This is the deepest of our woes, For this these tears our cheeks bedew ; This is of love the final close, O God! the fondest, last adieu ! TO M. S. G. WHENE'ER I view those lips of thine, Alas! it were unhallow'd bliss. For that would banish its repose. A glance from thy soul-searching eye Can raise with hope, depress with fear; Yet I conceal my love-and why? I would not force a painful tear. I ne'er have told my love, yet thou Hast seen my ardent flame too well; And shal! I plead my passion now, To make thy bosoin's heaven a hell? No! for thou never canst be mine, United by the priest's decree : By any ties but those divine, Mine, my beloved, thou ne'er shalt be. Then let the secret fire consume, Let it consume, thou shalt not know: With joy I court a certain doom, Rather than spread its guilty glow. I will not ease my tortured heart, Each thought presumptuous I resign. No matron shall thy shame reprove'; Though cureless pangs may prey on me, No martyr shalt thou be to love. TO CAROLINE. THINK'ST thou I saw thy beauteous eyes, When love and hope lay both o'erthrown; Yet still, my girl, this bleeding breast Throbb'd with deep sorrow as thine own. But when our cheeks with anguish glow'd, In sighs alone it breathed my name. Ah! if thou canst, o'ercome regret ; TO CAROLINE. WHEN I hear you express an affection so warm, Ne'er think, my beloved, that I do not believe; For your lip would the soul of suspicion disarm, And your eye beams a ray which can never deceive. Yet still this fond bosom regrets, while adoring, That love, like the leaf, must fall into the sere; That age will come on, when remembrance, deploring, [tear; Contemplates the scenes of her youth with a That the time must arrive, when, no longer retaining [the breeze, Their auburn, those locks must wave thin to When a few silver hairs of those tresses remaining, Prove nature a prey to decay and disease. 'Tis this, my beloved, which spreads gloom o'er my features, [decree, Though I ne'er shall presume to arraign the Which God has proclaim'd as the fate of His creatures, [of me. In the death which one day will deprive you Mistake not, sweet sceptic, the cause of emotion, No doubt can the mind of your lover invade ; He worships each look with such faithful devotion, A smile can enchant, or a tear can dissuade. But as death, my beloved, soon or late shall o'ertake us, [sympathy glow, And our breasts, which alive with such Will sleep in the grave till the blast shall awake [low,When calling the dead, in earth's bosom laid Oh! then let us drain, while we may, draughts of pleasure, Which from passion like ours may unceasingly Let us pass round the cup of love's bliss in full us, measure, [flow: And quaff the contents as our nectar below. TO CAROLINE. OH! when shall the grave hide for ever my sorrow? Oh! when shall my soul wing her flight from this clay? The present is hell, and the coming to-morrow But brings, with new torture, the curse of today. THE FIRST KISS OF LOVE. 'Α Βαρβιτος δε χορδαίς Ερωτα μουνον ἠχει. —ANACREON. AWAY with your fictions of flimsy romance; From my eye flows no tear, from my lips flow Ye rhymers, whose bosoms with fantasy glow, no curses, I blast not the fiends who have hurl'd me from bliss; For poor is the soul which bewailing rehearses Its querulous grief, when in anguish like this. Was my eye, 'stead of tears, with red fury flakes bright'ning, Would my lips breathe a flame which no stream could assuage, On our foes should my glance launch in vengeance its lightning, [rage. With transport my tongue give a loose to its But now tears and curses, alike unavailing, Would add to the souls of our tyrants delight: Could they view us our sad separation bewailing, Their merciless hearts would rejoice at the sight. Yet still, though we bend with a feign'd resignation, [cheer, Life beams not for us with one ray that can Love and hope upon earth bring no more consolation; In the grave is our hope, for in life is our fear. Oh! when, my adored, in the tomb will they place me, [fled? Whose pastoral passions are made for the grove ; flow, From what blest inspiration your sonnets would [love! Could you ever have tasted the first kiss of If Apollo should e'er his assistance refuse, Or the Nine be disposed from your service to court the effusions that spring from the heart, Which throbs with delight to the first kiss of love. Your shepherds, your flocks, those fantastical themes, Perhaps may amuse, yet they never can move : Arcadia displays but a region of dreams : What are visions like these to the first kiss of love? Oh! cease to affirm that man, since his birth, From Adam till now, has with wretchedness strove; And Eden revives in the first kiss of love. Since, in life, love and friendship for ever are Some portion of paradise still is on earth, STANZAS TO A LADY. In single sorrow doom'd to fade? He was, in sooth, a genuine bard: But not thy hapless fate the same. When age chills the blood, when our pleasures are past [dove-. For years fleet away with the wings of the The dearest remembrance will still be the last, Our sweetest memorial the first kiss of love. ON A CHANGE OF MASTERS AT A GREAT PUBLIC SCHOOL. WHERE are those honours, Ida! once your own, When Probus fill'd your magisterial throne? As ancient Rome, fast falling to disgrace, Hail'd a barbarian in her Cæsar's place, So you, degenerate, share as hard a fate, And seat Pomposus where your Probus sate. Of narrow brain, yet of a narrower soul, Pomposus holds you in his harsh control; Pomposus, by no social virtue sway'd, With florid jargon, and with vain parade; With noisy nonsense and new-fangled rules, Such as were ne'er before enforced in schools, Mistaking pedantry for learning's laws, He governs, sanction'd but by self-applause ; With him the same dire fate attending Rome, TO THE DUKE OF DORSET. shower Then share with titled crowds the common lot- Turn to the annals of a former day; The gift of riches, and the pride of power; On one by birth predestined to be great; And seek to blast the honours of thy name. bear; For well I know that virtue lingers there. Yes! I have mark'd thee many a passing day, side; forth. Another view, not less renown'd for wit; The pride of princes, and the boast of song. Hope, that could vary like the rainbow's hue, For me, in future, neither friend nor foe, 10 Still, if the wishes of a heart untaught Oh! if these wishes are not breathed in vain, FRAGMENT. WRITTEN SHORTLY AFTER THE MARRIAGE OF HILLS of Annesley! bleak and barren, Howl above thy tufted shade! Now no more, the hours beguiling, GRANTA: A MEDLEY. Αργυρέαις λόγχαισι μάχου καὶ πάντα Κρατήσαις. OH! Could Le Sage's demon's gift* Be realized at my desire, This night my trembling form he'd lift Then would, unroof'd, old Granta's halls The price of venal votes to pay. Then would I view each rival wight, Petty and Palmerston survey; [ber. All lull'd in sleep, a goodly number: Lord H, indeed, may not demur ; They know preferment can occur They know the Chancellor has got I'll turn mine eye, as night grows later, The studious sons of Alma Mater. Goes late to bed, yet early rises. The Diable Boiteux of Le Sage, where Asmodeus, the demon, places Don Cleofas on an elevated situation, and unroofs the houses for inspection. He surely well deserves to gain them, To scan precisely metres Attic; 1802 In solving problems mathematic: The square of the hypothenuse.+ Which bring together the imprudent; Who plans of reformation lay: And for the sins of others pray: Loud rings in air the chapel bell; 'Tis hush'd-what sounds are these I hear? The organ's soft celestial swell Rolls deeply on the list'ning ear. To such a set of croaking sinners. If David, when his toils were ended, In furious mood he would have tore 'em. Seale's publication on Greek Metres displays considerable talent and ingenuity, but, as might be expected in so difficult a work, is not remarkable for accuracy. The Latin of the schools is of the canine species, and is not very intelligible. The discovery of Pythagoras, that the square of the hypothenuse is equal to the squares of the other two sides of a right angled triangle. The luckless Israelites, when taken Oh! had they sung in notes like these, But if I scribble longer now, The deuce a soul will stay to read: My pen is blunt, my ink is low; 'Tis almost time to stop, indeed. Therefore, farewell, old Granta's spires! No more, like Cleofas, I fly ; No more thy theme my muse inspires; The reader's tired, and so am I. [last; And friendships were form'd, too romantic to Where fancy yet joys to trace the resemblance Of comrades, in friendship and mischief allied; How welcome to me your ne'er-fading_remembrance, [denied! Which rests in the bosom, though hope is Again I revisit the hills where we sported, The streams where we swam, and the fields where we fought; [resorted, The school where, loud warn'd by the bell, we To pore o'er the precepts by pedagogues taught. Again I behold where for hours I have ponder'd, As reclining, at eve, on yon tombstone I lay; Or round the steep brow of the churchyard I wander'd, [ray. To catch the last gleam of the sun's setting I once more view the room, with spectators surrounded, Where, as Zanga, I trod on Alonzo o'erthrown; While, to swell my young pride, such applauses resounded, I fancied that Mossop himself was outshone.* Or, as Lear, I pour'd forth the deep imprecation, By my daughters of kingdom and reason deprived; Till fired by loud plaudits and self-adulation, I regarded myself as a Garrick revived. Mossop, a contemporary of Garrick, famous for his performance of Zanga. Ye dreams of my boyhood, how much I regret you! Unfaded your memory dwells in my breast; Though sad and deserted, I ne'er can forget you: Your pleasures may still be in fancy possest. To Ida full oft may remembrance restore me, While fate shall the shades of the future unroll ! [me, Since darkness o'ershadows the prospect before More dear is the beam of the past to my soul. But if, through the course of the years which await me, [view, Some new scene of pleasure should open to I will say, while with rapture the thought shall elate me, 'Oh! such were the days which my infancy knew!' TO M. OH! did those eyes, instead of fire, That fatal glance forbids esteem. Within those once celestial eyes. These might the boldest sylph appal, When gleaming with meridian blaze: Thy beauty must enrapture all ; But who can dare thine ardent gaze? 'Tis said that Berenice's hair In stars adorns the vault of heaven; Thy sister-lights would scarce appear: E'en suns, which systems now control, Would twinkle dimly through their sphere.* |