Girls wonder'd, by the side of youths who loved,
Why they had never wept until that hour;
Tender they knew those hearts, but never moved
As then. Love own'd there was one greater power.
The fault is not mine if I love you too much,
I loved you too little too long,
Such ever your graces, your tenderness such,
And the music the heart gave the tongue.
A time is now coming when Love must be gone,
Tho' he never abandon'd me yet.
Acknowledge our friendship, our passion disown,
Our follies (ah can you?) forget.
If, when a man has thrown himself on flowers,
He feels a sharp flint under him and springs
Upon his legs, he feels the flint again
Tomorrow, not the flowers: they drifted down
The stream of Lethe imperceptibly.
Heavier and sooner to be now engulpht
For every surface-drop which they imbibed.
I have so much of leisure that I hate
To lose a particle; as hate the rich
To lose the dross they know not to employ ;
Else would I moralize a good half-hour
On pleasure and its sequences, and speak
As ill of them as men whom they have left
Usually do.. ungrateful, like the rest.
Leaf after leaf drops off, flower after flower,
Some in the chill, some in the warmer hour :
Alike they flourish and alike they fall,
And Earth who nourisht them receives them all.
Should we, her wiser sons, be less content
To sink into her lap when life is spent?
Pout not, my little Rose, but take
With dimpled fingers, cool and soft,
This posy, when thou art awake. .
Mama has worn my posies oft:
This is the first I offer thee,
Sweet baby! many more shall rise
From trembling hand, from bended knee,
Mid hopes and fears, mid doubts and sighs.
Before that hour my eyes will close;
But grant me, Heaven, this one desire
In mercy! may my little Rose
Never be grafted on a briar.
Rest of my heart! no verse can tell
My blissful pride, beloved by you;
Yet could I love you half so well
Unless you once had grieved me too?
Let Youth, who never rests, run by;
But should each Grace desert the Muse?
Should all that once hath charmed us, fly
At heavy Age's creaking shoes?
The titter of light Days I hear
To see so strange a figure come;
Laugh on, light Days, and never fear;
passes you; he seeks the tomb.
The wisest of the wise
Listen to pretty lies
And love to hear 'em told.
Doubt not that Solomon
Listen'd to many a one,
Some in his youth and more when he
I never was among
The choir of Wisdom's song,
But pretty lies loved I
As much as any king,
When youth was on the wing,
And (must it then be told?) when youth had quite gone by.
Alas! and I have not
The pleasant hour forgot
When one pert lady said "O Walter! I am quite Bewilder'd with affright!
I see (sit quiet now) a white hair on your head."
Another more benign
Snipt it away from mine,
And in her own dark hair
Pretended it was found.
She lept, and twirl'd it round . .
Fair as she was, she never was 80 fair.
Ulysses-like had Myrrha known,
Aye, many a man in many a town:
At last she swore that she would be
Constant to one alone, to me.
She fails a trifle: I reprove:
Myrrha no longer swears her love;
One falsehood honest Myrrha spares,
And argues better than she swears.
"Look now," says she, "o'er these fair plains,
What find you there that long remains?
The rocks upon yon ugly hill
Are hard and cold and changeless still."
TO AN INNOCENT GIRL.
Maid! who canst hardly yet believe
The Tempter could have tempted Eve,
And wonderest with religious doubt
What the good angels were about
To let that horrid creature in
And try to teach her what is sin. .
Trust me, my little girl, altho'
Strange is the story, it was so.
Her whom the hollow world applauds
Where'er she moves, whate'er the gauds
Of wit and beauty she may wear,
One evil action strips her bare ;
One groveling and seductive vice
Tempts her.. and farewell Paradise!
The Wine is murmuring in the gloom,
Because he feels that Spring is come
To gladden everything outside. .
To wing the dove to meet his bride,
And not disdainfully to pass
Even the snail along the grass;
Because he feels that on the slope
Of his own hill the vine-flowers ope;
Because he feels that never more
Will earth or heaven his past restore.
He beats against the ribs of iron
Which him and all his strength environ;
He murmurs, swells, and beats again,
But murmurs, swells, and beats in vain.
Why think about it?" Need I say,
Remembering one sweet hour last May?
We think and feel ('twas your remark)
Then most when all around is dark.
No insect smells so fulsome as that hard
Unseemly beetle which corrodes the rose.
Bring forth your microscope; about the bard
One very like it (only less) it shows.
A sentimental lady sate
Lamenting thus a rose's fate,
As thirty of them, nay threescore,
Bard-bitten all, have done before.
My sweet and lovely one! ah why
Must you so soon decay and die?"
"I know not," with soft accents said,
And balmy breath the Rose, "kind maid!
I only know they call me fair,
And fragrant in this summer air.
If youths should push their faces down
On mine, I smile, but never frown,
And never ('twere affected) say
So much aswanton! go away.'
I would not wish to stop behind
And perish in the wint'ry wind.
I have had sisters; all are gone
Before me, and without a moan.
Be thou as sweet and calm as they,
And never mind the future day."
There is a mountain and a wood between us,
Where the lone shepherd and late bird have seen us
Morning and noon and even-tide repass. Between us now the mountain and the wood Seem standing darker than last year they stood, And say we must not cross, alas! alas!
If wits and poets, two or three,
Four at the most, speak well of me,
It is because my lonely path
Lies hidden by the hills of Bath.
Neighbours who stir one step from prose
Become inevitable foes.
Poetic steamers rarely fail
Somehow to clash upon the rail.
IRISH THANKS FOR ROMISH MIRACLES.
Sure from thee, most Holy Father,
Miracles in heaps we gather:
We have one before us that's
Very like the Kerry cats,
Which our history by Moore
Tells us were just twenty-four.
Others show the very house, and
Swear there were eleven thousand,
Keeping up a glorious fight
All the day and all the night,
Not a knuckle, not a rib,
Left at morn by Tab or Tib,
But one only tail to tell
What the Kerry cats befell.
Blessings on thee, Holy Father,
And thy miracles! We'd rather
See as many Frenchmen slain
Than those Kerry cats again,
Tho', as sure as you are born,
Few we want to watch our corn,
Since the Union-guardians eat
Most of that, and all the meat.
Hear those Frenchmen yonder cry
Freedom and fraternity!
See those pebble-loads of carts
Rumbling from their joyous hearts,
See those sabres hicking hacking,
And those rifles clicking clacking!
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