"Tell me," she said; "but tell me true;
The nymph who could your heart subdue.
What sort of charms does she possess?"
"Absolve me, Fair One: I'll confess
With pleasure," I replied. "Her hair,
In ringlets rather dark than fair,
Does down her ivory bosom roll,
And, hiding half, adorns the whole.
In her high forehead's fair half-round
Love sits in open triumph crown'd:
He in the dimple of her chin,
In private state, by friends is seen.
Her eyes are neither black, nor grey;
Nor fierce, nor feeble is their ray;
Their dubious lustre seems to show
Something that speaks nor Yes, nor No.
Her lips no living bard, I weet,

May say, how red, how round, how sweet:
Old Homer only could indite

Their vagrant grace and soft delight:
They stand recorded in his book,
When Helen smiled, and Hebe spoke-"
The gipsy, turning to her glass,

Too plainly show'd she knew the face:
"And which am I most like," she said,
"Your Chloe, or your nut-brown maid?"

Matthew Prior.

XCIX.

THE DESPAIRING LOVER.

Aн, the poor shepherd's mournful fate,

When doom'd to love, and doom'd to languish,

To bear the scornful fair one's hate,

Nor dare disclose his anguish.

Yet eager looks and dying sighs,

My secret soul discover;

While rapture trembling through mine eyes,

Reveals how much I love her.

The tender glance, the reddening cheek

O'erspread with rising blushes,

A thousand various ways they speak,

A thousand various wishes.

For O! that form so heavenly fair,

Those languid eyes so sweetly smiling,
That artless blush and modest air,
So fatally beguiling!

The every look and every grace,

So charm where'er I view thee;
Till death o'ertake me in the chace,
Still will my hopes pursue thee:
Then when my tedious hours are past,
Be this last blessing given,

Low at thy feet to breathe my last,

And die in sight of heaven.

William Hamilton.

C.

THE GARLAND.

THE pride of every grove I chose,
The violet sweet, and lily fair,
The dappled pink, and blushing rose,
To deck my charming Chloe's hair.

At morn the nymph vouchsafed to place
Upon her brow the various wreath;
The flowers less blooming than her face,
The scent less fragrant than her breath.

The flowers she wore along the day;
And every nymph and shepherd said,
That in her hair they looked more gay,
Than glowing in their native bed.

Undrest at evening, when she found
Their odours lost, their colours past;
She changed her look, and on the ground
Her garland and her eye she cast.

That eye dropt sense distinct and clear,
As any muse's tongue could speak;

When from its lid a pearly tear

Ran trickling down her beauteous cheek.

Dissembling what I knew too well,

66

'My love, my life," said I, "explain This change of humour: pry'thee tell:

That falling tear-what does it mean?"

She sigh'd: she smiled: and to the flowers
Pointing, the lovely moralist said:
"See! friend, in some few fleeting hours,
See yonder, what a change is made.

"Ah me, the blooming pride of May,
And that of Beauty are but one;
At morn both flourish bright and gay,
Both fade at evening, pale, and gone.

"At morn poor Stella danced and sung;
The amorous youth around her bow'd;
At night her fatal knell was rung;

I saw, and kissed her in her shroud.

"Such as she is, who died to-day;
Such I, alas! may be to-morrow:
Go, Damon, bid thy muse display
The justice of thy Chloe's sorrow."

Matthew Prior.

CI.

THE LOVER.

Addressed to Congreve.

Ar length, by so much importunity press'd,
Take, Congreve, at once the inside of my breast.
The stupid indifference so often you blame,
Is not owing to nature, to fear, or to shame;

I am not as cold as a virgin in lead,

Nor is Sunday's sermon so strong in my head;
I know but too well how old Time flies along,
That we live but few years, and yet fewer are young.

But I hate to be cheated, and never will buy
Long years of repentance for moments of joy.
O! was there a man-but where shall I find
Good sense and good nature so equally join'd?--

Would value his pleasures, contribute to mine;
Not meanly would boast, and not grossly design;
Not over severe, yet not stupidly vain,

For I would have the power, but not give the pain.

No pedant, yet learned; no rakey-hell gay,
Or, laughing, because he has nothing to say ;
To all my whole sex obliging and free,
Yet never be loving to any but me;
In public preserve the decorum that's just,
And show in his eye he is true to his trust;
Then rarely approach, and respectfully bow,
But not fulsomely forward, or foppishly low.

But when the long hours of public are past,
And we meet with champagne and a chicken at last,
May every fond pleasure the moment endear;
Be banish'd afar both discretion and fear!
Forgetting or scorning the aim of the crowd,
He may cease to be formal, and I to be proud,
Till, lost in the joy, we confess that we live,
And he may be rude, and yet I may forgive.

And that my delight may be solidly fix'd,

Let the friend and the lover be handsomely mix'd,
In whose tender bosom my soul may confide,

Whose kindness can soothe me, whose counsel can guide.

For such a dear lover as here I describe,

No danger should fright me, no millions should bribe;

But till this astonishing creature I know,

As I long have lived chaste, I will keep myself so.

I never will share with the wanton coquet,

Or be caught by a vain affectation of wit,
The toasters and songsters may try all their art,
But never shall enter the pass of my heart.

I loathe the mere rake, the drest fopling despise:
Before such pursuers the chaste virgin flies:
And as Ovid so sweetly in parable told,

We harden like trees, and like rivers grow cold.

Lady Mary W. Montague.

CII.

THE merchant, to secure his treasure,
Conveys it in a borrow'd name:
Euphelia serves to grace my measure;
But Chloe is my real flame.

My softest verse, my darling lyre
Upon Euphelia's toilet lay;
When Chloe noted her desire,

That I should sing, that I should play.

My lyre I tune, my voice I raise;
But with my numbers mix my sighs:
And while I sing Euphelia's praise,
I fix my soul on Chloe's eyes.

Fair Chloe blush'd: Euphelia frown'd:

I sung, and gazed: I play'd, and trembled:

And Venus to the Loves around

Remark'd, how ill we all dissembled.

Matthew Prior.

CIII.

IN vain you tell your parting lover,
You wish fair winds may waft him over.
Alas, what winds can happy prove

That bear me far from what I love?
Alas, what dangers on the main

Can equal those that I sustain,

From slighted vows, and cold disdain ?

Be gentle, and in pity choose
To wish the wildest tempests loose;
That, thrown again upon the coast
Where first my shipwreck'd heart was lost,
I may once more repeat my pain;
Once more in dying notes complain
Of slighted vows, and cold disdain.

Matthew Prior.