Works

Animula! vagula, Blandula,
Hospes, comesque corporis,
Qu' nunc abibis in Loca -
Pallidula, rigida, nudula,
Nec, ut soles, dabis Jocos?


Translation. -

...

"But if any old Lady, Knight, Priest, or Physician,
Should condemn me for printing a second edition;
If good Madam Squintum my work should abuse,
May I venture to give her a smack of my muse?"
...

1.

Doubtless, sweet girl, the hissing lead,
Wafting destruction near thy charms,
And hurtling[1] o'er thy lovely head,
Has fill'd that breast with fond alarms.

2.
...

Oh! little lock of golden hue
In gently waving ringlet curl'd,
By the dear head on which you grew,
I would not lose you for a world.

Not though a thousand more adorn...

I.

Oh, thou, in Hellas deemed of heavenly birth,
Muse, formed or fabled at the minstrel's will!
Since shamed full oft by later lyres on earth,
Mine dares not call thee from thy sacred hill:...

I.

I stood in Venice, on the Bridge of Sighs;
A palace and a prison on each hand:
I saw from out the wave her structures rise
As from the stroke of the enchanter's wand:...

I.

Come, blue-eyed maid of heaven! - but thou, alas,
Didst never yet one mortal song inspire -
Goddess of Wisdom! here thy temple was,
And is, despite of war and wasting fire,...

I.

Is thy face like thy mother's, my fair child!
Ada! sole daughter of my house and heart?
When last I saw thy young blue eyes, they smiled,
And then we parted, - not as now we part,...

Not in those climes where I have late been straying,
Though Beauty long hath there been matchless deemed,
Not in those visions to the heart displaying
Forms which it sighs but to have only dreamed,...

---- "Ergo fungar vice cotis, acutum
Reddere qu' ferrum valet, exsors ipsa secandi."

HOR. 'De Arte Poet'., II. 304 and 305.


"Rhymes are difficult things - they are stubborn things, Sir."
...

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;...

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?...

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.
...

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.

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,...

Anne's Eye is liken'd to the Sun,
From it such Beams of Beauty fall;
And this can be denied by none,
For like the Sun, it shines on All.

Then do not admiration smother,...

1.

Why, Pigot, complain
Of this damsel's disdain,
Why thus in despair do you fret?
For months you may try,
Yet, believe me, a sigh
Will never obtain a coquette.


2.
...

1.

Oh! my lonely - lonely - lonely - Pillow!
Where is my lover? where is my lover?
Is it his bark which my dreary dreams discover?
Far - far away! and alone along the billow?

2.
...