The loves of men as yet are icy floes,
Imperfect, shapeless, in tumultuous motion,
Rolled aimlessly about the mad mid-ocean:
With shocks that shatter and with blinding blows,
Heart-pangs of agony, convulsive throes,
Abandonment of being, death-devotion,
A death that strangles every previous notion,
Harmoniously the glittering ice-berg rose.

I stand beyond the future, and I see
Rise passion-pinnacled the crystal palace,
Awful with unimagined purity;
A frozen rainbow, an inverted chalice,
A dream-encircled dream of what shall be

Let lovers sigh for night,
In their young fancy sweetest,
When pale Luna's gentle light
The eye greetest.

Let them lovingly stray
The calm cool groves among,
When every sound has died away,
And night is young.

I love the tranquil hour
Just as the broad sun sets,
When Zephyr with dew from his bow'r
The king-cup wets.

'T is then the purer heart
Feels joy it cannot smother,
When day and night seem loth to part,
And kiss each other.

And I have drank of bliss
At twilight hour, with one

( " Toutes les passions s'eloignent avec l'âge. " )

As life wanes on, the passions slow depart,
One with his grinning mask, one with his steel;
Like to a strolling troupe of Thespian art,
Whose pace decreases, winding past the hill,
But nought can Love's all charming power efface,
That light, our misty tracks suspended o'er,
In joy thou'rt ours, more dear thy tearful grace,
The young may curse thee, but the old adore.

Whilst Ovid here reveals the various arts
Both how to polish and direct their darts,
Let meaner beauties by his rules improve,
And read these lines to gain success in love:
But Heav'n alone, that multiplies our race,
Has pow'r t' increase the conquests of your face.
The Spring, before he paints the rising flow'rs,
Receives mild beams and soft descending shew'rs;
But love blooms ever fresh beneath your charms,
Tho' neither pity weeps nor kindness warms.
The chiefs who doubt success assert their claim
By stratagems, and poorly steal a name:

Come idle urchin, treach'rous boy,
Thou dang'rous play-thing, transient joy:
Thy restless pinion hither bend,
Or on thy mother's dove descend;
Or on a fragrant gale repose,
Fresh from the bosom of a rose;
Or on a sun-beam hither hie,
Or bear thee on a balmy sigh!
Oh come, while yet th' impulse is warm,
To realize thy Proteus form,
Come, arm'd with all thy magic arts,
Thy quiver, arrows, bow and darts;
Come with thy legion of delusions,
Call up thy phalanx of illusions;

Embody all thy arch conceptions,

That Love when journeying to Delight should tire!
That Beauty, too, (both of celestial birth,)
Should faint and pine for wants that are of earth,
And which the body only doth require!
That souls which soar to heaven, and would wing higher,
Should be thus imped, in their divinest mirth,
By things to minds immortal nothing-worth,
And which clean spirits loathe as an alloying mire! —
These muttered thoughts, that baffled Bliss did frame,
My bosomed love half heard — and took for chiding
That which frail Nature, and not her, did blame;

(“Jeune fille, l'amour.”)

Dear Child, at first dear love's a mirror bright
Whereo'er fair women bend with fond delight
 For bold or timorous gazing;
With heavenly beams each heart it doth fulfil,
Making all good things lovelier, all things ill
 From the rapt soul erasing.
Then one bends nearer, 'tis a pool … and then
A deep abysm! and clinging hands are vain
 To banks frail flowers are crowning!—
Charming is love, but deadly! Fear it, Sweet,
In a river first the foolish little feet
 Dip; then a fair form's drowning!

In wyll to strong, in worke to weake is loue,
In hope to bolde, in feare more faynte then needes:
In thought a thousand guyles it stryues to proue,
In guyle, suspition painefull passions breedes.
Suspition easely yeelds to light beleefe,
And light beleefe to iealousie is thrall,
The iealous mynde deuoures it selfe with griefe,
Thus loue at once doth frye, freese, ryse and fall.
On pleasures paste to thinke, it takes delighte,
Whyles present blisse, by fonde conceyte it balkes,
Although the fruite it fynde, be pensiue plight,

I.

Give me the Harp — but every chord
That's mournful cast away;
My memory alone is stor'd
With sonnets light and gay;
Not such as Love incessant leaves
Within his spell-fraught bowers,
But such as sparkling Pleasure weaves
With Fancy's lightest flowers.
Then give the Harp — but pr'ythee take
The mournful chord away,
And notes of joy I'll swiftly wake,
And sonnets light and gay.

II.

If life's bright dawn was only made
To be obscur'd with tears,
Then keep the chord — its friendly shade

Rage on, ye winds, with direst might,
Descend ye lightnings from above;
Enfold me round ye shades of night,
And shield me from the shafts of Love.

No more can gentle Peace resume
Its wonted throne within my breast;
Or Hope the darksome void illume,
Sad bosom barr'd for e'er of rest.

Unkind Miranda! merc'less fair!
Say, why you caus'd me thus distress'd?
Too lovely nymph! why solemn swear,
You liv'd to make Orlando blest?

Say, why that cruel fond concern
Of poor Orlando, once you took?