Mild be the sunbeams, mild the gales,
Along Liguria's pendent vales.
Whether from changeful Magra sped
Or Tanaro's unquiet bed.
Let Apennine and Alpine snows
Be husht into unwaked repose,
While Italy gives back again
More charms and virtues than remain,
Which France with loftier pride shall own
Than all her brightest arms have won.
No, my own love of other years!
No, it must never be.
Much rests with you that yet endears,
Alas! but what with me?
Could those bright years o'er me revolve
So gay, o'er you so fair,
The pearl of life we would dissolve
And each the cup might share.
You show that truth can ne'er decay,
Whatever fate befals;
I, that the myrtle and the bay
Shoot fresh on ruin'd walls.
The brightest mind, when sorrow sweeps across,
Becomes the gloomiest; so the stream, that ran
Clear as the light of heaven ere autumn closed,
When wintry storm and snow and sleet descend,
Is darker than the mountain or the moor.
Heron! of grave career! whose lordly croaks
Claim as inheritance Bodryddan's oaks,
I come no radical to question rights:
But, one word in your ear, most noble sir!
If you may croak, I sure may sing, to her
Who in my voice, as in your own, delights.
"Most potent, grave, and reverend signor!" Heron!
High as the station is you now appear on,
I see you perch upon it, nor repine:
About our voice we may perhaps dispute,
As for our seat, on that you must be mute:
Yours but a Dryad rais'd, a Grace rais'd mine.
Life (priest and poet say) is but a dream
I wish no happier one than to be laid
Beneath a cool syringa's scented shade,
Or wavy willow, by the running stream,
Brimful of moral, where the dragon-fly,
Wanders as careless and content as I.
Thanks for this fancy, insect king,
Of purple crest and filmy wing,
Who with indifference givest up
The water-lily's golden cup,
To come again and overlook
What I am writing in my book.
Believe me, most who read the line
Will read with hornier eyes than thine;
And yet their souls shall live for ever,
And thine drop dead into the river!
God pardon them, O insect king,
Who fancy so unjust a thing!
Thou pityest; and why hidest thou thy pity?
Let the warm springs of thy full heart gush forth
Before the surface cool: no fear that ever
The inner fountain a fresh stream deny.
Absent is she thou lovest? be it so;
Yet there is what should drive away thy woe
And make the night less gloomy than the day.
Absent she may be; yet her love appears
Close by; and through the labyrinth of the ears
Her voice's clue to the prone heart makes way.
Rightly you say you do not know
How much, my little maid, you owe
My guardian care. The veriest dunce
Beats me at reckoning. Pray, permit
My modesty to limit it,
Nor urge me to take all at once.
You are so young, I dare not say
I might demand from you each day
Of a long life a lawful kiss.
I, so much older, won't repine
If you pay me one, each of mine,
But be exact; begin with this.
"Do you remember me? or are you proud? Lightly advancing thro' her star-trimm'd crowd, Ianthe said, and lookt into my eyes.
"A yes, a yes, to both: for Memory
Where you but once have been must ever be,
And at your voice Pride from his throne must rise."
No charm can stay, no medicine can assuage,
The sad incurable disease of age;
Only the hand in youth more warmly prest
Makes soft the couch and calms the final rest.
Many may yet recall the hours
That saw thy lover's chosen flowers
Nodding and dancing in the shade
Thy dark and wavy tresses made:
On many a brain is pictured yet
Thy languid eye's dim violet:
But who among them all foresaw
How the sad snows which never thaw
Upon that head one day should lie,
And love but glimmer from that eye!
Yes; I write verses now and then,
But blunt and flaccid is my pen,
No longer talkt of by young men
As rather clever :
In the last quarter are my eyes,
You see it by their form and size;
Is it not time then to be wise?
Fairest that ever sprang from Eve!
While Time allows the short reprieve,
Just look at me! would you believe
'Twas once a lover?
I can not clear the five-bar gate,
But, trying first its timber's state,
Climb stiffly up, take breath, and wait
To trundle over.
Thro' gallopade I can not swing
The entangling blooms of Beauty's spring:
I can not say the tender thing,
And am beginning to opine
Those girls are only half-divine
Whose waists yon wicked boys entwine
I fear that arm above that shoulder,
I wish them wiser, graver, older,
Sedater, and no harm if colder
Ah! people were not half so wild
In former days, when, starchly mild,
Upon her high-heel'd Essex smiled
The brave Queen Bess.
No doubt thy little bosom beats
When sounds a wedding bell,
No doubt it pants to taste the sweets
That songs and stories tell.
Awhile in shade content to lie,
Prolong life's morning dream,
While others rise at the first fly
That glitters on the stream.
No, Daisy lift not up thy ear,
It is not she whose steps draw near.
Tuck under thee that leg, for she
Continues yet beyond the sea,
And thou may'st whimper in thy sleep
These many days, and start and weep.
True, ah too true! the generous breast
Lies bare to Love and Pain.
May one alone, the worthier guest,
Be yours, and there remain.
ON SEEING A HAIR OF LUCRETIA BORGIA.
Borgia, thou once wert almost too august
And high for adoration; now thou'rt dust.
All that remains of thee these plaits unfold,
Calm hair, meandering in pellucid gold.
Stranger, these little flowers are sweet
If you will leave them at your feet,
Enjoying like yourself the breeze,
And kist by butterflies and bees;
But if you snap the fragile stem
The vilest thyme outvalues them.
Nor place nor flower would I select
To make you serious and reflect.
This heaviness was always shed
Upon the drooping rose's head.
Yet now perhaps your mind surveys
Some village maid, in earlier days,
Of charms thus lost, of life thus set,
Ah bruise not then my Mignionette!
In his own image the Creator made,
His own pure sunbeam quicken'd thee, O man! Thou breathing dial! since thy day began The present hour was ever markt with shado!
WRITTEN ON THE RHINE.
Swiftly we sail along thy stream,
War-stricken Rhine! and evening's gleam
Shows us, throughout its course,
The gaping scars (on either side,
On every cliff) of guilty pride
And unavailing force.
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