W

warm,

Ne'er think, my beloved, that I do not
believe;

For your lip would the soul of suspicion disarm,
And your eye beams a ray which can never deceive.

Yet still this fond bosom regrets, while adoring,
That love like the leaf, must fall into the sere ;
That age will come on, when remembrance, deploring,
Contemplates the scenes of her youth with a tear ;

That the time must arrive, when, no longer retaining Their auburn, those locks must wave thin to the breeze,

When a few silver hairs of those tresses remaining,

Prove nature a prey to decay and disease.

'Tis this, my beloved, which spreads gloom o'er my features,

Though I ne'er shall presume to arraign the decree Which God has proclaim'd as the fate of his creatures,

In the death which one day will deprive you of me.

Mistake not, sweet sceptic, the cause of emotion,
No doubt can the mind of your lover invade;
He worships each look with such faithful devotion,
A smile can enchant, or a tear can dissuade.

But as death, my beloved, soon or late shall o'ertake

us,

And our breasts, which alive with such sympathy

glow,

Will sleep in the grave till the blast shall awake us,

When calling the dead, in earth's bosom laid low,—

Oh! then let us drain, while we may, draughts of

pleasure,

Which from passion like ours may unceasingly flow; Let us pass round the cup of love's bliss in full

measure,

And quaff the contents as our nectar below.

1805.

HIS votive pledge of fond esteem,

Perhaps, dear girl! for me thou'lt prize;
It sings of Love's enchanting dream,
A theme we never can despise.

Who blames it but the envious fool,
The old and disappointed maid;

Or pupil of the prudish school,

In single sorrow doom'd to fade?

Then read, dear girl! with feeling read,
For thou wilt ne'er be one of those;

To thee in vain I shall not plead
In pity for the poet's woes.

He was in sooth a genuine bard 1; His was no faint, fictitious flame : Like his, may love be thy reward,

But not thy hapless fate the same.