Classic Poem

EVANDER TO EMILLIA .

O! NEVER did thy glowing pen bestow,
To sooth my soul's inevitable woe,
So much by generous trusting faith inspired,
So much by ardent, banish'd love desired,
Free from the cold alloy of doubts and fears,
And all the sullying drops of jealous tears,
Since first our eyes those conscious glances cast,
That met dissolved and blended as they pass'd.

The precious tenderness these lines impart,
Falls on my sick, alarmed, and longing heart,
Like dews on flowers by sultry noon-beams dry,
Like balmy sleep on Labour's closing eye.

But this long absence! — Countless are its pains,
Sprung from the thought, how fast our being wanes,
How scant its span! — that weeks and months must roll
Towards love, and life's dark and avoidless goal,
Ere Time the ravish'd happiness restores
To pass together some of those few hours,
Forming the short, irrevocable day,
Which stays for none, and fleets so swift away.