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As the author was discharging his Pistols in a Garden, Two Ladies passing near the spot were alarmed by the sound of a Bullet hissing near them, to one of whom the following stanzas were addressed the next morning. [2]
...

1.

Dear BECHER, you tell me to mix with mankind;
I cannot deny such a precept is wise;
But retirement accords with the tone of my mind:
I will not descend to a world I despise.


2....

1.

Start not - nor deem my spirit fled:
In me behold the only skull,
From which, unlike a living head,
Whatever flows is never dull.


2.
...

And thou wert sad - yet I was not with thee;
And thou wert sick, and yet I was not near;
Methought that Joy and Health alone could be
Where I was not - and pain and sorrow here!...

Spot of my youth! whose hoary branches sigh,
Swept by the breeze that fans thy cloudless sky;
Where now alone I muse, who oft have trod,
With those I loved, thy soft and verdant sod;...

"Away, away, - your flattering arts
May now betray some simpler hearts;
And you will smile at their believing,
And they shall weep at your deceiving."

QUESTION.

Nose and Chin that make a knocker,[hx]
Wrinkles that would puzzle Cocker;
Mouth that marks the envious Scorner,
With a Scorpion in each corner
Curling up his tail to sting you,[hy]...

[Greek: Ae' d' ae' me pheugei.] - [Pseud.] ANACREON, [Greek: Eis chruson].


1.

The roses of Love glad the garden of life,
Though nurtur'd 'mid weeds dropping pestilent dew,...

Introduction To Mazeppa
...

When the last sunshine of expiring Day
In Summer's twilight weeps itself away,
Who hath not felt the softness of the hour
Sink on the heart, as dew along the flower?...

I.

Oh Venice! Venice! when thy marble walls
Are level with the waters, there shall be
A cry of nations o'er thy sunken halls,
A loud lament along the sweeping sea!...

Motto.

On peut trouver des femmes qui n'ont jamais eu de galanterie, mais il est rare d'en trouver qui n'en aient jamais eu qu'une. - [R'flexions ... du Duc de la Rochefoucauld, No. lxxiii.]

1.
...

Where are those honours, IDA! once your own,
When Probus fill'd your magisterial throne?
As ancient Rome, fast falling to disgrace,
Hail'd a Barbarian in her C'sar's place,...

Oh! mihi pr'teritos referat si Jupiter annos.[1]

- Virgil.


1.

Ye scenes of my childhood, whose lov'd recollection
Embitters the present, compar'd with the past;...

1.

In one who felt as once he felt,
This might, perhaps, have fann'd the flame;
But now his heart no more will melt,
Because that heart is not the same.


2.
...

Why dost thou build the hall, Son of the winged days? Thou lookest from thy tower to-day: yet a few years, and the blast of the desart comes: it howls in thy empty court.-OSSIAN. [1]


I.
...

Through the cracks in these battlements loud the winds whistle,
For the hall of my fathers is gone to decay;
And in yon once gay garden the hemlock and thistle...

1.

Here once engaged the stranger's view
Young Friendship's record simply trac'd;
Few were her words, - but yet, though few,
Resentment's hand the line defac'd.


2.
...

In this belov'd marble view
Above the works and thoughts of Man,
What Nature could but would not do,
And Beauty and Canova can!
Beyond Imagination's power,
Beyond the Bard's defeated art,...

On The Death Of A Young Lady, [1] Cousin To The Author, And Very Dear To Him.