Is it to me, this sad lamenting strain?
Are heaven's choicest gifts bestowed in vain?
A plenteous fortune, and a beauteous bride,
Your love rewarded, gratify'd your pride:
Yet leaving her — 'tis me that you pursue
Without one single charm, but being new.
How vile is man! how I detest their ways
Of artful falsehood, and designing praise!
Tasteless, an easy happiness you slight,
Ruin your joy, and mischief your delight,
Why should poor pug (the mimic of your kind)
Wear a rough chain, and be to box confin'd?

Young , loving, and beloved — these are brief words;
And yet they touch on all the finer chords,
Whose music is our happiness; the tone
May die away, and be no longer known,
In the sad changes brought by darker years,
When the heart has to treasure up its tears,
And life looks mournful on an altered scene —
Still it is much to think that it has been.

'T IS not my home — he made it home
With earnest love and care;
How can it be my own dear home,
And he no longer there?

I asked to meet my father's eyes,
But they were closed for me;
My father, would that I were laid
In the dark grave with thee.

Where shall I look for constant love,
To answer unto mine?
Others have many kindred hearts,
But I had only thine.

( XVIII. CENT .)

When first in C ELIA'S ear I poured
A yet unpractised pray'r,
My trembling tongue sincere ignored
The aids of " sweet " and " fair. "
I only said, as in me lay,
I'd strive her " worth " to reach;
She frowned, and turned her eyes away, —
So much for truth in speech.

Then D ELIA came. I changed my plan;
I praised her to her face;

And she too — that beloved child, was gone —
Life's last and loveliest link. There was her place
Vacant beside the hearth — he almost dreamed
He saw her still; so present was her thought.
Then some slight thing reminded him how far
The distance was that parted her and him.
Fear dwells around the absent — and our love
For such grows all too anxious, too much filled
With vain regrets, and fond inquietudes:
We know not Love till those we love depart.

THE PRESERVATIVE OF LOVE AND BEAUTY .

Confess thy love, fair blushing maid;
For since thine eyes consenting,
Thy safter thoughts are a' betray'd,
And nasays no worth tenting.
Why aims thou to oppose thy mind,
With words thy wish denying?
Since nature made thee to be kind,
Reason allows complying.

Nature and reason's joint consent
Make love a sacred blessing;
Then happily that time is spent,

Your skies are blue, your sun is bright;
But sky nor sun has that sweet light
Which gleam'd upon the summer sky
Of my own lovely I TALY !
'Tis long since I have breathed the air
Which, fill'd with odours, floated there, —
Sometimes in sleep a gale sweeps by,
Rich with the rose and myrtle's sigh: —
'Tis long since I have seen the vine
With Autumn's topaz clusters shine,
And watch'd the laden branches bending,
And heard the vintage songs ascending;
'Tis very long since I have seen
The ivy's death wreath, cold and green,

WRITTEN UNDER A PICTURE OF A GIRL BURNING A LOVE

LETTER

I took the scroll: I could not brook
An eye to gaze on it save mine;
I could not bear another's look
Should dwell upon one thought of thine.
My lamp was burning by my side,
I held thy letter to the flame,
I mark'd the blaze swift o'er it glide,
It did not even spare thy name.
Soon the light from the embers past,
I felt so sad to see it die,
So bright at first, so dark at last,

Another day — another day,
And yet he comes not nigh;
I look amid the dim blue hills,
Yet nothing meets mine eye.

I hear the rush of mountain-streams
Upon the echoes borne;
I hear the singing of the birds, —
But not my hunter's horn.

The eagle sails in darkness past,
The watchful chamois bounds;
But what I look for comes not near, —
My U LRIC'S hawk and hounds.

Three times I thus have watch'd the snow
Grow crimson with the stain
The setting sun threw o'er the rock,
And I have watch'd in vain.

A Small Poeme

FIRST WRITTEN 1642: BY THE SAME AUTHOR; TAKEN FROM THE ORIGINALL INTO THIS PLACE COPIED;
1.6.4.6.

Non est forma Satis, nec, quae vult' bella videri;
Debet vulgari more placere Sibi;
Dicta, Sales, lusus, sermonis gratia, risus,
Vincunt Naturae candidioris opus;
Condit enim formam, quicquid consumitur artis,
Et nisi velle subest, gratia tota perit.

TO CINTHIA; COYING IT

N OE LONGER Cinthia; have I spent
My time, but for a Complement?