truth

Yet do not thou forsake me now,
Poesy, with Peace-together!
Ere this last disastrous blow
Did lay my struggling fortunes low,
In love unworn have we not borne
Much wintry weather?
The storm is past, perhaps the last,
Its rainy skirts are wearing over
But though yet a sunnier glow
Should give my ice-bound hopes to flow,
Forlorn of thee, ’twere nought to me
A lonely rover!

Ah, misery! what were then my lot
Amongst a race of unbelievers
Sordid men who all declare

Phyllis! why should we delay
Pleasures shorter than the day?
Can we (which we never can)
Stretch our lives beyond their span,
Beauty like a shadow flies,
And our youth before us dies.
Or, would youth and beauty stay,
Love has wings, and will away.
Love has swifter wings than Time;
Change in love to heaven doth climb.
Gods, that never change their state,
Vary oft their love and hate.
Phyllis! to this truth we owe
All the love betwixt us two.
Let not you and I inquire

Go perjur'd Youth and court what Nymph you please,
Your Passion now is but a dull disease;
With worn-out Sighs deceive some list'ning Ear,
Who longs to know how 'tis and what Men swear;
She'll think they're new from you; 'cause so to her.
Poor cousin'd Fool, she ne'er can know the Charms
Of being first encircled in thy Arms,
When all Love's Joys were innocent and gay,
As fresh and blooming as the new-born day.
Your Charms did then with native Sweetness flow;
The forc'd-kind Complaisance you now bestow,

Fairfax, whose Name in Arms through Europe rings,
And fills all Mouths with Envy or with Praise,
And all her Jealous Monarchs with Amaze.
And Rumours loud which daunt remotest Kings,
Thy firm unshaken Valour ever brings
Victory home, while new Rebellions raise
Their Hydra-heads, and the false North displays
Her broken League to Imp her Serpent Wings:
O yet! a Nobler task awaits thy Hand,
For what can War, but Acts of War still breed
Till injur'd Truth from Violence be freed;

I leave for thee, beloved one,
The home and friends of youth,
Trusting my hopes, my happiness,
Unto thy love and truth;
I leave for thee my girlhood's joys,
Its sunny, careless mirth,
To bear henceforth my share amid
The many cares of earth.

And yet, no wild regret I give
To all that now I leave,
The golden dreams, the flow'ry wreaths
That I no more may weave;
The future that before me lies
A dark and unknown sea --
Whate'er may be its storms or shoals,

Come all you friends and critics,
And listen to my song,
A word I will say to you,
It will not take me long,
The people talks about me,
They've nothing else to do
But to criticise their neighbors,
And they have me now in view.
II
Perhaps they talk for meanness,
And perhaps it is in jest,
If they leave out their freeness
It would suit me now the best,
To keep the good old maxim
I find it hard to do,
That is to do to others
As you wish them do to you.
III

Had I ador'd the multitude, and thence
Got an antipathy to wit and sence,
And hug'd that fate, in hope the world would grant
'Twas good -- affection to be ignorant;
Yet the least ray of thy bright fancy seen
I had converted, or excuseless been:
For each birth of thy muse to after-times
Shall expatiate for all this age's crimes.
First shines the Armoret, twice crown'd by thee,
Once by they Love, next by Poetry;
Where thou the best of Unions dost dispence:
Truth cloth'd in wit, and Love in innocence.

Who and what gave to me the wish to woo thee--
Still, lip to lip, to cling for aye unto thee?
Who made thy glances to my soul the link--
Who bade me burn thy very breath to drink--
My life in thine to sink?
As from the conqueror's unresisted glaive,
Flies, without strife subdued, the ready slave--
So, when to life's unguarded fort, I see
Thy gaze draw near and near triumphantly--
Yields not my soul to thee?
Why from its lord doth thus my soul depart?--
Is it because its native home thou art?

On his "Book of Joyous Children"

Yours is a garden of old-fashioned flowers;
Joyous children delight to play there;
Weary men find rest in its bowers,
Watching the lingering light of day there.

Old-time tunes and young love's laughter
Ripple and run among the roses;
Memory's echoes, murmuring after,
Fill the dusk when the long day closes.

Simple songs with a cadence olden--
These you learned in the Forest of Arden:
Friendly flowers with hearts all golden--
These you borrowed from Eden's garden.

Think you I have not skill to gather gold,
If I could love it as some others do?
Or that I lack the spirit of a bold
And resolute man in any cause that’s true,
Because I scorn to juggle with yon crew
Of politics schemers? Let the truth be told:
Whatever I can value, I can mould
Right deftly to my ends, and boldly too.
“But fame he sought not through a gainful hand”
(This of my being let future tell),
“Nor through the arts of popular command;