THE POET INVOKES THE SPIRITS OF THE ELEMENTS TO
APPROACH DELIA. HE DESCRIBES HER SINGING.
YE sylphs who banquet on my Delia's blush,
Who on her locks of floating gold repose,
Dip in her cheek your gossamery brush,
And with its bloom of beauty tinge the rose.
Hover around her lips on rainbow wing,
Load from her honeyed breath your viewless feet,
Bear thence a richer fragrance for the spring,
And make the lily and the violet sweet.
Ye gnomes, whose toil through many a dateless year
Its nurture to the infant gem supplies,
From central caverns bring your diamonds here,
To ripen in the sun of Delia's eyes.
And ye who bathe in Etna's lava springs,
Spirits of fire! to see my love advance,
Fly, salamanders, on asbestos wings,
To wanton in my Delia's fiery glance.
She weeps, she weeps! her eye with anguish swells,
Some tale of sorrow melts my feeling girl!
Nymphs! catch the tears, and in your lucid shells
Enclose them, embryos of the orient pearl.
She sings! the nightingale with envy hears,
The cherubim bends from his starry throne,
And motionless are stopt the attentive spheres,
To hear more heavenly music than their own.
Cease, Delia, cease! for all the angel throng,
Listening to thee, let sleep their golden wires!
Cease, Delia! cease that too surpassing song,
Lest, stung to envy, they should break their lyres.
Cease, ere my senses are to madness driven
By the strong joy! cease, Delia, lest my sou
Enwrapt, already think itself in heaven,
And burst my feeble body's frail control.
THE POET EXPATIATES ON THE BEAUTY OF DELIA'S HAIR.
THE comb between whose ivory teeth she strains
The straightening curls of gold so beamy bright,
Not spotless merely from the touch remains,
But issues forth more pure, more milky white.
The rose-pomatum that the friseur spreads
Sometimes with honour'd fingers for my fair,
No added perfume on her tresses sheds,
But borrows sweetness from her sweeter hair.
Happy the friseur who in Delia's hair
With licensed fingers uncontroll'd may rove,
And happy in his death the dancing bear
Who died to make pomatum for my love.
Oh could I hope that e'er my favour'd lays
Might curl those lovely locks with conscious pride
Nor Hammond, nor the Mantuan shepherd's praise
I'd envy then, nor wish reward beside.
Cupid has strung from you, O tresses fine,
The bow that in my breast impell'd his dart;
From you, sweet locks! he wove the subtile line
Wherewith the urchin angled for my heart.
Fine are my Delia's tresses as the threads
That from the silk-worm, self-interr'd, proceed,
Fine as the gleamy gossamer, that spreads
Its filmy web-work o'er the tangled mead.
Yet with these tresses Cupid's power elate
My captive heart has handcuffed in a chain,
Strong as the cables of some huge first-rate,
That bears Britannia's thunders o'er the main.
The sylphs that round her radiant locks repair,
In flowing lustre bathe their brightening wings
And elfin minstrels with assiduous care
The ringlets rob for faery fiddle-strings.
THE POET RELATES HOW HE STOLE A LOCK OF DELIA'S
HAIR, AND HER ANGER.
OH! be the day accurst that gave me birth!
Ye seas, to swallow me in kindness rise!
Fall on me, mountains! and thou, merciful earth,
Open and hide me from my Delia's eyes!
Let universal chaos now return,
Now let the central fires their prison burst, And earth and heaven, and air and ocean, burnFor Delia frowns-she frowns, and I am curst!
Oh! I could dare the fury of the fight,
Where hostile millions sought my single life;
Would storm volcano batteries with delight,
And grapple with grim death in glorious strife.
Oh! I could brave the bolts of angry Jove,
When ceaseless lightnings fire the midnight skies;
What is his wrath to that of her I love?
What is his lightning to my Delia's eyes?
Go, fatal lock! I cast thee to the wind;
Ye serpent curls, ye poison-tendrils go-
Would I could tear thy memory from my mind,
Accursed lock-thou cause of all my woe!
Seize the curst curls, ye furies, as they fly!
Dæmons of darkness, guard the infernal roll,
That thence your cruel vengeance when I die,
May knit the knots of torture for my soul.
Last night-Oh hear me Heaven, and grant my prayer!
The book of fate before thy suppliant lay,
And let me from its ample records tear
Only the single page of yesterday!
Or let me meet old Time upon his flight,
And I will stop him on his restless
Omnipotent in love's resistless might,
I'll force him back the road of yesterday.
Last night, as o'er the page of love's despair,
My Delia bent deliciously to grieve;
I stood a treacherous loiterer by her chair,
And drew the fatal scissars from my sleeve.
And would that at that instant o'er my thread
The shears of Atropos had open'd then;
And when I reft the lock from Delia's head,
Had cut me sudden from the sons of men!
She heard the scissars that fair lock divide,
And whilst my heart with transport panted big,
She cast a fury frown on me, and cried,
"You stupid puppy-you have spoil'd my wig!"
FOR THE PRINCESS CHARLOTTE OF WALES
In its summer pride arrayed
Low our Tree of Hope is laid,
Low it lies; in evil hour,
Visiting the bridal bower,
Death hath levell'd root and flower.
Windsor, in thy sacred shade,
(Thus the end of pomp and power!)
Have the rites of death been paid:
Windsor, in thy sacred shade
Is the Flower of Brunswick laid:
Ye whose relics rest around,
Tenants of the funeral ground!
Know ye, Spirits, who is come,
By immitigable doom
Summoned to the untimely tomb?
Late with youth and splendour crown'd,
Late in beauty's vernal bloom,
Late with love and joyaunce blest;
Never more lamented guest
Was in Windsor laid to rest.
Henry, thou of saintly worth,
Thou, to whom thy Windsor
gave
Nativity, and name, and grave;
Thou art in this hallowed earth
Cradled for the immortal birth.
Heavily upon his head
Ancestral crimes were visited.
He, in spirit like a child,
Meek of heart and undefiled,
Patiently his crown resign'd,
And fix'd on heaven his heavenly mind,
Blessing, while he kiss'd the rod,
His Redeemer and his God.
Now may he in realms of bliss
Greet a soul as pure as his.
Passive as that humble spirit,
Lies his bold dethroner too;
A dreadful debt did he inherit
To his injured lineage due:
Ill starred Prince, whose martial merit
His own England long might rue!
Mournful was that Edward's fame,
Won in fields contested well,
While he sought his rightful claim:
Witness Aire's unhappy water,
Where the ruthless Clifford fell;
And when Wharfe ran red with slaughter,
On the day of Towcester's field;
Gathering, in its guilty flood,
The carnage and the ill-spilt blood,
That forty thousand lives could yield.
Cressy was to this but sport,
Poictiers but a pageant vain,
And the victory of Spain
Seem'd a strife for pastime meant,
And the work of Agincourt
Only like a tournament:
Half the blood which there was spent,
Had sufficed again to gain
Anjou and ill-yielded Maine:
Normandy and Aquitaine,
And our Lady's ancient towers,
Maugre all the Valois' powers,
Had a second time been ours.
The gentle daughter of thy line,
Edward, lays her dust with thine
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