A BIRTH-DAY OFFERING то A YOUNG LADY, FROM HER LOVER. BY GEO. CANNING, ESQ. ERE this short winter's day be gone, Of days still shorter just a Lent, Perhaps deceiv'd by some fond notion, . Embrac'd in rapture of devotion, (I quote such fancies to expose 'em) Perhaps but fiction be suppress'd, While real joy expands my breast— My faithful flame her heart approves, And O! transporting thought! she loves. When Souls, by impulse sympathetic, By intuition most prophetic, By feelings, which they cannot smother, But merely as the herd inferior May judge the acts of Powers superior; May scan authority divine In short, I'd have our simple love, Two birds, suppose, of various feather, Hung in one room by chance together, To airs melodious tune their voices, While each the other's ear rejoices : If, without half a note erroneous, The song be perfectly harmonious, What matter for the forms or ages, Of bills, of feathers, and of cages? DEAN SWIFT, whose talent lives no more, His Stella sung at forty-four; And breath'd an idle wish to split Fly, Sluggard, on thy swiftest wing, Then firm in Constancy's reliance, Perhaps, suspending mortal rage, By silent sap, and creeping age, By subtile, secret slow approaches, As mildew on the blade incroaches, Thou hop'st, malignant fiend! to tame The ardor of love's fiercest flameVain shalt thou find thy keenest blast, Bliss once possess'd, thy power is past. Can years, while sense remains, destroy The memory of transcendent joy? Can years bright innocence impair ? Can years make Virtue look less fair? But Beauty, by thy influence curst, May sicken-Tyrant, do thy worst! I know thy power, and am prepar'd To meet thy sharpest darts unscar'd. Though Body, Mind, thou canst control, Own thy survivor in the Soul; Vol. VI. Whose perfect bliss is not enjoy'd Till thou art utterly destroy'd. Ev'n here, as health and beauty fail, Long ere thy menac'd ills can harm, Unconscious of the gradual wane, As years their empire slowly gain, While my Ideas, in the race, Observe a due-proportioned pace, And limbs grow cold, and senses faulter, I sha'nt perceive her Person alter. When Age her dimpled cheek beguiles, And wrinkles plants, instead of smiles, Though every Cupid he should smother, I'll think her handsome as their mother. When, steady to his barbarous plan, To spoil my lovely MARY-ANNE, The savage unrelenting creature Has robb'd her face of every feature, And, to conceptions merely common, My charmer seems a plain old woman, Still in my heart she'll hold her throne, Still in my eyes be twenty-one. |