SPARKLING AND BRIGHT. SPARKLING and bright in liquid light Does the wine our goblets gleam in, Which a bee would choose to dream in. As bubbles that swim on the beaker's brim, O if Mirth might arrest the flight Of Time through Life's dominions, To drink to-night with hearts as light, As bubbles that swim on the beaker's brim, But since delight can't tempt the wight, Nor Love himself can hold the elf, We'll drink to-night with hearts as light, As bubbles that swim on the beaker's brim, SEEK NOT TO UNDERSTAND HER. WHY seek her heart to understand, What matters all the nobleness Which in her breast resideth, How many for Despair! Her heart, of whom thou knowest Upon the wind thou throwest: ASK NOT WHY I SHOULD LOVE HER. Ask me not why I should love her: See, from those sweet windows peeping, Wonder not that looks so winning SHE LOVES, BUT 'TIS NOT ME. SHE loves, but 't is not me she loves: Not me on whom she ponders, When, in some dream of tenderness, Her truant fancy wanders. The forms that flit her visions through Are like the shapes of old, Where tales of prince and paladin On tapestry are told. Man may not hope her heart to win, Be his of common mould. But I-though spurs are won no more Where steel-clad ranks are wheelingI loose the falcon of my hopes Upon as proud a flight As those who hawk'd at high renown, In song-ennobled fight. If daring, then, true love may crown, THY SMILES. I KNOW I share thy smiles with many, I know that I, far less than any, But why, O, why on all thus squander LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS. TEACH thee their language? sweet, I know no tongue, Yet still from earth with freshening hope receding, How often these to every heart declare, With all the silent eloquence of truth The language that they speak is Nature's prayer, To give her back those spotless days of youth. SERENADE. SLEEPING! why now sleeping? The moon herself looks gay, While through thy lattice peeping, Wilt not her call obey? Wake, love, each star is keeping For thee its brightest ray; And languishes the gleaming From fire-flies now streaming Athwart the dewy spray. Awake, the skies are weeping Sleep, loved one, while you may; And music's wings shall hover Softly thy sweet dreams over, Fanning dark thoughts away, While, dearest, 'tis thy lover Who'll bid each bright one stay. TO AN AUTUMN ROSE. TELL her I love her-love her for those eyes Now soft with feeling, radiant now with mirth, Which, like a lake reflecting autumn skies, Reveal two heavens here to us on earthThe one in which their soulful beauty lies, And that wherein such soulfulness has birth: Go to my lady ere the season flies, And the rude winter comes thy bloom to blastGo! and with all of eloquence thou hast, The burning story of my love discover, And if the theme should fail, alas! to move her, Tell her when youth's gay summer-flowers are past, Like thee, my love will blossom to the last! WHERE DOST THOU LOITER, SPRING? WHERE dost thou loiter, spring, Whilst it behoveth Thee to cease wandering Where'er thou roveth, And to my lady bring The flowers she loveth? Come with thy melting skies, Like her cheek blushing; Come with thy dewy eyes, Where founts are gushing; Come where the wild bee hies When dawn is flushing. Lead her where, by the brook, The first blossom keepeth, Where, in the shelter'd nook, The callow bud sleepeth, Or, with a timid look, Through its leaves peepeth. WRITTEN IN SPRING-TIME. THOU wak'st again, () Earth, And, laughing at the sun, Thy waters leap! Thou wak'st again, O Earth, And who by fireside hearth Spring first did reign. Their choiring begun : Earth, thou hast many a primeMan hath but one. Thou wak'st again, O Earth! Freshly and new, As when at Spring's first birth Long thou in sloth hast lain, Wilt thou sleep on? Though youth be gone. Wake! 'tis Spring's quickening breath Now o'er thee blown; Wake thee! and ere in death Pulseless thou slumbereth, Pluck but from Glory's wreath One leaf alone! NoT hers the charms which LAURA's lover drew, For round her mouth there play'd, at times, a smile, What though that smile might beam alike on all; Your homage but the pastime of the hour, Now beam'd her beauty in resistless light, MELODY. WHEN the flowers of Friendship or Love have decay'd, In the heart that has trusted and once been betray'd, No sunshine of kindness their bloom can restore; For the verdure of feeling will quicken no more! Hope, cheated too often, when life's in its spring, From the bosom that nursed it forever takes wing! And Memory comes, as its promises fade, To brood o'er the havoc that Passion has made. As 'tis said that the swallow the tenement leaves Where the ruin endangers her nest in the eaves, While the desolate owl takes her place on the wall, And builds in the mansion that nods to its fall. DREAM. YOUNG LESBIA slept. Her glowing cheek Of playing with his bow and arrows, And nestle with his mother's sparrows. Young LESBIA slept-and visions gay Before her dreaming soul were glancing, Like sights that in the moonbeams show, When fairies on the green are dancing. And, first, amid a joyous throng She seem'd to move in festive measure, With many a courtly worshipper, That waited on her queenly pleasure. And then, by one of those strange turns That witch the mind so when we 're dreaming, She was a planet in the sky, And they were stars around her beaming. Yet hardly had that lovely light (To which one cannot here help kneeling) Its radiance in the vault above Been for a few short hours revealing, When, like a blossom from the bough, By some remorseless whirlwind riven, "Twas back to earth like lightning driven. That were but now with their own twining. INTERPRETATION. Had she but thought of those below, Who thus were left with breasts benighted, Till Heaven dismiss'd that star to earth, By which alone our hearts are lighted— Or, had she recollected, when Each virtue from the world departed, How Hope, the dearest came again, And stay'd to cheer the lonely-hearted: Sweet LESBIA could not thus have grieved, From that cold, dazzling throng to sever, And yield her warm, young heart again To those that prize its worth forever. |