song

Oh! long enough my life has been,
Since I thy love have known;
I would not change the pleasing scene,
And find its beauties flown.

Then let me die, while yet no care
Has reached my trusting breast;
While sorrow is a stranger there,
And all is joy and rest.

Let me not feel what varied pain
Life's theatre can show—
That all our present hours are vain,
And all our future woe!

Oh! had I ne'er beheld thee
How calm my life had flown!
As cold, as pure and tranquil
As some fair vale unknown;

Where never yet the footsteps
Of wand'ring man has stray'd;
That smiles in lonely beauty
Unheeded—unsurve'd.

How cheerfully the moments
In sweet content went by,
When sorrow's cloud pass'd swiftly
Across a placid sky:

The charm of peace is broken—
Can nought its dream restore?
That sky, obscured by sadness,
Shall ne'er be cloudless more.

In early days thy fondness taught
My soul its endless love to know;
Thy image waked in every thought,
Nor fear'd my tongue to tell thee so.

In all the trusting faith of youth,
That knows no dread, that feels no care,
I deem'd thy heart was all of truth,
And I the cherish'd object there.

Alas! the vision'd bliss is gone—
Too soon those days were o'er!
This heart still loves—but loves alone—
Its joys are there no more

If those dark eyes have gazed on me,
Unconscious of their power—
The glance in secret ecstasy
I've treasured many an hour.
If that soft voice, a single word
Has breathed for me to hear,
Like Heaven's entrancing airs, the chord
Resounded on my ear.

And yet, alas! too well I knew
That love—or hope—was vain,
The fountain whence delight I drew
Would end in yielding pain!
My folly and my peace at once
A moment could destroy;
It bade me every wish renounce,

I'LL gaze no more on her bewitching face,
Since ruin harbours there in every place ;
For my enchanted soul alike she drowns
With calms and tempests of her smiles and frowns.
I’ll love no more those cruel eyes of hers,
Which, pleased or anger’d, still are murderers :
For if she dart, like lightning, through the air
Her beams of wrath, she kills me with despair :
If she behold me with a pleasing eye,
I surfeit with excess of joy, and die.

GIVE me more love or more disdain ;
The torrid or the frozen zone
Bring equal ease unto my pain,
The temperate affords me none :
Either extreme of love or hate,
Is sweeter than a calm estate.

Give me a storm ; if it be love,
Like Danaë in that golden shower,
I swim in pleasure ; if it prove
Disdain, that torrent will devour
My vulture-hopes ; and he's possess'd
Of heaven, that's but from hell released.
Then crown my joys or cure my pain :

GAZE not on thy beauty's pride,
Tender maid, in the false tide
That from lovers' eyes doth slide.
Let thy faithful crystal show
How thy colours come and go :
Beauty takes a foil from woe.

Love, that in those smooth streams lies
Under pity's fair disguise,
Will thy melting heart surprise.

Nets of passion's finest thread,
Snaring poems, will be spread,
All to catch thy maidenhead.

Then beware ! for those that cure
Love's disease, themselves endure

IF when the sun at noon displays
His brighter rays,
Thou but appear,
He then, all pale with shame and fear,
Quencheth his light,
Hides his dark brow, flies from thy sight,
And grows more dim,
Compared to thee, than stars to him.
If thou but show thy face again,
When darkness doth at midnight reign,
The darkness flies, and light is hurl'd
Round about the silent world :
So as alike thou driv'st away

To all you ladies now at land
We men at sea indite;
But first would have you understand
How hard it is to write:
The Muses now, and Neptune too,
We must implore to write to you--
With a fa, la, la, la, la!

For though the Muses should prove kind,
And fill our empty brain,
Yet if rough Neptune rouse the wind
To wave the azure main,
Our paper, pen, and ink, and we,
Roll up and down our ships at sea--
With a fa, la, la, la, la!

Then if we write not by each post,
Think not we are unkind;

A thousand million souls arise
Out of the cradle of to-day,
And, like a living storm, beneath the skies
Go thundering on their fatal way!
But ere to-morrow’s sun
His ancient round hath run,
That storm is past—and Where are they?
Is asked of Faith by pale Dismay:
“Where—where are they?”
And Faith—even Faith herself—hath not a word to say.
With her serene assurance thrown
Like moonlight into the Unknown
And all her clasping tendrils curled