Alas, my heart! mine eye hath wrongid thee,
Presumptuous eye, to gaze on Phyllis' face,
Whose heavenly eye no mortal man may see
But he must die, or purchase Phyllis' grace.
Poor Corydon! the nymph, whose eye doth move thee,
Doth love to draw, but is not drawn to love thee.

Her beauty, Nature's pride and shepherds' praise;
Her eye, the heavenly planet of my life;
Her matchless wit and grace her fame displays,
As if that Jove had made her for his wife:
Only her eyes shoot fiery darts to kill,
Yet is her heart as cold as Caucase hill.

Set me where Phoebus' heat the flowers slayeth,
Or where continual snow withstands his forces;
Set me where he his temperate rays displayeth,
Or where he comes, or where he never courses.
Set me in Fortune's grace, or else discharged,
In sweet and pleasant air, or dark and glooming,
Where days and nights are lesser, or enlarged,
In years of strength, in failing age, or blooming.
Set me in heaven, or earth, or in the centre,
Low in a vale, or on a mountain placed;
Set me to danger, peril, and adventure,
Graced by fame, or infamy disgraced.

A LAS for the South! Her books grow fewer —
She was never much given to literature.

A LAS for me, who loved a falcon well!
So well I loved him, I was nearly dead:
Ever at my low call he bent his head,
And ate of mine, not much, but all that fell.
Now he has fled, how high I cannot tell,
Much higher now than ever he has fled,
And is in a fair garden housed and fed;
Another lady, alas! shall love him well.
Oh, my own falcon whom I taught and rear'd!
Sweet bells of shining gold I gave to thee
That in the chase thou shouldst not be afeard.
Now thou hast risen like the risen sea,
Broken thy jesses loose, and disappear'd,

Alas! deceite that in truste is nowe,
Duble as Fortune, turning as a balle,
Brotylle at assay like the roten bowe:
Who trusteth to trust is redy for to falle.
Suche gyle is in trust almost overalle
That in pointe a man no frende finde shalle:
Wherfore, beware of trust, after my devise!
Trust to thyselfe, and lerne to be wise.

A LAS , dear Clio, every day,
Some sweet idea dies away:
Echoes of songs, and dreams of joys,
Inhuman absence all destroys.

Inhuman absence — and his train,
Avarice, and toil, and care, and pain,
And strife and trouble. — Oh! for love,
Angelic Clio, these remove!

Nothing, alas, where'er I walk,
Nothing but fear and sorrow talk;
Where'er I walk, from bound to bound,
Nothing but ruin spreads around,

Or busts that seem from graves to rise,
Or statues stern, with sightless eyes,
Cold Death's pale people: — Oh! for love,

Alas! alas! thou turn'st in vain
Thy beauteous face away,
Which, like young sorcerers, rais'd a pain
Above its power to lay.

Love moves not as thou turn'st thy look,
But here doth firmly rest:
He long ago thine eyes forsook
To revel in my breast.

Thy power on him why hop'st thou more
Than his on me should be?
The claim thou lay'st to him is poor
To that he owns from me.

His substance in my heart excels,
His shadow, in thy sight;
Fire where it burns more truly dwells
Than where it scatters light.

I
So you have swept me back,
I who could have walked with the live souls
above the earth,
I who could have slept among the live flowers
at last;

so for your arrogance
and your ruthlessness
I am swept back
where dead lichens drip
dead cinders upon moss of ash;

so for your arrogance
I am broken at last,
I who had lived unconscious,
who was almost forgot;

if you had let me wait
I had grown from listlessness
into peace,
if you had let me rest with the dead,
I had forgot you
and the past

II

I.

 Alack! 'tis melancholy theme to think
 How Learning doth in rugged states abide
 And, like her bashful owl, obscurely blink.
 In pensive glooms and corners, scarcely spied;
 Not, as in Founders' Halls and domes of pride,
 Served with grave homage, like a tragic queen,
 But with one lonely priest compell'd to hide,
 In midst of foggy moors and mosses green,
In that clay cabin hight the College of Kilreen!

II.

 This College looketh South and West alsoe,
 Because it hath a cast in windows twain;

— Airy , fairy Lilian,
— Flitting, fairy Lilian,
When I ask her if she love me,
Clasps her tiny hand above me,
— Laughing all she can;
She'll not tell me if she love me,
— Cruel little Lilian.

— When my passion seeks
— Pleasance in love-sighs,
She, looking through and through me,
Thoroughly to undo me,
— Smiling, never speaks:
So innocent-arch, so cunning-simple,
From beneath her gathered wimple
— Glancing with black-beaded eyes,
Till the lightning laughters dimple
— The baby-roses in her cheeks;