When, Lewti! on my couch I lie, A dying man for love of thee. Nay, treacherous image! leave my mind And yet, thou dids't not look unkind. I saw a vapour in the sky, Thin, and white, and very high: I ne'er beheld so thin a cloud. Perhaps the breezes that can fly Have snatch'd aloft the lawny shroud Slush! my heedless feet from under Slip the crumbling banks for ever: Like echoes to a distant thunder, They plunge into the gentle river. The river-swans have heard my tread, And startle from their reedy bed. O beauteous Birds! methinks ye measure Your movements to some heavenly tune! 3 O beauteous Birds! 'tis such a pleasure I know the place where Lewti lies, The Nightingale sings o'er her head: That leafy labyrinth to thread, And creep, like thee, with soundless tread, As these two swans together heave Oh! that she saw me in a dream, And dreamt that I had died for care! All pale and wasted I would seem, Yet fair withal, as spirits are! I'd die indeed, if I might see Her bosom heave, and heave for me! Soothe, gentle image! soothe my mind! To-morrow Lewti may be kind. (From the Morning Post, 1795.) THE PICTURE, OR THE LOVER'S RESOLUTION. THROUGH Weeds and thorns, and matted underwood The scared snake rustles. Onward still I toil, And gladsome as the first-born of the spring, The fir-trees, and th' unfrequent slender oak, Here Wisdom might resort, and here Remorse; He would far rather not be that, he is; But would be something, that he knows not of, In winds or waters, or among the rocks! But hence, fond wretch! breathe not contagion here! He should stray hither, the low stumps shall gore Make his plumes haggard. Like a wounded bird you, ye EARTH-WINDS! you that make at morn And you, ye The dew-drops quiver on the spiders' webs! K 7 Now pant and murmur with her feeding lamb. Chase, chase him, all ye Fays, and elfin Gnomes! Creep through a thorn-bush on yon hedgehog's back. This is my hour of triumph! I can now With my own fancies play the merry fool, And laugh away worse folly, being free. Here will I seat myself, beside this old, Hollow, and weedy oak, which ivy-twîne Cloaths as with net-work: here will couch my limbs, Close by this river, in this silent shade, As safe and sacred from the step of man. Tinkling, or bees, that in the neighbouring trunk ( (i Ne'er play'd the wanton-never half disclosed. |