Classic Poem

The laughing Delia, free from every care,
Leads the light dance, and scorns Horatio's pain:
On airy Florio smiles the partial fair,
The softest trifler of her idle train.

No tender pains the easy Florio knows;
Ne'er generous tear in Florio's eye was seen:
Yet from his tongue the polish'd accent flows;
And all the graces meet to form his mien.

Mistaken maid! ah, say, will easy air,
And courtly phrase, thine orb of bliss complete?
Suffice to soothe thee in thine hour of care?
And make retirement's sober moments sweet?

Ah! soon the stolen tear, the lonely sigh,
Deluded fair, full oft shalt thou renew;
When the gay youth that glitters in thine eye,
Too late thou find'st untender and untrue.

It is not he, that most harmonious moves;
The graceful master of the mazy dance;
Whose manag'd eye, as o'er the fair it roves,
With art unerring, aims the meaning glance;

It is not he, can life's whole bliss impart:
Beneath thy pressure that weak stay shall bend:
Oh, fondly seek, to prop thy leaning heart,
The manly lover who includes the friend!

On him, with safe dependence, rest thy mind:
That pillar ne'er the tender weight shall fail:
Thy tendril heart, round worth's firm column twin'd,
Shall clasp support when rudest winds assail.

Seek not the idle hand, expert to place
The flow'ry garland on thy festive brow;
Be that thy search, which from thy tearful face,
With gentlest touch, shall wipe the flowing woe.

Not him, reclin'd in careless bow'rs, that knows
Into the pipe its softest soul t' infuse;——
Who best can whisper to thy throbbing woes
Comfort's sweet words, let wise affection choose.

Oh, hear not him that kneels with happiest grace,
And clasps his hands with most theatric air,
With smoothest praise extols that beauteous face,
In softest accent tells thee, Thou art fair;

Hear who his tale with glowing plainness frames,
With speechless breaks and unembellish'd phrase;
Or whose soft fighs betray his hidden flames,
And eyes in silence eloquently gaze.

The liquid splendour from thine eye that flows.
Thy polish'd brow, ask not who now admires;
That blooming form, while yet with youth it glows,
Enquire not whose fond ardour now desires;

Ask who, when Time has quench'd that dazzling eye,
And marr'd the smoothness of that glassy brow,
And on that cheek bade all the roses die;
Who then will love thee as he loves thee now.

Yet wide from him thine erring wishes stray:
Yet not for him the Fates those beauties mean:
Far from thine ear he bears his sighs away,
To seek oblivion where thy form's unseen.