Accept, my charming Maid, the strain Which you alone inspire;

To thee the dying strings complain, That quiver on my lyre.

O! give this bleeding bosom ease, That knows no joys but thee: Teach me thy happy heart to please, Or deign to love like me!

IMPERISHABLE LOVE.

"GODS! shall a sordid son of earth
Enfold a form of heavenly birth,
And ravish joys divine?
An angel bless unconscious arms?
The circle of surrender'd charms
Unhallow'd hands entwine ?-

The absent day-the broken dream -
The vision wild-the sudden scream-
Tears, that unbidden flow!—
Ah! let no sense of griefs profound,
That beauteous bosom ever wound
With unavailing woe!

Howe'er the wind of fortune blows,
Or sadly-severing Fate dispose
Our everlasting doom;
Impressions never felt before,
And transports to return no more,
Will haunt me to the tomb!

My God! the pangs of nature past, Will e'er a kind remembrance last Of pleasures sadly sweet?

Can love assume a calmer name?
My eyes with friendship's angel-flame
An angel's beauty meet?

Ah! should that first of finer forms

Require, through life's impending storms, A sympathy of soul;

The lov'd MARIA of the mind

Will send me, on the wings of wind,

To Indus or the Pole!"

FAIR MARIA.

MARIA, come! Now let us rove;
Now gather garlands in the grove,
Of every new-sprung flower;

We'll hear the warblings of the wood;
We'll trace the windings of the flood:
O come thou, fairer than the bud
Unfolding in a shower!

Fair as the lily of the vale,

That gives it's bosom to the gale,

And opens in the sun!

And sweeter than thy favourite dove,
The Venus of the vernal grove,

Announcing to the choirs of love
Their time of bliss begun!

Now, now thy Spring of life appears;
Fair in the morning of thy years,

And May of beauty crown'd':
Now vernal visions meet thine eyes,
Poetic dreams to fancy rise,

And brighter days in better skies

Elysium blooms around!

Now is the morning of thy day:
But, ah! the morning flies away,
And youth is on the wing;

"Tis Nature's voice-'O! pull the rose,
Now while the bud in beauty blows,
Now while its opening leaves disclose
The incense of the Spring!'

What youth, high-favour'd of the skies,
What youth shall win the brightest prize
That Nature has in store?

Whose conscious eyes shall meet with thine?
Whose arms thy yielding waste entwine?
Who, ravish'd with thy charms divine,
Requires of Heaven no more?

Not happier the primeval Pair,
When new-made earth, supremely fair;
Smil'd in her virgin Spring:

When all was fair to God's own eye;
When stars consenting sung on high,
And all Heaven's chorus made the sky
With hallelujahs ring!

TO SLEEP.

IN vain I court, till dawning light,
The coy divinity of night;

Restless from side to side I turn;

Arise, ye musings of the morn!

Oh, Sleep! though banish'd from these eyes,

In visions fair to DELIA rise;

And o'er a dearer form diffuse

Thy healing balm, thy lenient dews.

Blest be her night, as infant's rest
Lull'd on the fond maternal breast;
Who, sweetly-playful, smiles in sleep,
Nor knows that he is born to weep.

Remove the terrors of the night,
The phantom-forms of wild affright,
The shrieks from precipice or flood,
And starting scene that swims with blood.

Lead her aloft to blooming bowers,
And beds of amaranthine flowers,

And golden skies, and glittering streams,
That paint the paradise of dreams.

Venus! present a lover near;
And gently whisper in her ear

Ilis woes, who, lonely and forlorn,

Counts the slow clock from night till morn.

Ah! let no portion of my pain,

Save just a tender trace, remain;
Asleep consenting to be kind,

And wake with Daphnis in her mind.

TO NANCY.

O NANCY, Wilt thou go with me,
Nor sigh to leave the flaunting town;
Can silent glens have charms for thee,
The lowly cot and russet gown?
No longer dress'd in silken sheen,
No longer deck'd with jewels rare,
Say, can'st thou quit each courtly scene
Where thou wert fairest of the fair?

O Nancy! when thou'rt far away,

Wilt thou not cast a wish behind?
Say, can'st thou face the parching ray,
Nor shrink before the wintry wind?
Oh! can that soft and gentle mien

Extremes of hardship learn to bear,
Nor, sad, regret each courtly scene,
Where thou wert fairest of the fair?

O Nancy can'st thou love so true,
Through perils keen with me to go,
Or when thy swain mishap shall rue,
To share with him the pang of woe?
Say, should disease or pain befall,

Wilt thou assume the nurse's care;
Nor wistful those gay scenes recall
Where thou wert fairest of the fair?

And when, at last, thy love shall die,
Wilt thou receive his parting breath?
Wilt thou repress each struggling sigh,

And cheer with smiles the bed of death?
And wilt thou o'er his breathless clay
Strew flowers, and drop the tender tear?
Nor then regret those scenes so gay,
Where thou wert fairest of the fair?

LOVE AND BEAUTY.

WHERE the loveliest expression to features is join'd, By Nature's most delicate pencil design'd;

Where blushes unbidden, and smiles without art, Speak the softness and feeling that dwell in the heart; Where in manners, enchanting, no bleinish we trace, But the soul keeps the promise we had from the face;