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3.

Yet still, to increase your calamities more,

Not content with depriving your bodies of spirit, He allots one poor husband to share amongst four!— With souls you'd dispense; but this last, who could bear it?

4.

His religion to please neither party is made;

On husbands 'tis hard, to the wives most uncivil; Still I can't contradict, what so oft has been said, "Though women are angels, yet wedlock's the devil."

LINES WRITTEN INLETTERS OF AN ITALIAN NUN AND AN ENGLISH GENTLEMAN. BY J. J. ROUSSEAU. FOUNDED ON FACTS*."

"AWAY, away, your flattering arts
May now betray some simpler hearts;
And
you will smile at their believing,
And they shall weep at your deceiving."

ANSWER TO THE FOREGOING, ADDRESSED TO MISS

Dear, simple girl, those flattering arts,

From which thou'dst guard frail female hearts,
Exist but in imagination,-

Mere phantoms of thine own creation;

* Only printed in the private volume.-ED.

For he who views that witching grace,
That perfect form, that lovely face,
With eyes admiring, oh! believe me,
He never wishes to deceive thee:
Once in thy polish'd mirror glance,
Thou'lt there descry that elegance
Which from our sex demands such praises,

But envy in the other raises:

Then he who tells thee of thy beauty,
Believe me, only does his duty:

Ah! fly not from the candid youth;

It is not flattery,-'tis truth.

July, 1804.

THE CORNELIAN *.

1.

No specious splendour of this stone
Endears it to my memory ever;
With lustre only once it shone,
And blushes modest as the giver.

2.

Some, who can sneer at friendship's ties,
Have for my weakness oft reproved me;

Yet still the simple gift I prize,—

For I am sure the giver loved me.

* This poem is also only found in the private volume.—ED.

3.

He offer'd it with downcast look,
As fearful that I might refuse it;
I told him when the gift I took,
My only fear should be to lose it.

4.

This pledge attentively I view'd,
And sparkling as I held it near,
Methought one drop the stone bedew'd,
And ever since I've loved a tear.

5.

Still, to adorn his humble youth,

Nor wealth nor birth their treasures yield;

But he who seeks the flowers of truth,
Must quit the garden for the field.

6.

'Tis not the plant uprear'd in sloth,
Which beauty shows, and sheds perfume;
The flowers which yield the most of both
In Nature's wild luxuriance bloom.

7.

Had Fortune aided Nature's care,
For once forgetting to be blind,
His would have been an ample share,
If well-proportion'd to his mind.

8.

But had the goddess clearly seen,

His form had fix'd her fickle breast;
Her countless hoards would his have been,
And none remain❜d to give the rest.

ON THE DEATH OF A YOUNG LADY, COUSIN TO THE AUTHOR, AND VERY DEAR TO HIM *.

1.

HUSH'D are the winds, and still the evening gloom,
Not e'en a zephyr wanders through the grove,
Whilst I return to view my Margaret's tomb,
And scatter flowers on the dust I love.

2.

Within this narrow cell reclines her clay,
That clay where once such animation beam'd;
The King of Terrors seized her as his prey,
Not worth, nor beauty, have her life redeem'd.

To these stanzas, which are from the private volume, the following note was attached: "The author claims the indulgence of the reader more for this piece than, perhaps, any other in the collection; but as it was written at an earlier period than the rest (being composed at the age of fourteen), and his first essay, he preferred submitting it to the indulgence of his friends in its present state, to making either addition or alteration."-ED.

VOL. V.

D

3.

Oh! could that King of Terrors pity feel,
Or Heaven reverse the dread decrees of fate!
Not here the mourner would his grief reveal,
Not here the muse her virtues would relate.

4.

But wherefore weep? her matchless spirit soars Beyond where splendid shines the orb of day; And weeping angels lead her to those bowers Where endless pleasures virtue's deeds repay.

5.

And shall presumptuous mortals heaven arraign,
And, madly, godlike providence accuse?
Ah! no, far fly from me attempts so vain,
I'll ne'er submission to my God refuse.

6.

Yet is remembrance of those virtues dear,
Yet fresh the memory of that beauteous face;
Still they call forth my warm affection's tear,
Still in my heart retain their wonted place.

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