Classic Poem

YE fond Desires! that flush the purple cheek,
And revel in the sunnYeye of Joy;
Ye melting Looks! that Love's soft language speak,
Divinest rhetotic you can employ;
Ye Sighs! that from the blissful bosom break,
With not unpleasing, amorous annoy;
Farewel: — and quickly catch the white-wing'd hour,
Ere fell Despair, ungracious fiend! destroy
Affection's soft recess, and Rapture's rosey bow'r.

For ever, silent be my sylvan flute,
Which Colin 's tuneful lip did, erst, inspire;
No more may it the grey-ey'd Morn salute;
Or lead the jocund Eve-star's sheeny Quire;
Ye fays! for evermore your minstrel's mute:
So, sit ye, songless, by the glow-worm's fire;
Or hide beneath the mountain's misty brow;
Or to the copse's cheerless depth retire:
Ah me! I have no heart for elfin-pastime now!

Sore is my sorrow, and beyond repair:
Of all the nymphs that blest those ardent eyes,
She was, in sooth, the most bewitching fair,
And might be deem'd an Inmate of the Skies;
What modest graces mark'd her angel-air,
With sweet unconscious charm, which mock'd disguise,
And round her lucent form, resistless, spread?
Ye fond Desires! ye melting Looks! ye Sighs!
Farewel! — from transport's fold my long-lov'd M ARY 's fled.