THE MAD MAID'S SONG.

[HERRICK.]

GOOD-MORROW to the day so fair

Good-morrow, sir, to you ;
Good-morrow to mine own torn hair,
Bedabbled with the dew.

Good-morrow to this primrose too;
Good-morrow to each maid,

That will with flow'rs the tomb bestrew,
Wherein my love is laid.

I'll seek him there! I know, ere this, The cold, cold earth doth shake him ;

But I will go, or send a kiss

By you, sir, to awake him.

Pray, hurt him not; though he be dead He knows well who do love him; And who with green-turfs rear his head, And who do rudely move him.

X

He's soft and tender-pray, take heed-
With bands of cowslips bind him,
And bring him home-but 'tis decreed
That I shall never find him.

[THOMSON.]

HAR

ARD is the fate of him who loves,

Yet dares not tell his trembling pain,

But to the sympathetic groves,

But to the lonely list'ning plain.

Oh! when she blesses next your shade, Oh! when her footsteps next are seen

In flow'ry tracks along the mead,

In fresher mazes o'er the green.

Ye gentle spirits of the vale,

To whom the tears of love are dear,

From dying lilies waft a gale,

And sigh my sorrows in her ear.

Oh, tell her what she cannot blame, Though fear my tongue must ever bind, Oh, tell her that my virtuous flame

Is as her spotless soul refin❜d.

Not her own guardian angel eyes,
With chaster tenderness his care,
Not purer her own wishes rise,
Not holier her own sighs in prayer.

But if at first her virgin fear

Should start at love's suspected name, With that of friendship soothe her earTrue love and friendship are the same.

4

THE FOND LOVER.

[FALCONER.]

A NYMPH of ev'ry charm possess'd,

That native virtue gives, Within my bosom all confess'd,

In bright idea lives.

For her my trembling numbers play

Along the pathless deep,

While sadly social with my lay

The winds in concert weep.

If beauty's sacred influence charms
The rage of adverse fate,

Say why the pleasing soft alarms
Such cruel pangs create ?

Since all her thoughts by sense refin'd,
Unartful truth express,

Say wherefore sense and truth are join'd
To give my soul distress?

If when her blooming lips I press,
Which vernal fragrance fills,
Through all my veins the sweet excess
In trembling motion thrills;

Say whence this secret anguish grows
Congenial with my joy?

And why the touch, where pleasure glows,
Should vital peace destroy?

If when my fair, in melting song,
Awakes the vocal lay,

Not all your notes, ye Phocian throng,

Such pleasing sounds convey;
Thus wrapt all o'er with fondest love,
Why heaves this broken sigh?

For then my blood forgets to move,
I gaze, adore, and die.

Accept, my charming maid, the strain
Which you alone inspire;

To thee the dying strings complain
That quiver on my lyre.

Oh! give this bleeding bosom ease,
That knows no joy but thee;
Teach me thy happy art to please,
Or deign to love like me.

[BURGOYNE.]

FOR tenderness framed in life's early day,
A parent's soft sorrows to mine led the way;
The lesson of pity was caught from her eye,
And ere words were my own, I spoke in a sigh.

The nightingale plunder'd, the mate-widow'd dove,
The warbled complaint of the suffering grove,
To youth as it ripen'd gave sentiment new,
The object still changing, the sympathy true.

Soft embers of passion yet rest in the glowA warmth of more pain may this breast never know,

Or if too indulgent the blessing I claim,

Let reason awaken and govern the flame.