOUR PARTS.

ABSENCE.

YE shepherds so cheerful and gay,
Whose flocks never carelessly roam,
Should Corydon's happen to stray,
Oh! call the poor wanderers home.
Allow me to muse and to sigh,

Nor talk of the change that ye find;
None once was so watchful as I ;

I have left my dear Phillis behind.

Now I know what it is to have strove
With the torture of doubt and desire;
What it is to admire and to love,

And to leave her we love and admire.
Ah, lead forth my flock in the morn,
And the damps of each evening repel;
Alas! I am faint and forlorn :-

I have bade my dear Phillis farewell!

Since Phillis vouchsaf'd me a look,
I never once dreamt of my vine;
May I lose both my pipe and my crook,
If I knew of a kid that was mine: