Classic Poem

SENT TO A LADY WITH HAMMOND'S POEMS .

If I, fair Maid, in plaintive strain,
Confess no anxious lover's pain;
Nor bid my sighing numbers flow,
In languid notes of mimic woe:
Think not mine eyes to beauty blind,
My heart unfeeling, or unkind,
Unfit for Love's sensations keen;
But thank your cloudy veil so green.

If, while the veil conceals your cheek,
I start not from your glance oblique;
Nor tingling through my glowing veins,
The crimson tint my face distains:
Nor yet unconscious near your side,
With motion scarce perceiv'd I glide,
To talk by fits, and pause between;
Then thank your cloudy veil so green.

If sighs of fondness half repress'd,
In secret breathe not from my breast;
Nor round my heart the languors wreath,
Which oft forbid the sigh to breathe,
Nor o'er my brow, of pallid hue,
Emerge the cold and shining dew;
Blame not, fair Maid, your faultless mien,
But thank your cloudy veil so green.

And now, when unconcern'd and gay,
I pour the jocund sportive lay,
And bid my careless heart defy
The glance of that love-kindling eye,
Still as I muse on Hammond's pain,
Who felt the woes that others feign,
Like Hammond's fate mine might have been
I think, and bless your veil so green.