"Tis not love disturbs thy rest,
Love's a stranger to thy breast;
He in dimpling smiles appears,
Or mourns in sweetly timid tears,
Or bends the languid eyelid down,
But shuns the cold forbidding frown.
Then resume thy former fire,
Some will love, and all admire;
While that icy aspect chills us.
Naught but cool indifference thrills us,
Wouldst thou wandering hearts beguile,
Smile at least, or seem to smile.
Eyes like thine were never meant
To hide their orbs in dark restraint;
Spite of all thou fain would say,
Still in truant beams they play.
Thy lips- but here my modest Muse
Her impulse chaste must needs refuse:
She blushes, curt'sies, frowns-in short she
Dreads lest the subject should transport me,
And flying off in search of reason,
Brings prudence back in proper season.
All I shall therefore say (whate'er
I think is neither here nor there)
Is, that such lips, of looks endearing,
Were form'd for better things than sneering:
Of soothing compliments divested,
Advice at least's disinterested;
Such is my artless song to thee,
From all the flow of flattery free;
Counsel like mine is like a brother's,
My heart is given to some others;
That is to say, unskill'd to cozen,
It shares itself among a dozen.
Marion, adieu! oh, prithee, slight not
This warning, though it may delight not
And lest my precepts be displeasing
To those who think remonstrance teasing,
At once I'll tell thee our opinion
Concerning woman's soft dominion:
Howe'er we gaze with admiration
On eyes of blue or lips carnation,
Howe'er the flowing locks attract us,
Howe'er those beauties may distract us,
Still fickle, we are prone to rove,
These cannot fix our souls to love:
It is not too severe a stricture
To say they form a pretty picture;
But wouldst thou see the secret chain
Which binds us in your humble train,
To hail you queens of all creation,
Know, in a word, 'tis ANIMATION.
WHO PRESENTED TO THE AUTHOR A LOCK OF HAIR BRAIDED
WITH HIS OWN, AND APPOINTED A NIGHT IN DECEMBER TO
MEET HIM IN THE GARDEN.*
THESE locks, which fondly thus entwine,
In firmer chains our hearts confine,
Than all th' unmeaning protestations
Which swell with nonsense love orations.
Our love is fixed, I think we've proved it,
Nor time, nor place, nor art have moved it;
Then wherefore should we sigh and whine,
With groundless jealousy repine,
With silly whims and fancies frantic,
Merely to make our love romantic?
Why should you weep like Lydia Languish,
And fret with self-created anguish,
Or doom the lover you have chosen,
On winter nights to sigh half frozen;
In leafless shades to sue for pardon,
Only because the scene's a garden?
For gardens seem, by one consent,
Since Shakespeare set the precedent,
Since Juliet first declared her passion
To form the place of assignation.†
Oh! would some modern muse inspire,
And seat her by a sea-coal fire;
Or had the bard at Christmas written,
And laid the scene of love in Britain,
He surely, in commiseration,
Had changed the place of declaration.
In Italy I've no objection;
Warm nights are proper for reflection;
But here our climate is so rigid,
That love itself is rather frigid.
Think on our chilly situation,
And curb this rage for imitation;
Then let us meet as oft we've done,
Beneath the influence of the sun;
Or, if at midnight I must meet you,
Within your mansion let me greet you.
There we can love for hours together,
Much better in such snowy weather,
Than placed in all th' Arcadian groves
That ever witness'd rural loves;
Then, if my passion fail to please,
Next night I'll be content to freeze;
* Supposed to be the Mary addressed p. 26.
In the above little piece the author has been accused by some candid readers of introducing the name of a lady from whom he was some hundred miles distant at the time this was written; and poor Juliet, who has slept so long in "the tomb of all the Capulets," has been converted, with a trifling alteration of her name, into an English damsel, walking in a garden of their own creation, during the month of December, in a village where the author never passed a winter. Such has been the candour of some ingenious critics. We would advise these liberal com. mentators on taste and arbiters of decorum to read Shakspeare.-B.
No more I'll give a loose to laughter,
But curse my fate for ever after.*
OSCAR OF ALVA †—A TAle.
How sweetly shines through azure skies,
The lamp of heaven on Lora's shore;
Where Alva's hoary turrets rise,
And hear the din of arms no more.
But often has yon rolling moon
On Alva's casques of silver play'd;
And view'd, at midnight's silent noon,
Her chiefs in gleaming mail array'd:
And on the crimson'd rocks beneath,
Which scowl o'er ocean's sullen flow
Pale in the scatter'd ranks of death,
She saw the gasping warrior low;
While many an eye which ne'er again
Could mark the rising orb of day,
Turn'd feebly from the gory plain,
Beheld in death her fading ray.
Once to those eyes the lamp of Love,
They blest her dear propitious light;
But now she glimmer'd from above,
A sad, funereal torch of night.
Faded is Alva's noble race,
And gray her towers are seen afar;
No more her heroes urge the chase,
Or roll the crimson tide of war.
But who was last of Alva's clan?
Why grows the moss on Alva's stone?
Her towers resound no steps of man,
They echo to the gale alone.
And when that gale is fierce and high,
A sound is heard in yonder hall;
It rises hoarsely through the sky,
And vibrates o'er the mouldering wall.
Yes, when the eddying tempest sighs,
It shakes the shield of Oscar brave,
But there no more his banners rise,
No more his plumes of sable wave.
Having heard that a very severe and indelicate censure has been passed on the above poem, I beg leave to reply in a quotation from an admired work, "Carr's Stranger in France"" As we were contemplating a painting on a large scale, in which, among other figures, is the uncovered whole length of a warrior, a prudishlooking lady, who seemed to have touched the age of desperation, after having attentively surveyed it through her glass, observed to her party, that there was a great deal of indecorum in that picture. Madame S. shrewdly whispered in my ear, that the indecorum was in the remark.'"-B.
The catastrophe of this tale was suggested by the story of "Jeronymo and Lorenzo," in the first volume of Schiller's "Armenian, or the Ghost-Seer." It also bears some resemblance to a scene in the third act of" Macbeth."-B.
Fair shone the sun on Oscar's birth,
When Angus hail'd his eldest born;
The vassals round their chieftain's hearth
Crowd to applaud the happy morn.
They feast upon the mountain deer,
The pibroch raised its piercing note
To gladden more their Highland cheer,
The strains in martial numbers float:
And they who heard the war-notes wild
Hoped that one day the pibroch's strain
Should play before the hero's child
While he should lead the tartan train.
Another year is quickly past,
And Angus hails another son;
His natal day is like the last,
Nor soon the jocund feast was done.
Taught by their sire to bend the bow,
On Alva's dusky hills of wind,
The boys in childhood chased the roe,
And left their hounds in speed behind.
But ere their years of youth are o'er.
They mingle in the ranks of war;
They lightly wheel the bright claymore,
And send the whistling arrow far.
Dark was the flow of Oscar's hair,
Wildly it streamed along the gale;
But Allan's locks were bright and fair,
And pensive seem'd his cheek, and pale.
But Oscar own'd a hero's soul,
His dark eye shone through beams of truth; Allan had early learn'd control,
And smooth his words had been from youth.
Both, both were brave: the Saxon spear
Was shiver'd oft beneath their steel;
And Oscar's bosom scorn'd to fear,
But Oscar's bosom knew to feel;
While Allan's soul belied his form,
Unworthy with such charms to dwell,
Keen as the lightning of the storm,
On foes his deadly vengeance fell.
From high Southannon's distant tower
Arrived a young and noble dame;
With Kenneth's lands to form her dower,
Glenalvon's blue-eyed daughter came;
And Oscar claim'd the beauteous bride,
And Angus on his Oscar smiled:
It soothed the father's feudal pride
Thus to obtain Glenalvon's child.
* See criticism on this line, p. 86.
Hark to the pibroch's pleasing note!
Hark to the swelling nuptial song!
In joyous strains the voices float,
And still the choral peal prolong.
See how the heroes' blood-red plumes
Assembled wave in Alva's hall;
Each youth his varied plaid assumes,
Attending on their chieftain's call.
It is not war their aid demands,
The pibroch plays the song of peace;
To Oscar's nuptials throng the bands,
Nor yet the sounds of pleasure cease.
But where is Oscar? sure 'tis late:
Is this a bridegroom's ardent flame?
While thronging guests and ladies wait,
Nor Oscar nor his brother came.
At length young Allan joined the bride:
"Why comes not Oscar," Angus said:
"Is he not here?" the youth replied;
"With me he roved not o'er the glade:
"Perchance, forgetful of the day,
"Tis his to chase the bounding roe;
Or ocean's waves prolong his stay;
Yet Oscar's bark is seldom slow."
"Oh, no!" the anguish'd sire rejoined,
"Nor chase nor wave my boy delay;
Would he to Mora seem unkind?
Would ought to her impede his way
"Oh, search, ye chiefs! oh, search around! Allan, with these through Alva fly; Till Oscar, till my son is found,
Haste, haste, nor dare attempt reply."
All is confusion-through the vale
The name of Oscar hoarsely rings,
It rises on the murmuring gale,
Till night expands her dusky wings;
It breaks the stillness of the night,
But echoes through her shades in vain, It sounds through morning's misty light, But Oscar comes not o'er the plain.
Three days, three sleepless nights, the Chief For Oscar.search'd each mountain cave.
Then hope is lost in boundless grief,
His locks in gray-torn ringlets wave.
"Oscar! my son-thou God of Heav'n
Restore the prop of sinking age!
Or if that hope no more is given,
Yield his assassin to my rage.
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