TO J. H. REYNOLDS. O THAT a week could be an age, and we So time itself would be annihilate, To serve our joys would lengthen and dilate. O to arrive each Monday morn from Ind! To land each Tuesday from the rich Levant! In little time a host of joys to bind, And keep our souls in one eternal pant! This morn, my friend, and yester-evening taught Me how to harbor such a happy thought. ΤΟ XI. TIME's sea hath been five years at its slow ebb, Long hours have to and fro let creep the sand, Since I was tangled in thy beauty's web, And snared by the ungloving of thine hand. And yet I never look on midnight sky, But I behold thine eyes' well-memoried light; I cannot look upon the rose's dye, But to thy cheek my soul doth take its flight; I cannot look on any budding flower, But my fond ear, in fancy at thy lips, And hearkening for a love-sound, doth devour Every delight with sweet remembering, A lady whom he saw for some moments at Vauxhall XII. TO SLEEP. O SOFT embalmer of the still midnight! O soothest Sleep! if so it please thee, close, Then save me, or the passed day will shine Save me from curious conscience, that still lords Its strength, for darkness burrowing like a mole ; Turn the key deftly in the oiled wards, And seal the hushed casket of my soul. XIII. ON FAME. FAME, like a wayward girl, will still be coy Who have not learnt to be content without her; A very Gipsey is she, Nilus-born, Sister-in-law to jealous Potiphar; Ye lovesick Bards! repay her scorn for scorn; 1819. L XIV. ON FAME. "You cannot eat your cake and have it too." -Proverb. How fever'd is the man, who cannot look Upon his mortal days with temperate blood, Who vexes all the leaves of his life's book, And robs his fair name of its maidenhood: It is as if the rose should pluck herself, Or the ripe plum finger its misty bloom; As if a Naiad, like a meddling elf, Should darken her pure grot with muddy gloom. But the rose leaves herself upon the brier, grace, Spoil his salvation for a fierce miscreed? 1819. |