The wholly false the heart despises,
And spurns deceiver and deceit;
But she who not a thought disguises,
Whose love is as sincere as sweet,-
When she can change who loved so truly,
It feels what mine has felt so newly.
To dream of joy and wake to sorrow
Is doom'd to all who love or live;
And if, when conscious on the morrow,
We scarce our fancy can forgive,
That cheated us in slumber only,
To leave the waking soul more lonely,
What must they feel whom no false vision,
But truest, tenderest passion warm'd?
Sincere, but swift in sad transition,
As if a dream alone had charm'd?
Ah! sure such grief is fancy's scheming,
And all thy change can be but dreaming!
ON BEING ASKED WHAT WAS THE « ORIGIN OF LOVE?»
THE «Origin of Love!»-Ah why
That cruel question ask of me,
When thou may'st read in many an eye
He starts to life on seeing thee?
And shouldst thou seek his end to know:
My heart forebodes, my fears foresee,
He'll linger long in silent woe;
But live-until I cease to be.
REMEMBER him, whom passion's power
Severely, deeply, vainly proved:
Remember thou that dangerous hour
When neither fell, though both were loved.
That yielding breast, that melting eye,
Too much invited to be blest:
That gentle prayer, that pleading sigh,
The wilder wish reproved, represt.
Oh! let me feel that all I lost,
But saved thee all that conscience fears;
it cost
And blush for every pang
То spare the vain remorse of years.
Yet think of this when many a tongue,
Whose busy accents whisper blame,
Would do the heart that loved thee wrong,
And brand a nearly blighted name.
Think that, whate'er to others, thou
Hast seen each selfish thought subdued:
I bless thy purer soul even now,
Even now, in midnight solitude.
Oh, God! that we had met in time,
Our hearts as fond, thy hand more free;
When thou hadst loved without a crime,
And I been less unworthy thee!
Far may thy days, as heretofore,
From this our gaudy world be past!
And, that too bitter moment o'er,
Oh! may such trial be thy last!
This heart, alas! perverted long,
Itself destroy'd might there destroy;
To meet thee in the glittering throng,
Would wake presumption's hope of joy.
Then to the things whose bliss or woe,
Like mine, is wild and worthless all,
That world resign-such scenes forego,
Where those who feel must surely fall.
Thy youth, thy charms, thy tenderness,
Thy soul from long seclusion pure,
From what even here hath past, may guess,
What there thy bosom must endure.
Oh! pardon that imploring tear,
Since not by virtue shed in vain,
My frenzy drew from eyes so dear;
For me they shall not weep again.
Though long and mournful must it be,
The thought that we no more may meet; Yet I deserve the stern decree,
And almost deem the sentence sweet.
Still, had I loved thee less, my heart
Had then less sacrificed to thine;
It felt not half so much to part,
As if its guilt had made thee mine.
INSCRIBED UPON A CUP FORMED FROM A SKULL.
START not-nor deem my spirit fled:
In me behold the only skull
From which, unlike a living head,
Whatever flows is never dull.
I lived, I loved, I quaff'd, like thee;
I died; let earth my bones resign:
Fill up thou canst not injure me;
The worm hath fouler lips than thine.
Better to hold the sparkling grape,
Than nurse the earth-worm's slimy brood;
And circle in the goblet's shape
The drink of gods, than reptile's food.
Where once my wit, perchance, hath shone,
In aid of others' let me shine;
And when, alas! our brains are gone,
What nobler substitute than wine!
Quaff while thou canst-another race,
When thou and thine like me are sped,
May rescue thee from earth's embrace,
And rhyme and revel with the dead.
Why not? since through life's little day
Our heads such sad effects produce; Redeem'd from worms and wasting clay, This chance is theirs, to be of use.
Newstead Abbey, 1808.
ON THE DEATH OF SIR PETER PARKER, BART.
THERE is a tear for all that die,
A mourner o'er the humblest grave;
But nations swell the funeral cry,
And triumph weeps above the brave.
For them is sorrow's purest sigh
O'er ocean's heaving bosom sent:
In vain their bones unburied lie,
All earth becomes their monument!
A tomb is theirs on every page,
An epitaph on every tongue.
The present hours, the future age,
For them bewail, to them belong.
For them the voice of festal mirth
Grows hush'd, their name the only sound;
While deep remembrance pours to worth
The goblet's tributary round.
A theme to crowds that knew them not,
Lamented by admiring foes,
Who would not share their glorious lot?
Who would not die the death they chose?
And, gallant Parker! thus enshrined
Thy life, thy fall, thy fame shall be; And early valour, glowing, find
A model in thy memory.
But there are breasts that bleed with thee
In woe, that glory cannot quell;
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