Oh for a pen like Shakespeare's to reveal
What Nature dictates, and what Emma feels;
Then would I spurn the glossary of art,
And verse should glow, like Emma's, from the heart;
So soft, so sweet, she pleads her Shakespeare's cause,
That pale-face Envy joins in the applause;
Who would not wish a Shakespeare but to die,
When Emma pays the sympathetic sigh?
When beauty deigns with gratitude sincere,
To shed the precious crystal of a tear:
Erase the word of rugged from thy line,
For only rugged , are, fair Emma, mine.
" Permit you! " — Yes, your Shakespeare would permit,
Could he but see the lines his Emma writ;
Away! — he could — he doth, he reads them plain,
And tho' in heaven, drops a tear again:
Ah! ere it rests, methinks I see it meet
His Emma's breast — the pilgrim makes his seat;
Fair downy haven, let the stranger lie,
Where it may live, and never, never die.