TO IANTHE. Nor in those climes where I have late been straying, To paint those charms which varied as they beam'd- Ah! may'st thou ever be what now thou art, [The Lady Charlotte Harley, second daughter of Edward fifth Earl of Oxford (now Lady Charlotte Bacon), in the autumn of 1812, when these lines were addressed to her, had not completed her eleventh year. Mr. Westall's portrait of the juvenile beauty, painted at Lord Byron's request, is engraved in Finden's Illustrations of the Life and Works of Lord Byron."] Young Peri of the West!-'t is well for me To those whose admiration shall succeed, But mix'd with pangs to Love's even loveliest hours decreed. 2 Oh! let that eye, which, wild as the Gazelle's, This much, dear maid, accord; nor question why Such is thy name with this my verse entwined; My days once number'd, should this homage past Of him who hail'd thee, loveliest as thou wast, Though more than Hope can claim, could Friendship less require? [Peri, the Persian term for a beautiful intermediate order of beings, is generally supposed to be another form of our own word Fairy.] 2 [A species of the antelope. "You have the eyes of a ga zelle," is considered all over the East as the greatest compliment that can be paid to a woman.] |