The very atoms of the air
Seem warmed and stirring everywhere;
The sky with golden light suffused:
The earth grown bright with dawn unused;
I hear in waves of carolings
The sound of kisses, sweep of wings;
I close mine eyes,—what happens there?—
—The passing-by of Love the fair!—

I KNOW not, wherefore, dearest love,
Thou often art so strange and coy!
When 'mongst man's busy haunts we move,
Thy coldness puts to flight my joy.
But soon as night and silence round us reign,
I know thee by thy kisses sweet again!

How can one e'er be sure
If true love will endure?
My thoughts this morning are
As tangled as my hair.

Fie, fie on blind fancy,
It hinders youth's joy:
Fair virgins, learn by me,
To count love a toy.
When Love learned first the A B C of delight,
And knew no figures, nor conceited phrase,
He simply gave to due desert her right,
He led not lovers in dark winding ways,
He plainly willed to love, or flatly answered no;
But now who lists to prove, shall find it nothing so.
Fie, fie then on fancy,
It hinders youth's joy:
Fair virgins, learn by me,
To count love a toy.
For since he learned to use the poet's pen,

Where every Female delights to give her maiden to her husband:
The Female searches sea & land for gratifications to the
Male Genius, who in return clothes her in gems & gold
And feeds her with the food of Eden; hence all her beauty beams.
She Creates at her will a little moony night & silence
With Spaces of sweet gardens & a tent of elegant beauty,
Closed in by a sandy desart & a night of stars shining
And a little tender moon & hovering angels on the wing;
And the Male gives a Time & Revolution to her Space

I am to follow her. There is much grace
In women when thus bent on martyrdom.
They think that dignity of soul may come,
Perchance, with dignity of body. Base!
But I was taken by that air of cold
And statuesque sedateness, when she said
"I'm going"; lit a taper, bowed her head,
And went, as with the stride of Pallas bold.
Fleshly indifference horrible! The hands
Of Time now signal: O, she's safe from me!
Within those secret walls what do I see?
Where first she set the taper down she stands:
Not Pallas: Hebe shamed! Thoughts black as death

Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean,
Tears from the depth of some divine despair
Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes,
In looking on the happy autumn-fields,
And thinking of the days that are no more.

Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail,
That brings out friends up from the underworld,
Sad as the last which reddens over one
That sinks with all we love below the verge;
So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more.

Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns
The earliest pipe of half-awaken'd birds

Let not Love on me bestow
Soft Distress, and tender Woe;
I know none but substantial Blisses,
Eager Glances, solid Kisses;
I know not what the Lovers feign,
Of finer Pleasure mix'd with Pain;
Then prethee give me gentle Boy,
None of thy Grief but all thy Joy.

Sweet valley, say, where, pensive lying,
For me, our children, England, sighing,
The best of mortals leans his head.
Ye fountains, dimpled by my sorrow,
Ye brooks that my compainings borrow,
O lead me to his lonely bed:
Or if my lover,
Deep woods, you cover,
Ah whisper where your shadows o'er him spread.

'Tis not the loss of pomp and pleasure,
Of empire, or of tinsel treasure,
That drops this tear, that swells this groan:
No; from a nobler cause proceeding,
A heart with love and fondness bleeding,

O PEACE ! the fairest child of Heaven,
To whom the sylvan reign was given,
The vale, the fountain, and the grove,
With every softer scene of love;
Return, sweet Peace! and cheer the weeping swain,
Return, with Ease and Pleasure in thy train.

O PEACE ! the fairest child of Heaven,
To whom the sylvan reign was given,
The vale, the fountain, and the grove,
With every softer scene of love;
Return, sweet Peace! and cheer the weeping swain,
Return, with Ease and Pleasure in thy train.