I will not ease my tortured heart,
By driving dove-eyed peace from thine;
Rather than such a sting impart,

Each thought presumptuous I resign.

Yes! yield those lips, for which I'd brave
More than I here shall dare to tell;
Thy innocence and mine to save,-
I bid thee now a last farewell.

Yes! yield that breast, to seek despair,
And hope no more thy soft embrace;
Which to obtain my soul would dare,
All, all reproach, but thy disgrace.

At least from guilt shalt thou be free,
No matron shall thy shame reprove;
Though cureless pangs may prey on me,
No martyr shalt thou be to love.

TO CAROLINE.

THINK'ST thou I saw thy beauteous eyes,
Suffused in tears, implore to stay
And heard unmoved thy plenteous sighs,
Which said far more than words can say ?

Though keen the grief tny tears exprest, When love and hope lay both o'erthrown; Yet still, my girl, this bleeding breast

Throbb'd with deep sorrow as thine own.

But when our cheeks with anguish glow'd, When thy sweet lips were join'd to mine, The tears that from my eyelids flow'd

Were lost in those which fell from thine.

Thou couldst not feel my burning cheek, Thy gushing tears had quench'd its flame,

And as thy tongue essay'd to speak,

In signs alone it breath'd my name.

And yet, my girl, we weep in vain,
In vain our fate in sighs deplore;
Reinembrance only can remain,—

But that will make us weep the more.

Again, thou best beloved, adieu !

Ah! if thou canst, o'ercome regret,
Nor let thy mind past joys review,—
Our only hope is to forget!

TO CAROLINE.

WHEN I hear you express an affection so warm,
Ne'er think, my beloved, that I do not believe;
For your lip would the soul of suspicion disarm,
And your eye beams a ray which can never deceive.

Yet, still, this fond bosom regrets, while adoring,
That love, like the leaf, must fall into the sere ;
That age will come on, when remembrance, deploring,
Contemplates the scenes of her youth with a tear;

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 devction,
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.

OH! 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-morrow

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 heart 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 fear.

Oh! when, my adored, in the tomb will they place me,
Since, in life, love and friendship for ever are fled?

If again in the mansion of death I embrace thee,
Perhaps they will leave unmolested the dead.

1805.

STANZAS TO A LADY, WITH THE POEMS OF
CAMOËNS.-

THIS Votive pledge of fond esteem,
Perhaps, dear girl! for me thou'lt prize;
It sings of Love's enchanting dream,
A theme we never can despise.

Who blames it but the envious fool,
The old and disappointed maid;
Or pupil of the prudish school,

In single sorrow doom'd to fade?

Then read, dear girl! with feeling read,
For thou wilt ne'er be one of those;
To thee in vain I shall not plead
In pity for the poet's woes.17

He was in sooth a genuine bard
His was no faint, fictitious flame.
Like his, may love be thy reward,
But not thy hapless fate the same.

THE FIRST KISS OF LOVE.

'Α Βαρβιτος δε χορδαῖς

Ερωτα μουνον ἠχεῖ.—ANACREON.

AWAY with your fictions of flimsy romance;

Those tissues of falsehood which folly has wove! Give me the mild beam of the soul-breathing glance, Or the rapture which dwells on the first kiss of love.

Ye rhymers, whose bosoms with phantasy glow, Whose pastoral passions are made for the grove; 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 :
Arcadia displays but a region of dreams;

What are visions like these to the first kiss of love?

Oh! cease to affirm that man, since his birth,

From Adam till now, has with wretchedness strove, Some portion of paradise still is on earth,

And Eden revives in the first kiss of love.

When age chills the blood, when our pleasures are past-
For years fleet away with the wings of the dove--
The dearest remembrance will still be the last,
Our sweetest memorial the first kiss of love.

ON A CHANGE OF MASTERS AT A GREAT PUBLIC
SCHOOL.18

WHERE are those honours, Ida! once your own,
When Probus fill'd your magisterial throne?
As ancient Rome, fast falling to disgrace,
Hail'd a barbarian in her Cæsar's place,
So you, degenerate, share as hard a fate,
And seat Pomposus where your Probus sate.
Of narrow brain, yet of a narrower soul,
Pomposus holds you in his harsh control;
Pomposus, by no social virtue sway'd,
With florid jargon, and with vain parade;
With noisy nonsense, and new-fangled rules,
Such as were nc'er before euforced in schools.