Ah! what are words to love like mine,
Though utter'd by a voice like thine,
I still in murmurs must repine,

And think that love can ne'er be true,

Which meets me with no joyous sign,
Without a sigh which bids adieu;
How different is my love from thine,

How keen my grief when leaving you.

Your image fills my anxious breast,
Till day declines adown the West;
And when at night I sink to rest,

In dreams your fancied form I view.

Tis then your breast, no longer cold, With equal ardour seems to burn, While close your arms around me fold, Your lips my kiss with warmth return.

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That the time must arrive, when, no longer retaining

Their auburn, those locks must wave thin to the breeze,

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,

Though I ne'er shall presume to arraign the decree,

Which God has proclaim'd as the fate of his creatures,

In the death which one day will deprive you of me.

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,

And our breasts, which alive with such sympathy glow,

Will sleep in the grave till the blast shall awake us,

When calling the dead, in earth's bosom laid low,

Oh! then let us drain, while we may, draughts of pleasure,

Which from passion like ours may unceasingly flow;

Let us pass round the cup of love's bliss in full measure,

And quaff the contents as our nectar below.

1805.

TO CAROLINE

Он 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-mor

row

But brings, with new torture, the curse of to-day.

From my eye flows no tear, from my lips flow 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,

With transport my tongue give a loose to its rage.

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,

Life beams not for us with one ray that can cheer;

Love and hope upon earth bring no more

consolation,

In the grave is our hope, for in life is our

From what blest inspiration your sonnets would flow,

Could you ever have tasted the first kiss

of love!

If Apollo should e'er his assistance refuse, Or the Nine be disposed from your service

to rove,

Invoke them no more, bid adieu to the muse, And try the effect of the first kiss of love.

I hate you, ye cold compositions of art! Though prudes may condemn me, and bigots reprove,

I 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:

Hope, that could vary like the rainbow's hue,

And gild their pinions as the moments flew; Peace, that reflection never frown'd away, By dreams of ill to cloud some future day; Friendship, whose truth let childhood only tell,

Alas! they love not long, who love so well. To these adieu! nor let me linger o'er Scenes hail'd, as exiles hail their native shore,

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Receding slowly through the dark-blue deep, Beheld by eyes that mourn yet cannot weep. Dorset, farewell! I will not ask one part Of sad remembrance in so young a heart; The coming morrow from thy youthful mind

Will sweep my name, nor leave a trace behind.

And yet, perhaps, in some maturer year, Since chance has thrown us in the self-same sphere,

Since the same senate, nay, the same debate, May one day claim our suffrage for the state,

We hence may meet, and pass each other by,
With faint regard, or cold and distant eye.
For me,
in future, neither friend nor foe, 101
A stranger to thyself, thy weal or woe,
With thee no more again I hope to trace
The recollection of our early race;
No more, as once, in social hours rejoice,
Or hear, unless in crowds, thy well-known
voice.

Still, if the wishes of a heart untaught
To veil those feelings which perchance it
ought,

If these, but let me cease the lengthen'd strain,

Oh! if these wishes are not breathed in

There, in apartments small and damp,
The candidate for college prizes
Sits poring by the midnight lamp;
Goes late to bed, yet early rises.

He surely well deserves to gain them,
With all the honours of his college,
Who, striving hardly to obtain them,
Thus seeks unprofitable knowledge:

Who sacrifices hours of rest

To scan precisely metres Attic; Or agitates his anxious breast

In solving problems mathematic:

Who reads false quantities in Seale,
Or puzzles o'er the deep triangle;
Deprived of many a wholesome meal;
In barbarous Latin doom'd to wrangle:
Renouncing every pleasing page
From authors of historic use;
Preferring to the letter'd sage,
The square of the hypothenuse.

Still, harmless are these occupations,
That hurt none but the hapless student,
Compared with other recreations

Which bring together the imprudent,

Whose daring revels shock the sight, When vice and infamy combine, When drunkenness and dice invite, As every sense is steep'd in wine.

Not so the methodistic crew, Who plans of reformation lay: In humble attitude they sue,

And for the sins of others pray,

Forgetting that their pride of spirit, Their exultation in their trial, Detracts most largely from the merit Of all their boasted self-denial.

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4C

'Tis morn: from these I turn my sight. What scene is this which meets the

eye?

A numerous crowd, array'd in white,

Across the green in numbers fly.

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