Love and Fate

Fate ! I have askt few things of thee,
And fewer have to ask.
Shortly, thou knowest, I shall be
No more . . . then con thy task.

If one be left on earth so late
Whose love is like the past,
Tell her, in whispers, gentle Fate,
Not even love must last.

Tell her, I leave the noisy feast
Of life, a little tired;
Amidst its pleasures few possest
And many undesired.

Tell her, with steady pace to come
And, where my laurels lie,
To throw the freshest on the tomb

Erinna to Love

1

Who breathes to thee the holiest prayer,
O Love! is ever least thy care.
Alas! I may not ask thee why 'tis so . .
Because a fiery scroll I see
Hung at the throne of Destiny,
Reason with Love and register with Woe.

2

Few question thee, for thou art strong
And, laughing loud at right and wrong,
Seizest, and dashest down, the rich, the poor;
Thy scepter's iron studs alike
The meaner and the prouder strike,
And wise and simple fear thee and adore.

True Love

As evenen air, in green-treed Spring,
Do sheäke the new-sprung pa'sley bed,
An' wither'd ash-tree keys do swing
An' vall a-flutt'ren roun' our head:
There, while the birds do zing their zong
In bushes down the ash-tree drong,
Come Jessie Lee, vor sweet's the pleäce
Your vaice an' feäce can meäke vor me.

Below the budden ashes' height
We there can linger in the lew,
While boughs, a-gilded by the light,
Do sheen avore the sky o' blue:
But there by zetten zun, or moon
A-risen, time wull vlee too soon

Love

True Love is but a humble, low-born thing,
And hath its food served up in earthen ware;
It is a thing to walk with, hand in hand,
Through the everydayness of this work-day world,
Baring its tender feet to every flint,
Yet letting not one heart-beat go astray
From Beauty's law of plainness and content;
A simple, fireside thing, whose quiet smile
Can warm earth's poorest hovel to a home;
Which, when our autumn cometh, as it must,
And life in the chill wind shivers bare and leafless,
Shall still be blest with Indian-summer youth

To Sophronia

I've neither Reserve or aversion to Man,
(I assure you Sophronia in jingle)
But to keep my dear Liberty, long as I can,
Is the Reason I chuse to live single,
My Sense, or the Want of it—free you may jest
And censure, dispise, or impeach,
But the Happiness center'd within my own Breast,
Is luckily out of your reach.
The Men, (as a Friend) I prefer, I esteem,
And love them as well as I ought
But to fix all my Happiness, solely in Him
Was never my Wish or my Thought,
The cowardly Nymph, you so often reprove,

To Miss F. B. on Her Asking for Mrs. Barbauld's "Love and Time"

Of Love and Time say what would Fanny know?
That Time is precious, and that Love is sweet?
That both, the choicest blessings lent below,
With gay Sixteen in envied union meet?

Time without Love is tasteless, dull, and cold,
Love out of Time will fond and doting prove;
To bright sixteen are all their treasures told,
Love suits the Time, and Time then favours Love.

No longer then of matron brows inquire
For sprightly Love, or swiftly-wasting Time;
Look but at home, you have what you require, —

Love's Hour-Glass

E ROS ! wherefore do I see thee, with the glass in either hand?
Fickle God! with double measure wouldst thou count the shifting sand?
‘ This one flows for parted lovers—slowly drops each tiny bead—
That is for the days of dalliance, and it melts with golden speed.’

E ROS ! wherefore do I see thee, with the glass in either hand?
Fickle God! with double measure wouldst thou count the shifting sand?
‘ This one flows for parted lovers—slowly drops each tiny bead—
That is for the days of dalliance, and it melts with golden speed.’

Eleänore

I

O fairer than vermilion
 Shed upon Western skies
Was the blush of that sweet Castilian
 Girl, with the deep brown eyes—
As her happy heart grew firmer,
 In the strange bright days of yore,
When she heard young Edward murmur,
 ‘I love thee, Eleänore!’

II

Sweeter than musical cadence
 Of the wind amid cedar and lime,
Is love to a timorous maiden's
 Heart in the fresh spring-time:
Sweeter than waves that mutter
 And break on a sinuous shore,
Are the songs her fancies utter

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