92

SWEET ARE THE CHARMS, ETC.

All dear Nature's children sweet

Lye 'fore bride and bridegroom's feet,

Blessing their sense!

Not an angel of the air,

Bird melodious, or bird fair,

Be absent hence.

FLETCHER.

SWEET ARE THE CHARMS OF HER I LOVE.

SWEET are the charms of her I love,
More fragrant than the damask rose,
Soft as the down of turtle-dove,

Gentle as air when Zephyr blows,
Refreshing as descending rains

To sun-burnt climes and thistry plains.

True as the needle to the pole,
Or as the dial to the sun;
Constant as gliding waters roll,

Whose swelling tides obey the moon;

From every other charmer free,
My life and love shall follow thee.

The lamb the flowery thyme devours,
The dam the tender kid pursues;
Sweet Philomel, in shady bowers

Of verdant spring, her note renews;

All follow what they most admire,

As I pursue my soul's desire.

Nature must change her beauteous face,
And vary as the seasons rise;

As winter to the spring gives place,

Summer th' approach of autumn flies: No change in love the seasons bring, Love only knows perpetual spring.

Devouring Time, with stealing pace,
Makes lofty oaks and cedars bow;
And marble towers, and gates of brass,
In his rude march he levels low:
But time, destroying far and wide,
Love from the soul can ne'er divide.

Death only, with his cruel dart,

The gentle godhead can remove;
And drive him from the bleeding heart,
To mingle with the bless'd above.
Where, known to all his kindred train,
He finds a lasting rest from pain.

Love, and his sister fair, the soul,

Twin-born, from heaven together came:

Love will the universe control,

When dying seasons lose their name; Divine abodes shall own his power

When time and death shall be no more.

BARTON BOOTH.

SONG.

OH! forbear to bid me slight her,
Soul and senses take her part;
Could my death itself delight her,

Life should leap to leave my heart. Strong, though soft, a lover's chain; Charm'd with woe, and pleas'd with pain.

Though the tender flame were dying,
Love would light it at her eyes;
Or her tuneful voice applying,
Through my ear my soul surprise.
Deaf, I see the fate I shun;
Blind, I hear I am undone.

A. HILL.

DREAM.

YOUNG LESBIA slept. Her glowing cheek
Was on her polish'd arm reposing,
And slumber clos'd those fatal eyes,
Which keep so many eyes from closing,

For even Cupid, when fatigued

Of playing with his bow and arrows, Will harmless furl his weary wings,

And nestle with his mother's sparrows.

Young LESBIA slept-and visions gay

Before her dreaming soul were glancing, Like sights that in the moon-beams 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, Swiftly upon its lurid path,

'Twas back to earth like lightning driven.

Yet, brightly still, though coldly, there
Those other stars were calmly shining,
As if they did not miss the rays

That were but now with their own, twining.

And, half with pique, and half with pain,

To be from that gay chorus parting, Young LESBIA from her dream awoke, With swelling heart and tear-drop starting.

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 for ever.

LONGFELLOW.