X. TO J. H. REYNOLDS. O THAT a week could be an age, and we So time itself would be annihilate, To serve our joys would lengthen and dilate. O to arrive each Monday morn from Ind! To land each Tuesday from the rich Levant! And keep our souls in one eternal pant! ΤΟ XI. TIME's sea hath been five years at its slow ebb; And snared by the ungloving of thine hand. But I behold thine eyes' well memoried light; I cannot look upon the rose's dye, But to thy cheek my soul doth take its flight; I cannot look on any budding flower, But my fond ear, in fancy at thy lips, And hearkening for a love-sound, doth devour Its sweets in the wrong sense:-Thou dost eclipse Every delight with sweet remembering, And grief unto my darling joys dost bring. *A lady whom he saw for some moments at Vauxhall. XII. TO SLEEP. O SOFT embalmer of the still midnight! O soothest Sleep! if so it please thee, close, Around my bed its lulling charities; Then save me, or the passed day will shine Save me from curious conscience, that still lords 1819. XIII. ON FAME. FAME, like a wayward girl, will still be coy Who have not learnt to be content without her; A Jilt, whose ear was never whisper'd close, Who thinks they scandal her who talk about her; A very Gipsey is she, Nilus-born, Sister-in-law to jealous Potiphar; Ye love-sick Bards! repay her scorn for scorn; XIV. ON FAME. "You cannot eat your cake and have it too."-Proverb. How fever'd is the man, who cannot look Upon his mortal days with temperate blood, Who vexes all the leaves of his life's book, And robs his fair name of its maidenhood; It is as if the rose should pluck herself, Or the ripe plum finger its misty bloom, As if a Naiad, like a meddling elf, Should darken her pure grot with muddy gloom : But the rose leaves herself upon the brier, For winds to kiss and grateful bees to feed, And the ripe plum still wears its dim attire, The undisturbed lake has crystal space; Why then should man, teasing the world for Spoil his salvation for a fierce miscreed? 1819. grace, XV. Why did I laugh to-night? No voice will tell: To question Heaven and Hell and Heart in vain. And the world's gaudy ensigns see in shreds; Verse, Fame, and Beauty are intense indeed, But Death intenser-Death is Life's high meed. XVI. ON A DREAM.* As Hermes once took to his feathers light, So play'd, so charm'd, so conquer'd, so bereft Nor unto Tempe, where Jove grieved a day, But to that second circle of sad Hell, Where in the gust, the whirlwind, and the flaw Of rain and hail-stones, lovers need not tell Their sorrows, pale were the sweet lips I saw, Pale were the lips I kiss'd, and fair the form I floated with, about that melancholy storm. 1819. XVII. IF by dull rhymes our English must be chain'd, Fetter'd, in spite of pained loveliness; To fit the naked foot of poesy; Let us inspect the lyre, and weigh the stress Misers of sound and syllable, no less Than Midas of his coinage, let us be Jealous of dead leaves in the bay wreath crown; So, if we may not let the Muse be free, She will be bound with garlands of her own. 1819. * (See page 179.) XVIII. THE day is gone, and all its sweets are gone! Bright eyes, accomplish'd shape, and lang'rous waist! Faded the flower and all its budded charms, Faded the sight of beauty from my eyes, Of fragrant-curtain'd love begins to weave 1819 XIX. I CRY your mercy-pity-love-aye, love! One-thoughted, never-wandering, guileless love, Withhold no atom's atom, or I die, Or living on perhaps, your wretched thrall, |