But, greatly pitying whom the world calls happy,
Gently spin out the silken thread of life ;
While from her lips attentive I receive
The tenderest dictates of the purest flame,
And from her eyes (where soft complacence sits
Illumined with the radiant beams of sense)
Tranquillity beyond a monarch's reach.
Forgive me, Heaven, this only avarice
My soul indulges; I confess the crime
(If to esteem, to covet such perfection

Be criminal). Oh, grant me Delia! grant me wealth!
Wealth to alleviate, not increase my wants;

And grant me virtue, without which nor wealth,
Nor Delia, can avail to make me blest.

WRITTEN IN A FIT OF ILLNESS

R. S. S.

In these sad hours, a prey to ceaseless pain,
While feverish pulses leap in every vein,
When each faint breath the last short effort seems
Of life just parting from my feeble limbs ;

How wild soe'er my wandering thoughts may be,
Still, gentle Delia, still they turn on thee!
At length if, slumbering to a short repose,
A sweet oblivion frees me from my woes,
Thy form appears, thy footsteps I pursue

Through springy vales, and meadows washed in dew:
Thy arm supports me to the fountain's brink,
Where, by some secret power forbid to drink,
Gasping with thirst, I view the tempting flood
That flies my touch, or thickens into mud;
Till thine own hand immerged the goblet dips,
And bears it streaming to my burning lips.
Then borne aloft on fancy's wing we fly,
Like souls embodied to their native sky;
Now every rock, each mountain, disappears;
And the round earth an even surface wears;
When lo! the force of some resistless weight
Bears me straight down from that pernicious height;
Parting, in vain our struggling arms we close ;
Abhorrèd forms, dire phantoms, interpose;
With trembling voice on thy loved name I call;
And gulfs yawn ready to receive my fall.

From these fallacious visions of distress
I wake; nor are my real sorrows less.
Thy absence, Delia, heightens every ill,

And gives e'en trivial pains the power to kill.
Oh! wert thou near me; yet that wish forbear!
'Twere vain, my love,-'twere vain to wish thee near;
Thy tender heart would heave with anguish too,
And, by partaking, but increase my woe.
Alone I'll grieve, till, gloomy sorrow past,

Health, like the cheerful day-spring, comes at last,—
Comes fraught with bliss to banish every pain,
Hope, joy, and peace, and Delia, in her train!

TO DELIA

HOPE, like the short-lived ray that gleams awhile
Through wintry skies upon the frozen waste,
Cheers e'en the face of misery to a smile;
But soon the momentary pleasure's past.

How oft, my Delia, since our last farewell

(Years that have rolled since that distressful hour), Grieved I have said, when most our hopes prevail, Our promised happiness is least secure.

Oft I have thought the scene of troubles closed,

And hoped once more to gaze upon your charms;

As oft some dire mischance has interposed,

And snatched the expected blessing from my arms.

The seaman thus, his shattered vessel lost,

Still vainly strives to shun the threatening death;
And while he thinks to gain the friendly coast,
And drops his feet, and feels the sands beneath,

Borne by the wave steep-sloping from the shore,
Back to the inclement deep, again he beats
The surge aside, and seems to tread secure ;
And now the refluent wave his baffled toil defeats.

Had you, my love, forbade me to pursue
My fond attempt; disdainfully retired,

And with proud scorn compelled me to subdue
The ill-fated passion by yourself inspired;

Then haply to some distant spot removed,
Hopeless to gain, unwilling to molest
With fond entreaties whom I dearly loved,
Despair or absence had redeemed my rest.

But now, sole partner in my Delia's heart,
Yet doomed far off in exile to complain,
Eternal absence cannot ease my smart,

And hope subsists but to prolong my pain.

Oh then, kind Heaven, be this my latest breath! Here end my life, or make it worth my care; Absence from whom we love is worse than death, And frustrate hope severer than despair.

TO DELIA

1755

ME to whatever state the gods assign,
Believe, my love, whatever state be mine,
Ne'er shall my breast one anxious sorrow know,
Ne'er shall my heart confess a real woe,
If to thy share Heaven's choicest blessings fall,
As thou hast virtue to deserve them all.
Yet vain, alas! that idle hope would be
That builds on happiness remote from thee.
Oh! may thy charms, whate'er our fate decrees,
Please, as they must, but let them only please—
Not like the sun with equal influence shine,
Nor warm with transport any heart but mine.
Ye who from wealth the ill-grounded title boast
To claim whatever beauty charms you most;
Ye sons of fortune, who consult alone
Her parents' will, regardless of her own,
Know that a love like ours, a generous flame,
No wealth can purchase, and no power reclaim.
The soul's affection can be only given
Free, unextorted, as the grace of Heaven.

Is there whose faithful bosom can endure
Pangs fierce as mine nor ever hope a cure?
Who sighs in absence of the dear-loved maid,
Nor summons once indifference to his aid?
Who can, like me, the nice resentment prove,
The thousand soft disquietudes of love ;
The trivial strifes that cause a real pain;
The real bliss when reconciled again?

Let him alone dispute the real prize,
And read his sentence in my Delia's eyes.
There shall he read all gentleness and truth,
But not himself the dear distinguished youth ;
Pity for him perhaps they may express,
Pity that will but heighten his distress.
But, wretched rival! he must sigh to see
The sprightlier rays of love directed all to me.
And thou, dear antidote of every pain
Which fortune can inflict, or love ordain,
Since early love has taught thee to despise
What the world's worthless votaries only prize,
Believe, my love! no less the generous god
Rules in my breast, his ever blest abode;
There has he driven each gross desire away,
Directing every wish and every thought to thee!
Then can I ever leave my Delia's arms,

A slave, devoted to inferior charms?
Can e'er my soul her reason so disgrace?

For what blest minister of heavenly race

Would quit that heaven to find a happier place?

ABSENCE AND BEREAVEMENT

DOOMED, as I am, in solitude to waste
The present moments, and regret the past;
Deprived of every joy I valued most,

My friend torn from me, and my mistress lost,
Call not this gloom I wear, this anxious mien,
The dull effect of humour, or of spleen!
Still, still I mourn, with each returning day,
Him snatched by fate in early youth away,
And her, through tedious years of doubt and pain,
Fixed in her choice, and faithful, but in vain!
O prone to pity, generous, and sincere,
Whose eye ne'er yet refused the wretch a tear;
Whose heart the real claim of friendship knows,
Nor thinks a lover's are but fancied woes;
See me, ere yet my destined course half done,
Cast forth a wanderer on a world unknown!
See me neglected on the world's rude coast,
Each dear companion of my voyage lost,
Nor ask why clouds of sorrow shade my brow,
And ready tears wait only leave to flow,
Why all that soothes a heart from anguish free,
All that delights the happy, palls with me!

ON READING THE "PRAYER FOR INDIFFERENCE."

AND dwells there in a female heart,
By bounteous heaven designed
The choicest raptures to impart,
To feel the most refined;

Dwells there a wish in such a breast

Its nature to forego,

To smother in ignoble rest

At once both bliss and woe?

Far be the thought, and far the strain
Which breathes the low desire,
How sweet soe'er the verse complain,
Though Phoebus string the lyre.

Come then, fair maid (in nature wise),
Who, knowing them, can tell
From generous sympathy what joys
The glowing bosom swell;

In justice to the various powers
Of pleasing, which you share,
Join me, amid your silent hours,
To form the better prayer.

With lenient balm may Oberon hence
To fairy-land be driven,

With every herb that blunts the sense
Mankind received from heaven.

Oh! if my Sovereign Author please,
Far be it from my fate

To live unblest in torpid ease,

And slumber on in state;

Each tender tie of life defied,
Whence social pleasures spring;
Unmoved with all the world beside,
A solitary thing.

Some Alpine mountain wrapt in snow
Thus braves the whirling blast,

Eternal winter doomed to know,

No genial spring to taste ;