Since the refinement of this polish'd age Has swept immoral raillery from the stage; Since taste has now expung'd licentious wit, Which stamp'd disgrace on all an author writ;...
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.
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 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:...
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,...
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,...
Lady! if for the cold and cloudy clime Where I was born, but where I would not die, Of the great Poet-Sire of Italy I dare to build[276] the imitative rhyme, Harsh Runic[277] copy of the South's sublime,...
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.]
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,...
Titan! to whose immortal eyes The sufferings of mortality, Seen in their sad reality, Were not as things that gods despise; What was thy pity's recompense?[65]...
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.
To be the father of the fatherless, To stretch the hand from the throne's height, and raise His offspring, who expired in other days To make thy Sire's sway by a kingdom less, - [ih]...
River, that rollest by the ancient walls, Where dwells the Lady of my love, when she Walks by thy brink, and there perchance recalls A faint and fleeting memory of me:
Oh, talk not to me of a name great in story - The days of our Youth are the days of our glory; And the myrtle and ivy of sweet two-and-twenty Are worth all your laurels, though ever so plenty.[604]...