5. I do not, love! suspect your truth, With jealous doubt my bosom heaves not; Warm was the passion of my youth, One trace of dark deceit it leaves not. 6. No, no, my flame was not pretended, 7. No more we meet in yonder bowers; But older, firmer hearts than ours 8. Your cheek's soft bloom is unimpair'd, New beauties still are daily bright'ning, Your eye for conquest beams prepared, The forge of love's resistless lightning. 9. Arm'd thus, to make their bosoms bleed, Many will throng to sigh like me, love! More constant they may prove, indeed; Fonder, alas! they ne'er can be, love! VOL. V. F LINES ADDRESSED TO A YOUNG LADY*. As the author was discharging his pistols in a garden, two ladies passing near the spot were alarmed by the sound of a bullet hissing near them, to one of whom the following stanzas were addressed the next morning. 1. DOUBTLESS, Sweet girl, the hissing lead, 2. Surely some envious demon's force, 3. Yes, in that nearly fatal hour The ball obey'd some hell-born guide; *These stanzas are only found in the private volume.-ED. This word is used by Gray, in his poem to the Fatal Sisters: "Iron sleet of arrowy shower Hurtles through the darken'd air." 4. Yet, as perchance one trembling tear Upon that thrilling bosom fell; Which I, th' unconscious cause of fear, Extracted from its glistening cell: 5. Say, what dire penance can atone 6. Might I perform the judge's part, Which but belong'd to thee before. 7. The least atonement I can make 8. But thou, perhaps, mayst now reject Come then, some other mode elect; Let it be death, or what thou wilt. 9. Choose then, relentless! and I swear LOVE'S LAST ADIEU *. 66 Αει δ', αει με φευγει.” ANACREON. 1. THE roses of love glad the garden of life, Though nurtured 'mid weeds dropping pestilent dew, Till Time crops the leaves with unmerciful knife, Or prunes them for ever in love's last adieu! 2. In vain with endearments we soothe the sad heart, 3. Still Hope, breathing peace through the grief-swollen breast, Will whisper, "Our meeting we yet may renew:" With this dream of deceit half our sorrow's represt, Nor taste we the poison of love's last adieu! *This poem was omitted in the second edition of Hours of Idleness.-ED. 4. Oh! mark you yon pair: in the sunshine of youth Love twined round their childhood his flow'rs as they grew; They flourish awhile in the season of truth, Till chill'd by the winter of love's last adieu! 5. Sweet lady! why thus doth a tear steal its way Down a cheek which outrivals thy bosom in hue? Yet why do I ask?-to distraction a prey, Thy reason has perish'd with love's last adieu! 6. Oh! who is yon misanthrope, shunning mankind? There, raving, he howls his complaint to the wind; 7. Now hate rules a heart which in love's easy chains 8. How he envies the wretch with a soul wrapt in steel! |