Works

My temples throb, my pulses boil,
I'm sick of Song and Ode and Ballad -
So Thyrsis, take the midnight oil,
And pour it on a lobster salad.

My brain is dull, my sight is foul,...

Do I dream? can I trust to my eye?
My sight sure some vapor must cover?
Or, there, did my Minna pass by
My Minna and knew not her lover?
On the arm of the coxcomb she crossed,...

Youth is the time when all is bright;
The mind is free from care;
No thoughts of aught, save present joys,
Can find an entrance there.

And, if a thought of future years...

Time beckons on the hours: the expiring year
Already feels old Winter's icy breath;
As with cold hands, he scatters on her bier
The faded glories of her Autumn wreath....

Beneath the shelter of the bush,
In undisturbed repose
Unruffled by the kiss of breeze
There lurks a smiling rose;
Beneath thine outer beauty, gleams,
In holy light enshrined,...

Just as a fawn, in forest shade,
Trembling to meet th' admiring eye,
I've seen thee try to hide, sweet maid!
Thy charms behind thy modesty.

Thus too I've seen at midnight steal...

Thy glance is the brightest,
Thy voice is the sweetest,
Thy step is the lightest,
Thy shape the completest:
Thy waist I could span, dear,
Thy neck's like a swan's, dear,
And roses the sweetest...

How many between east and west
Disgrace their parent earth,
Whose deeds constrain us to detest
The day that gave them birth!
Not so when Stella's natal morn
Revolving months restore,...

Beauteous rose-bud, young and gay,
Blooming in thy early May,
Never may'st thou, lovely flow'r,
Chilly shrink in sleety show'r!
Never Boreas' hoary path,
Never Eurus' poisonous breath,...

1.

Eliza! what fools are the Mussulman sect,
Who to woman deny the soul's future existence,
Could they see thee, Eliza! they'd own their defect,
And this doctrine would meet with a general resistance....

For your letter, dear - [Hattie], accept my best thanks,
Rendered long and amusing by virtue of franks,
Though concise they would please, yet the longer the better,...

(See Note 67)

I honor you, who, though refused, affronted,
Have heard the voice, and victory have won;
I honor you, who still by malice hunted,
Show miracles of faith and power done.
...

Thine be the volumes, Jessy fair,
And with them take the Poet's prayer;
That fate may in her fairest page,
With every kindliest, best presage
Of future bliss, enrol thy name:...

Again the silent wheels of time
Their annual round have driv'n,
And you, tho' scarce in maiden prime,
Are so much nearer Heav'n.

No gifts have I from Indian coasts
The infant year to hail:...

Memories of happy school-days,
In which we view the years gone by,
Long they last, and long they cheer us -
Live well the moments as they fly,
Your youth is passing swiftly by.
...

The single eye, the daughter of the light;
Well pleased to recognise in lowliest shade
Some glimmer of its parent beam, and made
By daily draughts of brightness, inly bright....

In days, my Kate, when life was new,
When, lulled with innocence and you,
I heard, in home's beloved shade,
The din the world at distance made;
When, every night my weary head...

I'll ask the sylph who round thee flies,
And in thy breath his pinion dips,
Who suns him in thy radiant eyes,
And faints upon thy sighing lips:

I'll ask him where's the veil of sleep...

I more than once have heard at night
A song like those thy lip hath given,
And it was sung by shapes of light,
Who looked and breathed, like thee, of heaven.

But this was all a dream of sleep....

There was a young lady of station
'I love man' was her sole exclamation
But when men cried, 'You flatter'
She replied, 'Oh! no matter
Isle of Man is the true explanation.'