IMITATION OF AN ITALIAN SONNET.*

LOVE, under Friendship's vesture white,

Laughs, his little limbs concealing;

And oft in sport, and oft in spite,

Like Pity meets the dazzled sight,

Smiles thro' his tears revealing.

But now as Rage the God appears!

He frowns, and tempests shake his frame!

Frowning, or smiling, or in tears,

'Tis Love; and Love is still the same.

* See Gray's Mem. Sect. II. lett. 30.

What most I wish, yet fear to know.

She starts, she trembles, and she weeps!

Her fair hands folded on her breast.

-And now, how like a saint she sleeps!

A seraph in the realms of rest!

TO THE

YOUNGEST DAUGHTER

OF

LADY *

AH! why with tell-tale tongue reveal *

What most her blushes would conceal?

Why lift that modest veil to trace

The seraph-sweetness of her face?

Some fairer, better sport prefer;

And feel for us, if not for her.

For this presumption, soon or late,

Know thine shall be a kindred fate.

* Alluding to some verses which she had written on an

elder sister.

Another shall in vengeance rise

Sing Harriet's cheeks, and Harriet's eyes;

And, echoing back her wood-notes wild,

-Trace all the mother in the child!

A CHARACTER.

As thro' the hedge-row shade the violet steals,

And the sweet air its modest leaf reveals;

Her softer charms, but by their influence known,

Surprise all hearts, and mould them to her own.