The

Amatory Poems

of

Abel Shufflebottom.

SONNET I.

DELIA AT PLAY.

SHE held a Cup and Ball of Ivory white,
Less white the Ivory than her snowy hand!
Enrapt I watch'd her from my secret stand,
As now, intent, in innocent delight,

Her taper fingers twirl'd the giddy ball,
Now tost it, following still with EAGLE sight,
Now on the pointed end infix'd its fall.

Marking her sport I mused, and musing sigh'd, Methought the BALL she play'd with was my

HEART!

(Alas! that Sport like that should be her pride!) And the keen point which stedfast still she eyed Wherewith to pierce it, that was CUPID's dart; Shall I not then the cruel Fair condemn

Who on that dart IMPALES my BOSOM'S GEM?

SONNET II.

TO A PAINTER ATTEMPTING DELIA'S PORTRAIT.

RASH Painter! canst thou give the ORB OF DAY In all its noontide glory? or portray

The DIAMOND, that athwart the taper'd hall Flings the rich flashes of its dazzling light? Even if thine art could boast such magic might, Yet if it strove to paint my Angel's EYE,

Here it perforce must fail.

Heaven's vengeance on thy sin:

Cease! lest I call

Must thou be told

The CRIME it is to paint DIVINITY?

Rash Painter! should the world her charms behold,

Dim and defiled, as there they needs must be, They to their old idolatry would fall,

And bend before her form the pagan knee.

Fairer than Venus, daughteR OF THE SEA.

SONNET III.

HE PROVES THE EXISTENCE OF A SOUL FROM HIS LOVE FOR DELIA.

SOME have denied a soul! THEY NEVER LOVED,
Far from

my Delia now by fate removed,

At home, abroad, I view her every where ;

Her ONLY in the FLOOD OF NOON I see.

My Goddess-Maid, my OMNIPRESEnt fair,
For Love annihilates the world to me!

And when the weary SOL around his bed
Closes the SABLE CURTAINS of the night,
SUN OF MY SLUMBERS, on my dazzled sight
SHE shines confest. When every sound is dead,
The SPIRIT OF HER VOICE Comes then to roll

The surge of music o'er

my wavy brain.

Far, far from her my Body drags its chain,

But sure with Delia I exist a soul!