O save, in charity, The quickest pulse for me. Save it for me, sweet love! though music breathe Be like an April day, Smiling and cold and gay, A temperate lily, temperate as fair; A warmer June for me. Why, this you '11 say, my Fanny! is not true: Put your soft hand upon your snowy side, Where the heart beats: confess - 't is nothing Sway'd to and fro by every wind and tide? Of as uncertain speed As blow-ball from the mead? I know it—and to know it is despair To one who loves you as I love, sweet Fanny! Whose heart goes flutt'ring for you every where, Nor, when away you roam, Dare keep its wretched home, Love, love alone, his pains severe and many: Then, loveliest! keep me free, From torturing jealousy. Ah! if you prize my subdued soul above The poor, the fading, brief, pride of an hour; Let none profane my Holy See of love, 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 lost repose. SONNETS. I. OH! how I love, on a fair summer's eve, west, And on the balmy zephyrs tranquil rest The silver clouds, - far, far away to leave All meaner thoughts, and take a sweet reprieve From little cares; to find, with easy quest, A fragrant wild, with Nature's beauty drest, And there into delight my soul deceive. There warm my breast with patriotic lore, Musing on Milton's fate on Sydney's bier Till their stern forms before my mind arise: Perhaps on wing of Poesy upsoar, Full often dropping a delicious tear, When some melodious sorrow spells mine eyes. II. TO A YOUNG LADY WHO SENT ME A LAUREL CROWN. FRESH morning gusts have blown away all fear From my glad bosom now from gloominess I mount forever - not an atom less Than the proud laurel shall content my bier. In the Sun's eye, and 'gainst my temples press By thy white fingers and thy spirit clear. Lo! who dares say, "Do this?" Who dares call down My will from its high purpose? 66 Stand," Who say, Or "Go?" This mighty moment I would frown On abject Cæsars not the stoutest band Of mailed heroes should tear off my crown: Yet would I kneel and kiss thy gentle hand! III. AFTER dark vapors have oppress'd our plains For a long dreary season, comes a day Born of the gentle south, and clears away From the sick heavens all unseemly stains. The anxious mouth, relieved from its pains, Takes as a long-lost right the feel of May, The eyelids with the passing coolness play, Like rose leaves with the drip of summer rains. And calmest thoughts come round us as, of Budding, fruit ripening in stillness, — au tumn suns Smiling at eve upon the quiet sheaves, Sweet Sappho's cheek,- a sleeping infant's breath, The gradual sand that through an hour-glass runs, A woodland rivulet, a Poet's death. Jan. 1817. |