0! save, in charity,
The quickest pulse for me.

Save it for me, sweet love! though music breathe
Voluptuous visions into the warm air,
Though swimming through the dance's dangerous

wreath ;
Be like an April day,

Smiling and cold and gay,
A temperate lily, temperate as fair ;

Then, Heaven! there will be
A warmer June for me.

Why, this

- you

'11

say, my Fanny! is not true : Put your

soft hand upon your snowy side, Where the heart beats : confess

- 't is nothing
new-
Must not a woman be

A feather on the sea,
Sway'd to and fro by every wind and tide ?

Of as uncertain speed
As blow-ball from the mead ?

I know it - and to know it is despair
To one who loves you as I love, sweet Fanny !
Whose heart goes flutt'ring for you every where,

Nor, when away you roam,

Dare keep its wretched home,
Love, love alone, his pains severe and many:

Then, loveliest! keep me free,
From torturing jealousy.

Ah! if you prize my subdued soul above The poor, the fading, brief, pride of an hour ; Let none profane my Holy See of love,

Or with a rude hand break

The sacramental cake :
Let none else touch the just new-budded flower;

If not -- may my eyes close,
Love ! on their lost repose.

SONNETS.

I.

OA! how I love, on a fair summer's eve,
When streams of light pour down the golden

west,
And on the balmy zephyrs tranquil rest
The silver clouds, -far, far away to leave
All meaner thoughts, and take a sweet reprieve

From little cares ; to find, with easy quest,

A fragrant wild, with Nature's beauty drest, And there into delight my soul deceive. There warm my breast with patriotic lore,

Musing on Milton's fate - on Sydney's bier

Till their stern forms before my mind arise • Perhaps on wing of Poesy upsoar,

Full often dropping a delicious tear,
When some melodious sorrow spells mine eyes.

1816.

II.

TO A YOUNG LADY WHO SENT ME A LAUREL

CROWN.

Fresh morning gusts have blown away all fear

From my glad bosom - now from gloominess

I mount forever not an atom less Than the proud laurel shall content my

bier. No! by the eternal stars ! or why sit here

In the Sun's eye, and 'gainst my temples press

Apollo's very leaves, woven to bless By thy white fingers and thy spirit clear. Lo! who dares say, “ Do this ?” Who dares call

down My will from its high purpose ? Who say,

“ Stand,"

Or“ Go?” This mighty moment I would frown

On abject Cæsars not the stoutest band Of mailed heroes should tear off my crown:

Yet would I kneel and kiss thy gentle hand!

III.

as, of

AFTER dark vapors have oppress'd our plains

For a long dreary season, comes a day

Born of the gentle south, and clears away From the sick heavens all unseemly stains. The anxious mouth, relieved from its pains,

Takes as a long-lost right the feel of May,

The eyelids with the passing coolness play, Like rose leaves with the drip of summer rains. And calmest thoughts come round us

leaves Budding, -fruit ripening in stillness, -au

tumn suns Smiling at eve upon the quiet sheaves, Sweet Sappho's cheek, - a sleeping infant's

breath, The gradual sand that through an hour-glass

runs, A woodland rivulet, - a Poet's death.

Jan. 1817.