Too well those lovely lips disclose The triumphs of the opening Rose; O fair! O graceful! bid them prove As pa.s.sive to the breath of Love.
In tender accents, faint and low, Well-pleased I hear the whispered "No!"
The whispered "No"--how little meant!
Sweet Falsehood that endears Consent!
For on those lovely lips the while Dawns the soft relenting smile, And tempts with feigned dissuasion coy The gentle violence of Joy.
?1794.
NOT AT HOME
That Jealousy may rule a mind Where Love could never be I know; but ne"er expect to find Love without Jealousy.
She has a strange cast in her ee, A swart sour-visaged maid-- But yet Love"s own twin-sister she, His house-mate and his shade.
Ask for her and she"ll be denied:-- What then? they only mean Their mistress has lain down to sleep, And can"t just then be seen.
?183O.
NAMES
[FROM LESSING]
I ask"d my fair one happy day, What I should call her in my lay; By what sweet name from Rome or Greece; Lalage, Nesera, Chloris, Sappho, Lesbia, or Doris, Arethusa or Lucrece.
"Ah!" replied my gentle fair, "Beloved, what are names but air?
Choose thou whatever suits the line; Call me Sappho, call me Chloris, Call me Lalage or Doris, Only, only call me Thine."
_Morning Post_, August 27,1799.
TO LESBIA
Vivamus, mea Lesbia, atque amemus.--CATULLUS.
My Lesbia, let us love and live, And to the winds, my Lesbia, give Each cold restraint, each boding fear Of age and all her saws severe.
Yon sun now posting to the main Will set,--but "tis to rise again;-- But we, when once our mortal light Is set, must sleep in endless night.
Then come, with whom alone I"ll live, A thousand kisses take and give!
Another thousand!--to the store Add hundreds--then a thousand more!
And when they to a million mount, Let confusion take the account,-- That you, the number never knowing, May continue still bestowing-- That I for joys may never pine, Which never can again be mine!
_Morning Post_, April 11, 1798.
THE DEATH OF THE STARLING
Lugete, O Veneres, Cupidinesque.--CATULLUS.
Pity! mourn in plaintive tone The lovely starling dead and gone!
Pity mourns in plaintive tone The lovely starling dead and gone.
Weep, ye Loves! and Venus! weep The lovely starling fall"n asleep!
Venus sees with tearful eyes-- In her lap the starling lies!
While the Loves all in a ring Softly stroke the stiffen"d wing.
?1794.
ON A CATARACT
FROM A CAVERN NEAR THE SUMMIT OF A MOUNTAIN PRECIPICE [AFTER s...o...b..RG"S _UNSTERBLICHER JuNGLING_]
STROPHE
Unperishing youth!
Thou leapest from forth The cell of thy hidden nativity; Never mortal saw The cradle of the strong one; Never mortal heard The gathering of his voices; The deep-murmur"d charm of the son of the rock, That is lisp"d evermore at his slumberless fountain.
There"s a cloud at the portal, a spray-woven veil At the shrine of his ceaseless renewing; It embosoms the roses of dawn, It entangles the shafts of the noon, And into the bed of its stillness The moonshine sinks down as in slumber, That the son of the rock, that the nursling of heaven May be born in a holy twilight!
ANTISTROPHE
The wild goat in awe Looks up and beholds Above thee the cliff inaccessible;-- Thou at once full-born Madd"nest in thy joyance, Whirlest, shatter"st, splitt"st, Life invulnerable.
?1799.
HYMN TO THE EARTH
[IMITATED FROM s...o...b..RG"S _HYMNE AN DIE EKDE_]
HEXAMETERS