Song, Air,-“The Fairy Boy." 'Tis night, and now the sun is sleeping ; Stars are keeping watch on high ; Here alone, a pris'ner lying, Vainly sighing, such am I, Nought around, below, above me, Save the walls that gird my cell ;. Not a fly to teach to love me, In the dungeon where I dwell. Where is now the secret treasure, Where the pleasure sages say Are found in Solitude's drear presence ? 'Tis the essence of decay. Let me rather range the heather, Spr ng my drink and roots my meat ; And where wild kids couch together, Let me rest my weary feet. Lo! I see the glance of morning Now adorning yon white wall; But I cannot rush to meet him, Cannot greet him free from thrall. Oh, if once I had thee, Freedom, Come with poverty or pain ; Riches, I would never need 'em Ne'er love Solitude again. To a Deceitful Beauty, Enclosing a Present she had made the Writer. When first I met thee warm and young, There shone such truth about thee, I did not dare to doubt thee.----Moore. Take back the gift in friendship given, If it were friendship thus could alter;. Each tie that bound us now is riven, To speak of thee my tongue must falter. Go, keep it ; for 'twould but remind Of happy days that now are vanished ; Let memory linger not behind On hours from thy remembrance banished. Scorn thou hast shown me, bitterness, The worst thy malice could engender ; The cause I know not-cannot guess; Such was thy love, and oh how slender ! How false and fickle woman's heart, Fool, should experience not have taught me? Then had I now not felt the smart That thy desertion since has breught me. I'd known to be by woman loved, Is but to be in short time hated, L And far thro’ life would I have roved Ere to such sheer unkindness fated. Let others bask a little while Under the curling of thy brow,-Beneath a woman's frown or smile I never lived, nor will I now. I cannot sigh,--I dare not fret, Since 'tis thy will that we must sever ; I sued not haughty woman yet And will I now ? Nay; never, never! On seeing the Portrait of a Bride. She's girded in a flowing dress Of purity and white ; Sweet is her maiden smile With nature's joyousness and light, Roses are 'twined amongst The clustering ringlets of her hair, And a lily on her bosom laid But oh, not half so fair, She thinks not of her early days She only thinks of him Whose eye, when meeting hers, was ne'er Than lightning flash more dim, That gay and sylphid thing, And her finger wears a ring. Her dreams of love are all passed o'er, Reality is now Upon her snowy brow. Her soul its vows hath given ; And she seems, all radiant in her charms, An angel wing'd for Heaven. May my love be as bright a one As cloudless be thy brow As the happy being's that we look on So admiring now? Ne'er shrouded be with care, the widow's sable veil To Amelia, In the bower of a prince the rose blushoz in bright ness, And breathes its sweet perfume around it ; The lily searce vying thy neck in its whiteness, Ne'er shrinks from the hand that doth wound it. Couldst thou dare e'en to look with an eye beaming love, On that flower that is so much above thee ? Dare I then avow that “thy presence doth move,' “Oh, why hast thou taught me to love thee ?" Yet, vain is regret,-like that flower to thee, So art thou to the breast where thou reignest, That dares not to hope; yet how cruel 'twould be To trample the heart which thou gainest. Forget, then, that one who a moment could pain, Nor e’er let his memory move thee ; "Oh why hast thou taught me to love thee?" |