PROEM. As through the mazy path of life I stray, She by those flowers her winding course may bend Back through each twilight path and weary stage, And with those early flowers wreathe the white brow of Age. 1811. DOMESTIC POEMS. ΤΟ I. THOU Lady dear, for whom I wake the string, With hand well nigh forgetful of its art, Thou only one for whom I care to sing, Who first didst make the thrill of music dart Through every chord that vibrates in my heart, This hallow'd morn,-the sweetly solemn lay, Or numbers wild and free, my heart as light as they? II. They said that I was grave. Dear Lady, yes: Joy may assume the pensive brow of Care. F The tear of rapture and the sigh of bliss, The deep and earnest feeling best declare. When fresh with sunny showers the soften'd air First breathes of Spring, when first the milder skies Reveal that bright blue heaven, while lessening there, Th' exultant lark trills his loud melodies, And to the voice of Hope the echoing vale replies ; III. Perchance, from distance borne, the merry peal To seeming sorrow? No: 'tis too serene For grief, for mirth too solemn, too refined. Then, Dearest, know by this, what oft have been My feelings, when, to pensiveness resign'd, The thought, the sense of thee has fill'd my raptured mind. |