And here and there a rose is found
Neglected on the chilly ground,
And a chance lily sheds its snow
Beneath the darker shrubs of woe.
Oh, not as erst, thou modest wreath,
Shalt thou of all thy fragrance breathe!
Oh, not as erst, when Genius knew
To give thy colours to the view,
And Taste was ready to display
The flowers that fell in Fancy's way!
For zephyrs soft that fann'd thy youth,
How wilt thou meet the gale uncouth?
Torn from a genial Summer's smile,
How wilt thou bear a northern isle ?
Far from thy home and native sky,
Meek stranger, wilt thou live or die?
THE LOVER's message. B.
SEA-wand'ring barks, that o'er the Ægean sail,
With pennants streaming to the northern gale,
If in your course the Coan strand ye reach,
And see my Phanion musing on the beach,
With eye intent upon the placid sea,
And constant heart that only beats for me,-
Tell my sweet mistress, that for her I haste,
To greet her, landing from the watery waste.
Go, heralds of my soul! To Phanion's ear
On all your shrouds the tender accents bear!
So Jove shall calm with smiles the wave below,
And bid for you his softest breezes blow.
THE ALL-SUFFICIENCY OF LOVE.
SELL not thy sacred honour for a feast,
Nor live with rich men a polluted guest,
Shame to the parasite, who stoops so low
To lower or brighten by his patron's brow-
Slave tho' I am, my fetter Love beguiles,
-I smile or weep, as Lesbia weeps or smiles.
ADDRESS OF ANCHISES TO VENUS. M.
OFT hast thou left the realms of air
To dwell with me on Ida's shore ;
But now gay youth is mine no more,
And Age has mark'd my brows with care.
Oh, Queen of Love, my youth restore,
Or take my offering of gray hair!
Paulus the Silentiary, 24. iii. 78.
WHEN I left thee, Love, I swore
Not to see that face again,
For a fortnight's space, or more.
-But the cruel oath was vain :
Since, the next day I spent from thee
Was a long year of misery.
Oh, then, for thy lover pray
Every gentler deity,
Not in too nice scales to weigh
His constrained perjury
Thou too, oh pity his despair!
Heaven's rage, and thine, he cannot bear.
LOVE NOT EXTINGUISHED BY AGE.
FOR me thy wrinkles have more charms,
Dear Lydia, than a smoother face!
I'd rather fold thee in my arms
Than younger, fairer nymphs embrace.
To me thy autumn is more sweet,
More precious than their vernal rose,
Their summer warms not with a heat
So potent as thy winter glows.
|