At your approach my blushes rise,
And I at once both wish and fear;
My wounded soul mounts to my eyes,
As it would prattle stories there.
Take, take that heart that needs must go!
But shepherd see it kindly us'd:
For who such presents will bestow,
If this, alas! should be abus'd?
A Paraphrase on the Eleventh Ode of the First Book of Horace.
Dear Silvia let's no farther strive,
To know how long we have to live!
Let busy gownsmen search to know
Their fates above, while we
Contemplate beauty's greater power below,
Whose only smiles give immortality!
For who seeks fortune in a star,
Aims at a distance much too far,
She's more inconstant than they are.
What though this year must be our last,
Faster than time our joys let's haste,
Nor think of ills to come, nor past.
Give me but love and wine, I'll ne'er
Complain my destiny's severe.
Since life bears so uncertain date,
With pleasure we'll attend our fate,
And cheerfully go meet it at the gate.
The brave and witty know no fear nor sorrow,
Let us enjoy to day, we'll die to morrow!
From the " Voyage to the Isle of Love."
Her mourning languid eyes are rarely shown,
Unless to those afflicted like her own;
Her lone apartment all obscure as night,
Discover'd only by a glimmering light:
Weeping she sat, her face with grief dismay'd,
Which all its natural sweetness had decay'd;
Yet in despight of grief there does appear
The ruin'd monuments of what was fair,
E'er cruel love and grief had took possession there.
These made her old without the aid of years;
Worn out and faint with ling'ring hopes and fears,—
She seldom answers ought but with her tears.-
No train attends, she only is obey'd
By melancholy, that soft silent maid;
A maid that fits her humour every way,
With whom she passes all the tedious day;
No other object can her mind content,
She feeds and flatters all her languishment:
The noisy streams that from high mountains fall,
And water all the neighbouring flow'ry vale ;-
The murmurs of the rivulets that glide
Against the bending sedges on their side;
Of mournful birds the sad and tuneful notes,
The bleat of strag'ling lambs, and new-yean'd goats;
The distant pipe of some lone mountain swain,
Who to his injur'd passion fits his strain,
Is all the harmony her soul can entertain.
A palace that is more uneasy far,
Than those of cruelty and absence are ;—
There constant show'rs of hail and rain do flow,
Continual murmuring winds around do blow,
Eternal thunder rolling in the air,
And thick dark hanging clouds the day obscure,
Whose sullen dawn all objects multiplies,
And renders things that are not to the eyes.
Phantoms appear by the dull gloomy light,
That with such subtle art elude the sight,
That one can see no object true or right.
I here transported and uneasy grow,
And all things out of order do;
Hasty and peevish every thing I say,
Suspicion and distrust my passions sway,
And bend all nature their uneasy way.
A thousand serpents gnaw the heart,-
A thousand visions fill the eyes,—
And deaf to all that can relief impart,
We hate the councils of the wise,
And sense like tales of lunatics despise.
THE CITY OF LOVE.
In this vast isle a famous city stands,
Which for its beauty all the rest commands;
Built to delight the wond'ring gazer's eyes,
Of all the world the great metropolis.
Call'd by Love's name, and here the charming god,
When he retires to pleasure, makes abode.
'Tis here both art and nature strive, to shew What pride, expence, and luxury can do, To make it ravishing and awful too.
All nations hourly thither do resort,
To add fresh splendour to this glorious court;
The young, the old, the witty, and the wise,
The fair, the ugly, lavish, and precise;
Cowards and brave, the modest, and the loud,
Promiscuously are mingled in the crowd.
From distant shores young kings their courts remove
To pay their homage to the god of Love;
Where all their sacred awful majesty,
Their boasted and their fond divinity,
Lose their vast force,- -as lesser lights are hid
When the fierce god of day his beauties spread.
The wondering world for gods did kings adore,
'Till Love confirm'd them mortal by his power;
And in Love's court they with their vassals live,
Without or homage, or prerogative:
Which the young god not only blind must shew,
But as defective in his judgment too.
Midst the gay court, a famous temple stands,
Old as the universe which it commands;
For mighty Love a sacred being had,
Whil'st yet 'twas chaos, ere the world was made,
And nothing was compos'd without his aid.
Agreeing atoms by his power were hurl'd,
And love and harmony compos'd the world.
'Tis rich, 'tis solemn all! divine, yet gay!
From the gemm'd roof the dazzling lights display,
And all below inform without the aid of day.
All nations hither bring their offerings,
And 'tis endow'd with gifts of love-sick kings.
Upon an altar whose unbounded store
Has made the rifled universe so poor,
Adorn'd with all the treasures of the seas,
More than the sun in his vast course surveys,—
Was plac'd the god! with every beauty form'd,
Of smiling youth, but naked, unadorn’d.
His painted wings display'd, his bow laid by,
For here love needs not his artillery ;-
One of his little hands aloft he bore,
And grasp'd a wounded heart that burnt all o'er,
Towards which he look'd with lovely laughing eyes,
As pleas'd and vain with the fond sacrifice;
The other pointed downward, seem'd to say,
"Here at my feet your grateful victims lay:"
Whilst on a golden tablet o'er his head,
In diamond characters this motto stood
"Behold the power that conquers every god!"
'Tis all eternal spring around,
And all the trees with fragrant flowers are crown'd.
No clouds, no misty showers obscure the light,
But all is calm, serene and gay,
The heavens are drest in a perpetual bright,
And all the earth with everlasting May.
Each minute blows the rose and jessamine,
And twines with new-born eglantine;
Each minute new discoveries bring,
Of something sweet, of something ravishing.
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