you your sire:
The debt with interest due
Posterity require,
My Candidus, from you.
Nor be it chief your aim,
Fortune or face to seek!
Slight love attends the dame,
Sought for her purse or cheek.
No purer love can bear
The flame, which fortune fires:
It vanishes in air,
And ere it lives, expires.
Nay, fortune's courted charms
Fade in the miser's grasp,
When doom'd within his arms
An unloved spouse to clasp:
And beauty's vaunted power
By fever's tooth decays;
Or time-struck, like a flower,
Beneath the solar blaze.
Then vows are urged in vain
With beauty's passing hue,
Bound singly by that chain,
Affection passes too.
But genuine is the love,
Which reason, virtue rears
All fever's force above,
Above th' assault of years.
First scrutinise her birth;
Be sure her mother's mild: Oft with her milk her worth
The mother gives her child.
Next in herself be seen
Good temper's gentlest tone:
Still placid be her mien,
Unruffled by a frown.
And still, her cheek's best charm,
Be her's sweet modesty
No lover-clasping arm,
No love-provoking eye.
Far from her lip's soft door
Be noise, be silence stern;
And her's be learning's store,
Or her's the power to learn.
With books she'll time beguile,
And make true bliss her own;
Unbuoy'd by fortune's smile,
Unburthen'd by her frown.
So still, thy heart's delight
And partner of thy way,
She'll guide thy children right,
And theirs-as dear as they.
So, left all meaner things,
Thou'lt on her breast recline; While notes of love she sings As Philomel's divine:
While still thy raptured gaze
Is on her accents hung,
As words of honied grace
Steal from her honied tongue
Words they, of power to sooth
All idle joy or woe
With learning's varied truth,
With eloquence's flow!
GRATULATUR, QUOD EAM REPERERIT INCOLUMEM, QUAM OLIM
FERME PUER AMAVERAT.
VIVIS adhuc, primis O me mihi carior annis,
Redderis atque oculis, Elisabetha, meis.
Quæ mala distinuit mihi te fortuna tot annos,
Pænè puer vidi, pænè reviso senex.
Annos vita quater mihi quatuor egerat ; inde
Aut duo defuerant, aut duo pænè tibi :
Quum tuus innocuo rapuit me vultus amore-
Vultus, qui quò nunc fugit ab ore tuo?
Cùm quondam dilecta mihi succurrit imago,
Hei facies quàm nil illius ista refert!
Tempora quæ, teneræ nunquam non invida forma,
Te rapuere tibi, non rapuere mihi.
Ille decor, nostros toties remoratus ocellos,
Nunc tenet à vultu pectora nostra tuo.
Languidus admoto solet ignis crescere flatu,
Frigidus obruerat quem suus antè cinis :
Tuque facis, quamvis longè diversa priori,
Ut micet admonitu flamma vetusta novo.
Jam subit illa dies, quæ ludentem obtulit olim
Inter virgineos te mihi prima choros :
Lactea cùm flavi decuerunt colla capilli,
Cùm gena par
nivibus visa, labella rosis;
Cùm tua perstringunt oculos duo sidera nostros,
Perque oculos intrant in mea corda meos ;
Cùm velut attactu stupefactus fulminis hæsi,
Pendulus à vultu tempora longa tuo;
Cùm sociis risum exhibuit nostrisque tuisque
Tam rudis, et simplex, et malè tectus amor.
Sic tua me cepit species: seu maxima verè,
Seu major visa est, quàm fuit, esse mihi;
Seu fuit in causá primæ lanugo juventæ,
Cumque nová suetus pube venire calor;
Sidera seu quædam nostro communia natu
Viribus afflârant utraque corda suis-
Namque tui consors arcani conscia pectus
Garrula prodiderat concaluisse tuum.
Hinc datus est custos, ipsisque potentior astris
Janua, quos vellent illa coïre, vetat.
Ergo ita disjunctos, diversaque fata secutos, Tot nunc post hyemes reddidit ista dies: Ista dies, quæ rara meo mihi lætior ævo, Contigit occursu sospitis alma tui.
Tu prædata meos olim sine crimine sensus,
Nunc quoque non ullo crimine cara manes.
Castus amor fuerat; ne nunc incestior esset,
Si minùs hoc probitas, ipsa dies faceret.
At superos, qui lustra boni post quinque valentem
Te retulere mihi, me retulere tibi,
Comprecor ut lustris iterum post quinque peractis,
Incolumis rursus contuar incolumem!
TO ELIZA, WHOM HE LOVED IN HIS YOUTH.
THOU livest, Eliza, to these eyes restored,
O more than life in life's gay bloom adored!
Many a long year, since first we met, has roll'd:
I then was boyish, and I now am old.
Scarce had I bid my sixteenth summer hail,
And two in thine were wanting to the tale;
When thy soft mien-ah! mien, for ever fled !—
On my tranced heart it's guiltless influence shed.
When on my mind thy much-loved image steals,
And thy sweet long-lost former self reveals;
Time's envious gripe appears but half unkind :
Torn from thyself, to me thou'rt left behind.
The grace that held my doting glance, though flown,
Has flown thy cheek to make my breast it's throne:
And as by gentle blasts the flame is fled,
And 'mid cold ashes rears it's languid head;
So thou, though changed (ah changed indeed!) to view,
Kindlest the love, that once was thine, anew.
Now on my memory breaks that happy day,
When first I saw thee with thy mates at play:
On thy white neck the flaxen ringlet lies,
With snow thy cheek, thy lip with roses vies.
Thine eyes, twin stars, with arrowy radiance shine,
And pierce and sink into my heart through mine.
Struck as with heaven's own dart, I stand, I gaze;
I hang upon thy look in fix'd amaze :
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