Ye gods! was Strephon's picture blest
With the fair heaven of Chloe's breast?
Move softer, thou fond fluttering heart!
Oh gently throb,—too fierce thou art.
Tell me, thou brightest of thy kind,
For Strephon was the bliss design'd?
For Strephon's sake, dear charming maid,
Didst thou prefer his wandering shade?
And thou, blest shade! that sweetly art
Lodged so near my Chloe's heart,
For me the tender hour improve,
And softly tell how dear I love.
Ungrateful thing! it scorns to hear
Its wretched master's ardent pray'r,

It is a gay and glittering cloud,
Born in the early light of day,
It lies upon the gentle hills,
Rosy, and sweet, and far away.

It burns again when noon is high;
Like molten gold 't is clothed in light,
'T is beautiful and glad as love,—
A joyous, soul-entrancing sight.

But now 't is fading in the west,
On the flowering heaven a withered leaf,
As faint as shadow on the grass
Thrown by a gleam of moonshine brief.

So life is born, grows up, and dies,
As cloud upon the world of light;
It comes in joy, and moves in love,

Across our path a sunbeam gently lies;
We know not whence it came; we think we know;
But, as we watch its glories come and go,
It fades away! Whither? Into the skies?
We seek to follow it, with blinking eyes,
Beyond the Veil—of which we nothing know!
But e'en imagination is too slow
To chase a sunbeam as it heavenward flies.
The fairest and the dearest objects fade,
Just as a sunbeam comes and glides away;
But, e'en while lingering in the gloom and shade,
Struggling through sorrow's night into the day,
We feel “'tis better to have loved and lost

Love!—what is love? a mere machine, a spring
For freaks fantastic, a convenient thing,
A point to which each scribbling wight most steer,
Or vainly hope for food or favour here;
A summer's sigh; a winter's wistful tale:
A sound at which th' untutor'd maid turns pale;
Her soft eyes languish, and her bosom heaves,
And Hope delights as Fancy's dream deceives.

Thus speaks the heart which cold disgust invades,
When time instructs, and Hope's enchantment fades;
Through life's wide stage, from sages down to kings,
The puppets move, as art directs the strings:

Think not 'cause men flattering say
Y' are fresh as April, sweet as May,
Bright as is the morning star,
That you are so; or though you are
Be not therefore proud, and deem
All men unworthy your esteem.
For, being so, you lose the pleasure
Of being fair, since that rich treasure
Of rare beauty and sweet feature
Was bestowed on you by nature
To be enjoyed, and 'twere a sin
There to be scarce where she hath been
So prodigal of her best graces;
Thus common beauties and mean faces
Shall have more pastime, and enjoy
The sport you lose by being coy.

Love whets the dullest wittes, his plagues be such;
But makes the wise, by pleasing, doat as much.
So wit is purchast by this dire disease:
Oh let me doat, so Love be bent to please.

O FAR-OFF darling in the South,
Where grapes are loading down the vine,
And songs are in the throstle's mouth,
While love's complaints are here in mine,
Turn from the blue Tyrrhenian Sea!
Come back to me! Come back to me!

Here all the Northern skies are cold,
And in their wintriness they say
(With warnings by the winds foretold)
That love may grow as cold as they!
How ill the omen seems to be!
Come back to me! Come back to me!

Come back, and bring thy wandering heart—
Ere yet it be too far estranged!

There breathed a soul of pearl and fear,
Who in his feign hath but weeping,
E'er he wrests from ill but cheer
That sorrows from love's beating.

The tale of an orb's purple
Was but the slumberer dim
From the space that let life joy therein,
From the winds of beastly trace.

The banner shade was the crayon oil
By the painted dives of monotonous swamps,
As if heat glowed the colors into beaten foil
Which stripes the path of lamps.

He never lived nor ate,
Nor breathed the wind;
And sat not with love
That coiled his fate.

Though love has grown cold
The woods are bright with flowers,
Why not as of old
Go to the wildwood bowers
And dream of—bygone hours.

Like mist on the lees,
Fall gently, oh rain of Spring
On the orange trees
That to Ume's casement cling—
Perchance, she'll hear the love-bird sing.