I know the place where Lewti lies, It is a breezy jasmine bower, The nightingale sings o'er her head: And creep, like thee, with soundless tread, Heaving lovely to my sight, As these two swans together heave Oh! that she saw me in a dream, And dreamt that I had died for care; All pale and wasted I would seem, Her bosom heave, and heave for me! MUTUAL LOVE. Yes, yes! that boon, life's richest treat, Crown of his cup, and garnish of his dish! The boon, prefigured in his earliest wish! The fair fulfilment of his poesy, When his young heart first yearn'd for sympathy! But e'en the meteor offspring of the brain Faith asks her daily bread, And Fancy must be fed! Now so it chanced-from wet or dry, It boots not how-I know not why- Then came a restless state, 'twixt yea and nay, That boon, which but to have possess'd And what it was :-an evergreen Which some insidious blight had struck, Doubts toss'd him to and fro; Hope keeping Love, Love Hope alive, Those sparkling colours, once his boast, Poor Fancy on her sick bed lay; Ill at distance, worse when near, Where was it then, the sociable sprite That crown'd the Poet's cup and deck'd his dish? O bliss of blissful hours! The boon of Heaven's decreeing, While yet in Eden's bowers Dwelt the First Husband and his sinless Mate! The one sweet plant, which, piteous Heaven agreeing, Late autumn's Amaranth, that more fragrant blows If this were ever his, in outward being, Now that at length by certain proof he knows, Though heart be lonesome, Hope laid low, JOB'S BEREAVEMENTS. Sly Beelzebub took all occasions But Heaven, that brings out good from evil, His servants, horses, oxen, cows Short-sighted devil, not to take his spouse! FANCY IN NUBIBUS, OR THE POET IN THE CLOUDS. O! it is pleasant, with a heart at ease, To make the shifting clouds be what you please, Own each quaint likeness issuing from the mould And cheek aslant, see rivers flow of gold "Twixt crimson banks; and then, a traveller, go From mount to mount through Cloudland, gorgeous land! Or listening to the tide, with closed sight, Be that blind bard, who on the Chian strand By those deep sounds possess'd, with inward light Beheld the Iliad and the Odyssey Rise to the swelling of the voiceful sea. THE DEVIL'S THOUGHTS. From his brimstone bed at break of day To visit his little snug farm of the earth, And see how his stock went on. Over the hill and over the dale, And he went over the plain, And backwards and forwards he switch'd his long tail As a gentleman switches his cane. And how then was the Devil dress'd? Oh! he was in his Sunday's best: His jacket was red and his breeches were blue, And there was a hole where the tail came through. He saw a Lawyer killing a Viper On a dung-heap beside his stable, And the Devil smiled, for it put him in mind A Pothecary on a white horse Rode by on his vocations, And the Devil thought of his old friend He saw a cottage with a double coach-house, And the Devil did grin, for his darling sin He went into a rich bookseller's shop- Down the river there plied, with wind and tide, And the Devil look'd wise, as he saw how the while As he went through Cold-Bath Fields he saw And the Devil was pleased, for it gave him a hint He saw with consternation, And back to hell his way did he take, For the Devil thought, by a slight mistake, LOVE All thoughts, all passions, all delights, Whatever stirs this mortal frame, All are but ministers of Love, And feed his sacred flame. |