SONG.

Think not while gayer swains invite
Thy feet dear Girl, to pleasure's bowers,
My faded form shall meet thy sight
And cloud my Laura's smiling hours,

Thou art the world's delighted guest,

And all the young admire, is thine; Then I'll not wound thy gentle breast By numb'ring o'er the wounds of mine.

I will not say how well, how long,
This faithful heart has sigh'd for thee;
But leave thee happier swains among,
Content, if thou contented be.

But Laura, should Misfortune's wand
Bid all thy youth's gay visions fly,
From thy soft cheek the rose command,
And force the lustre from thine eye;

Then, thoughtless of my own distress,
I'll haste thy comforter to prove,
And Laura shall my friendship bless
Altho' alas! she scorns my love.

A. OFIE. 1793.

The SONG of PLEASURE.

The genial influence of the day
Had chased the lingering cold away,
Borne upon the Zephyr's wing
Sweetly smiled the radiant Spring,
Her mild re-animating breath
Wakes Nature from her wintry death,
Attended by the laughing hours
She rises clad in flowers,

And lightly as she trips along

The vernal warblers raise the song.
Rich in a thousand radiant dies

Around her steps the flowrets rise,
The Zephyr sports, the sun-beams sleep
On the blue bosom of the deep.

And now within my throbbing breast
I feel the influence of the Spring,
To ecstacy I tune my string,
And garlanded with odorous flowers
I hasted to the shady grove,

I hasted to the roseate bowers

Where Pleasure dwells with Love.

There Youth and Love and Beauty bound
The glowing rose my harp around,

Then to the daughter of Desire

To bright-eyed Pleasure gave the lyre,

She tuned the string

And smiling softer than the rosy sea

When the young Morning blushes on her breast,
She raised the raptured lay,

And your cares shall fly away
Quick as fly the wintry snows
When the vernal Zephyr blows.
Let others courting War's alarms
Seek the bloody field of arms,
Let others with undaunted soul
Bid Bellona's thunders roll,
From the lightnings of their eye
Let the trembling squadrons fly;
Sons of Nature you shall prove
A softer fight, the fight of love.
While you in soft repose are laid
Underneath the myrtle shade,
Amid the murky glooms of Death
The Sons of Battle pant for breath.

Let the philosophic sage,

His silver tresses white with age,
Amid the chilling midnight damp
Waste the solitary lamp,

To scan the laws of Nature o'er
The paths of Science to explore,