SENT TO A LADY WITH HAMMOND'S POEMS.
IF I, fair Maid, in plaintive strain,
Confess no anxious lover's pain;
Nor bid my sighing numbers flow,
In languid notes of mimic woe :
Think not mine eyes to beauty blind,
My heart unfeeling, or unkind,
Unfit for Love's sensations keen;
But thank your cloudy veil so green.
If, while the veil conceals your cheek,
I start not from your glance oblique ;
Nor tingling through my glowing veins,
The crimson tint my face distains:
Nor yet unconscious near your side,
With motion scarce perceiv'd I glide,
To talk by fits, and pause between ;
Then thank your cloudy veil so green.
If sighs of fondness half repress'd,
In secret breathe not from my breast;
Nor round my heart the languors wreath,
Which oft forbid the sigh to breathe,
Nor o'er my brow, of pallid hue,
Emerge the cold and shining dew;
Blame not, fair Maid, your faultless mien,
But thank your cloudy veil so green.
And now, when unconcern'd and gay,
I pour the jocund sportive lay,
And bid my careless heart defy
The glance of that love-kindling eye,
Still as I muse on Hammond's pain,
Who felt the woes that others feign,
Like Hammond's fate mine might have been
I think, and bless your veil so green.
BELIEVE me, dear girl, when I swear,
Though a stranger you're yet to Love's pain,
There is something too soft in your air,
Too gentle for scorn and disdain:
Though the torments of Love you mayn't know,
Yet cruel you never can prove;
For Pity, though colder than snow,
Is still the forerunner of Love.
SEE, where stern WINTER's icy hand
Disrobes the poplar tree :-
The fields, their May-clothes lost, all naked stand; Their hues of red, white, blue, no more I see; Buried in snows they sleep-and live no more to me!
Yet, flow'rets sweet, shall I for you
The sorrowing strain indite,
When I my lovely, loving charmer view
In more than all your vernal beauties bright, With forehead white, red lip, and eyes of azure light!
Ye blackbirds whistling thro' the vale,
Ye nightingales that charm the grove,
In vain your melting notes my ear assail!
For silver-voic'd is she-the girl I love,
And sweet her breath as gales o'er hyacinth-beds that rove!
When of her lips I taste the bliss,
Full happiness I seem to meet :
More rich to me the honey-breathing kiss
Than mulberry fragrant, or than cherry sweet:
What more, then, can I wish-In her fair spring I
HAIL, solemn visionary hour!
Thy silent, dim return I greet;
No gleam to gild yon mouldering tower,
No sound for echo to repeat.
Sweet sprite of eve! that lov'st to glide
In silence mid the twilight sky,
Whose form can only be descried
By musing Fancy's favour'd eye!
Sweet sprite! by whose aerial power
Are Fancy's finest visions wrought,
That hoverest at this fairy hour,
To prompt the soft, the pensive thought!
Sweet sprite! with whom my youth hath shed, Full oft the tender pleasing tear,
Whose form has thrill'd my breast with dread,
What strain may please thine hallow'd ear!
With thee the raptur'd bard resorts,
To thee resigns his soul sublime,
To range mid terror's awful courts!
To glance beyond the bounds of time!
Thy milder influence too, hath taught
His soul in melting strains to grieve,
Strains that, with softest sadness fraught,
Shall gentle bosoms deeply heave.
Oh! may to me thine aspect wear
The sweet, the inexpressive grace
Of her my breast still holds so dear,
Of her whom Faucy loves to trace.
And when I rove the heath along,
Or mid some dark dell lingering stray,
To meditate my simple song,
Oh thou! inspire the rustic lay!
And if the mellow moon-light fall
On haunted grove, or vale remote,
O then thy fairy minstrels call
To swell the fine voluptuous note.
And when, beneath those willows' boughs,
On yon old mossy bridge I lean,
To watch the lone stream as it flows,
Restore some pleasing long lost scene.
And when, in solemn tones, the wind
Sweeps through yon abbey's crannied cells,
With dread accordance may my mind
Swell, as the deepening music swells.
But, if the dark clouds, tempest-blown,
Roll in their dreadful depth of shade,
If Night, with terrors round him thrown,
Thy calm, thy soothing reign invade,
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