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TO FANNY

PHYSICIAN Nature! let my spirit blood!

O ease my heart of verse and let me rest ;

Throw me upon thy Tripod, till the flood
Of stifling numbers ebbs from my full breast.
A theme! a theme! great nature! give a theme;
Let me begin my dream.

I come--I see thee, as thou standest there;
Beckon me not into the wintry air.

Ah! dearest love, sweet home of all my fears,
And hopes, and joys, and panting miseries,—
To-night, if I may guess, thy beauty wears
A smile of such delight,

As brilliant and as bright,

As when with ravish'd, aching, vassal eyes,
Lost in soft amaze,

I gaze, I gaze!

Who now, with greedy looks, eats up my feast?
What stare outfaces now my silver moon?
Ah! keep that hand unravish'd at the least;
Let, let, the amorous burn-

But, pr'ythee, do not turn

The current of your heart from me so soon.
O! 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'll say, my Fanny! is not true:
Put your soft hand upon your snowy side,
Where the heart beats: confess-'tis 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 fluttering for you every where,
Nor, when away you roam,

Dare keep its wretched home:

Love, love alone, has 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 last repose.

ΤΟ

WHAT can I do to drive away

WH

Remembrance from my eyes? for they have seen,

Ay, an hour ago, my brilliant Queen!

Touch has a memory. O say, love, say,

What can I do to kill it and be free

In my old liberty?

When every fair one that I saw was fair
Enough to catch me in but half a snare,
Not keep me there :

When, howe'er poor or particolour'd things,
My muse had wings,

And ever ready was to take her course

Whither I bent her force,

Unintellectual, yet divine to me ;

Divine, I say!-What sea-bird o'er the sea

Is a philosopher the while he goes

Winging along where the great water throes?

How shall I do

To get anew

Those moulted feathers, and so mount once more
Above, above

The reach of fluttering Love,

And make him cower lowly while I soar?

Shall I gulp wine? No, that is vulgarism,

A heresy and schism,

Foisted into the canon law of love ;

No,-wine is only sweet to happy men ;

More dismal cares

Seize on me unawares,

Where shall I learn to get my peace again?
To banish thoughts of that most hateful land,
Dungeoner of my friends, that wicked strand
Where they were wreck'd and live a wrecked life;
That monstrous region, whose dull rivers pour,
Ever from their sordid urns unto the shore,
Unown'd of any weedy-haired gods;

Whose winds, all zephyrless, hold scourging rods,
Iced in the great lakes, to afflict mankind;
Whose rank-grown forests, frosted, black, and blind,
Would fright a Dryad; whose harsh herbaged meads
Make lean and lank the starved ox while he feeds;
There bad flowers have no scent, birds no sweet song,
And great unerring Nature once seems wrong.

O, for some sunny spell

To dissipate the shadows of this hell!

Say they are gone,—with the new dawning light
Steps forth my lady bright!

O, let me once more rest

My soul upon that dazzling breast!

Let once again these aching arms be placed,

The tender gaolers of thy waist!

And let me feel that warm breath here and there

To spread a rapture in my very hair,—

O, the sweetness of the pain!

Give me those lips again!

Enough Enough I it is enough for me
To dream of thee!

SONNETS

PENSER! a jealous honourer of thine,

SPENSE

A forester deep in thy midmost trees,

Did, last eve, ask my promise to refine

Some English, that might strive thine ear to please. But, Elfin-poet! 'tis impossible

For an inhabitant of wintry earth

To rise, like Phoebus, with a golden quill,

Fire-wing'd, and make a morning in his mirth.

It is impossible to 'scape from toil

O' the sudden, and receive thy spiriting:
The flower must drink the nature of the soil
Before it can put forth its blossoming:

Be with me in the summer days and I
Will for thine honour and his pleasure try.

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