Thus WOMAN makes her entrance and her exit; Not least an actress when she least suspects it. Yet Nature oft peeps out and mars the plot, Each lesson lost, each poor pretence forgot; Full oft, with energy that scorns controul, At once lights up the features of the soul; Unlocks each thought chained down by coward Art, And to full day the latent passions start! -And she, whose first, best wish is your applause, Herself exemplifies the truth she draws. Born on the stage-thro' every shifting scene, Obscure or bright, tempestuous or serene, Still has your smile, her trembling spirit fired! And can she act, with thoughts like these inspired? No! from her mind all artifice she flings, All skill, all practice, now unmeaning things! To you, unchecked, each genuine feeling flows; For all that life endears-to you she owes. A FAREWELL. ADIEU! A long, a long adieu ! The sweet expression of that face, Yet give me, give me, ere I go, -Say, when, to kindle soft delight, O say-but no, it must not be. Go-you may call it madness, folly; Oh, if you knew the pensive pleasure FROM A GREEK EPIGRAM. WHILE on the cliff with calm delight she kneels Far better taught, she lays her bosom bare, FROM EURIPIDES. THERE is a streamlet issuing from a rock. Dear is that valley to the murmuring bees; And all, who know it, come and come again. The small birds build there; and at summer-noon Oft have I heard a child, gay among flowers, As in the shining grass she sate concealed, FROM AN ITALIAN SONNET. LOVE, under Friendship's vesture white, CAPTIVITY. CAGED in old woods, whose reverend echoes wake When the hern screams along the distant lake, Her little heart oft flutters to be free, Oft sighs to turn the unrelenting key. In vain the nurse that rusted relic wears, Nor moved by gold-nor to be moved by tears; And terraced walls their black reflection throw On the green-mantled moat that sleeps below. A CHARACTER. As thro' the hedge-row shade the violet steals, TO AN OLD OAK. TRUNK of a Giant now no more! Realms of infernal fire.* Round thee, alas, no shadows move! There once the red-cross knight reclined, * Radice in Tartara tendit.-Virg. · |