love poetry

THE PRESERVATIVE OF LOVE AND BEAUTY .

Confess thy love, fair blushing maid;
For since thine eyes consenting,
Thy safter thoughts are a' betray'd,
And nasays no worth tenting.
Why aims thou to oppose thy mind,
With words thy wish denying?
Since nature made thee to be kind,
Reason allows complying.

Nature and reason's joint consent
Make love a sacred blessing;

Your skies are blue, your sun is bright;
But sky nor sun has that sweet light
Which gleam'd upon the summer sky
Of my own lovely I TALY !
'Tis long since I have breathed the air
Which, fill'd with odours, floated there, —
Sometimes in sleep a gale sweeps by,
Rich with the rose and myrtle's sigh: —
'Tis long since I have seen the vine
With Autumn's topaz clusters shine,
And watch'd the laden branches bending,
And heard the vintage songs ascending;
'Tis very long since I have seen

WRITTEN UNDER A PICTURE OF A GIRL BURNING A LOVE

LETTER

I took the scroll: I could not brook
An eye to gaze on it save mine;
I could not bear another's look
Should dwell upon one thought of thine.
My lamp was burning by my side,
I held thy letter to the flame,
I mark'd the blaze swift o'er it glide,
It did not even spare thy name.
Soon the light from the embers past,
I felt so sad to see it die,
So bright at first, so dark at last,

Another day — another day,
And yet he comes not nigh;
I look amid the dim blue hills,
Yet nothing meets mine eye.

I hear the rush of mountain-streams
Upon the echoes borne;
I hear the singing of the birds, —
But not my hunter's horn.

The eagle sails in darkness past,
The watchful chamois bounds;
But what I look for comes not near, —
My U LRIC'S hawk and hounds.

Three times I thus have watch'd the snow
Grow crimson with the stain
The setting sun threw o'er the rock,

A Small Poeme

FIRST WRITTEN 1642: BY THE SAME AUTHOR; TAKEN FROM THE ORIGINALL INTO THIS PLACE COPIED;
1.6.4.6.

Non est forma Satis, nec, quae vult' bella videri;
Debet vulgari more placere Sibi;
Dicta, Sales, lusus, sermonis gratia, risus,
Vincunt Naturae candidioris opus;
Condit enim formam, quicquid consumitur artis,
Et nisi velle subest, gratia tota perit.

TO CINTHIA; COYING IT

N OE LONGER Cinthia; have I spent

There was an old Derry down Derry,
Who loved to see little folks merry;
So he made them a Book,
And with laughter they shook,
At the fun of that Derry down Derry!

I ANTHE took me by both ears and said
You are so rash, I own I am afraid.
Prop, or keep hidden in your breast, my name,
But be your love as lasting as your fame.

Censured by her who stands above
The Sapphic Muse in song and love,
" For minding what such people do,"
I turn in confidence to you.
Now, Forster, did you never stop
At orange-peel or turnip-top,
To kick them from your path, and then
Complacently walk on agen?

Smiles soon abate; the boisterous throes
Of anger long burst forth;
Inconstantly the south-wind blows,
But steadily the north.

Thy star, O Venus! often changes
Its radiant seat above,
The chilling pole-star never ranges —
'Tis thus with Hate and Love.

On love, on grief, on every human thing,
Time sprinkles Lethe's water with his wing.