Be like an April day, A temperate lily, temperate as fair: A warmer June for me. Why, this-you'll say, my Fanny! is not true: new Must not a woman be A feather on the sea, Sway'd to and fro by every wind and tide? As blow-ball from the mead ? I know it—and to know it is despair Dare keep its wretched home, Love, love alone, his pains severe and many : From torturing jealousy. Ah! if you prize my subdued soul above Or with a rude hand break The sacramental cake : Let none else touch the just new-budded flower If not-may my eyes close, Love! on their last repose. ΤΟ HAT can I do to drive away Remembrance from my eyes? for they have seen, Aye, an hour ago, my brilliant Queen' Touch has a memory. O say, love, say, What can I do to kill it and be free In my old liberty? When every fair one that I saw was fair Not keep me there: When, howe'er poor or particolour'd things, And ever ready was to take her course Unintellectual, yet divine to me ; Divine, I say!—What sea-bird o'er the sea Winging along where the great water throes? To get anew Those moulted feathers, and so mount once more Above, above The reach of fluttering Love, And make him cower lowly while I soar? A heresy and schism, Foisted into the canon-law of love ;- Seize on me unawares, Where shall I learn to get my peace again? Where they were wreck'd and live a wrecked life; That monstrous region, whose dull rivers pour, Ever from their sordid urns unto the shore, Unown'd of any weedy-haired gods; Whose winds, all zephyrless, hold scourging rods, Iced in the great lakes, to afflict mankind; Whose rank-grown forests, frosted, black, and blind, Would fright a Dryad; whose harsh herbaged meads Make lean and lank the starv'd ox while he feeds; There bad flowers have no scent, birds no sweet song, And great unerring Nature once seems wrong. O, for some sunny spell To dissipate the shadows of this hell! Say they are gone,-with the new dawning light Steps forth my lady bright! O, let me once more rest My soul upon that dazzling breast! Let once again these aching arms be placed, The tender gaolers of thy waist! And let me feel that warm breath here and there To spread a rapture in my very hair,— O, the sweetness of the pain! Give me those lips again! Enough! Enough! it is enough for me Oct. 1819. ISABELLA, OR THE POT OF BASIL; A STORY, FROM BOCCACCIO. I. AIR Isabel, poor simple Isabel! eye! They could not in the self-same Without some stir of heart, some malady; They could not, sure, beneath the same roof sleep, But to each other dream, and nightly weep. II. With every morn their love grew tenderer, To her, than noise of trees or hidden rill; III. He knew whose gentle hand was at the latch, Before the door had given her to his eyes; And from her chamber-window he would catch Her beauty farther than the falcon spies; And constant as her vespers would he watch, IV. A whole long month of May in this sad plight Made their cheeks paler by the break of June: "To-morrow will I bow to my delight, To-morrow will I ask my lady's boon." may I never see another night, Lorenzo, if thy lips breathe not love's tune."So spake they to their pillows; but, alas, Honeyless days and days did he let pass; V. Until sweet Isabella's untouch'd cheek And yet I will, and tell my love all plain: VI. So said he one fair morning, and all day For power to speak; but still the ruddy tide VII. So once more he had waked and anguished |