Cease, if you prize your beauty's reign!
No jealousy bids me reprove:
One, who is thus from nature vain,
I pity, but I cannot love.

January 15. 1807. [First published 1832.]

TO ANNE.

Он, Anne, your offences to me have been grievous: I thought from my wrath no atonement could save you;

But woman is made to command and deceive us

I look'd in your face, and I almost forgave you.

I vow'd I could ne'er for a moment respect you,
Yet thought that a day's separation was long:
When we met, I determin'd again to suspect you
Your smile soon convinced me suspicion was wrong.

I swore, in a transport of young indignation,
With fervent contempt evermore to disdain you:
I saw you
my anger became admiration;

And now, all my wish, all my hope, 's to regain you.

With beauty like yours, oh, how vain the contention!
Thus lowly I sue for forgiveness before you;
At once to conclude such a fruitless dissension,
Be false, my sweet Anne, when I cease to adore you!
January 16. 1807. [First published 1832.]

TO THE SAME.

Он sау not, sweet Anne, that the Fates have decreed
The heart which adores you should wish to dissever;
Such Fates were to me most unkind ones indeed,
To bear me from love and from beauty for ever.

Your frowns, lovely girl, are the Fates which alone
Could bid me from fond admiration refrain ;
By these, every hope, every wish were o'erthrown,
Till smiles should restore me to rapture again.

As the ivy and oak, in the forest entwined,
The rage of the tempest united must weather;
My love and my life were by nature design'd
To flourish alike, or to perish together.

Then say not, sweet Anne, that the Fates have decreed

Your lover should bid you a lasting adieu : Till Fate can ordain that his bosom shall bleed, His soul, his existence, are centred in you.

1807. [First published 1822,1

TO THE AUTHOR OF A SONNET

BEGINNING,

"SAD IS MY VERSE,' YOU SAY, AND YET NO TEAR.

THY verse is "sad" enough, no doubt :
A devilish deal more sad than witty!
Why we should weep I can't find out,
Unless for thee we weep in pity.

Yet there is one I pity more;

And, much, alas! I think he needs it:
For he, I'm sure, will suffer sore,
Who, to his own misfortune, reads it.

Thy rhymes, without the aid of magic,
May once be read · but never after:
Yet their effect 's by no means tragic,
Although by far too dull for laughter.

L

But would you make our bosoms bleed,
And of no common pang complain —
If you would make us weep indeed,

Tell us, you'll read them o'er again.

March 8. 1807. [First published 1832.]

ON FINDING A FAN.

IN one who felt as once he felt,

This might, perhaps, have fann'd the flame;
But now his heart no more will melt,
Because that heart is not the same.

As when the ebbing flames are low,
The aid which once improved their light,
And bade them burn with fiercer glow,
Now quenches all their blaze in night.

Thus has it been with passion's fires-
As many a boy and girl remembers
While every hope of love expires,
Extinguish'd with the dying embers.

The first, though not a spark survive,
Some careful hand may teach to burn;
The last, alas! can ne'er survive;

No touch can bid its warmth return.

Or, if it chance to wake again,

Not always doom'd its heat to smother, It sheds (so wayward fates ordain)

Its former warmth around another.

1807. [First published 1832.]

FAREWELL TO THE MUSE.

THOU Power! who hast ruled me through infancy's days,

Young offspring of Fancy, 't is time we should part; Then rise on the gale this the last of my lays,

The coldest effusion which springs from my heart.

This bosom, responsive to rapture no more,

Shall hush thy wild notes, nor implore thee to sing; The feelings of childhood, which taught thee to soar, Are wafted far distant on Apathy's wing.

Though simple the themes of my rude flowing Lyre,
Yet even these themes are departed for ever;
No more beam the eyes which my dream could inspire,
My visions are flown, to return, - alas, never!

When drain'd is the nectar which gladdens the bowl,
How vain is the effort delight to prolong!
When cold is the beauty which dwelt in my soul,
What magic of Fancy can lengthen my song?

Can the lips sing of Love in the desert alone,

Of kisses and smiles which they now must resign? Or dwell with delight on the hours that are flown? Ah, no! for those hours can no longer be mine.

Can they speak of the friends that I lived but to love? Ah, surely affection ennobles the strain!

But how can my numbers in sympathy move,