7.

While my blood is thus warm
I ne'er shall reform,

To mix in the Platonists' school;

Of this I am sure,

Was my passion so pure,
Thy mistress would think me a fool.

8.

And if I should shun

Every woman for one,

Whose image must fill my whole breastWhom I must prefer,

And sigh but for her

What an insult 't would be to the rest!

9.

Now, Strephon, good bye;
I cannot deny

Your passion appears most absurd;
Such love as you plead

Is pure love indeed,

For it only consists in the word.

THE TEAR.

"O lachrymarum fons, tenero sacros
Ducentium ortus ex animo; quater
Felix! in imo qui scatentem

Pectore te, pia Nympha, sensit."-Gray *.

1.

WHEN Friendship or Love

Our sympathies move,

When Truth in a glance should appear,
The lips may beguile

With a dimple or smile,
But the test of affection's a Tear.

2.

Too oft is a smile

But the hypocrite's wile,
To mask detestation or fear;
Give me the soft sigh,

Whilst the soul-telling eye

Is dimm'd for a time with a Tear.

3.

Mild Charity's glow,

To us mortals below,

Shows the soul from barbarity clear;
Compassion will melt

Where this virtue is felt,

And its dew is diffused in a Tear.

* This motto was inserted in the first edition of Hours of Idle

ness.-ED.

4.

The man doom'd to sail

With the blast of the gale,
Through billows Atlantic to steer,
As he bends o'er the wave
Which may soon be his grave,
The green sparkles bright with a Tear.

5.

The soldier braves death

For a fanciful wreath

In Glory's romantic career;

But he raises the foe

When in battle laid low,

And bathes every wound with a Tear.

6.

If with high-bounding pride

He return to his bride, Renouncing the gore-crimson'd spear, All his toils are repaid

When, embracing the maid, From her eyelid he kisses the Tear.

7.

Sweet scene of my youth!

Seat of Friendship and Truth, Where love chased each fast-fleeting year, Loth to leave thee, I mourn'd,

For a last look I turn'd,

But thy spire was scarce seen through a Tear.

8.

Though my vows I can pour
To my Mary no more,

My Mary to Love once so dear,
In the shade of her bower

I remember the hour

She rewarded those vows with a Tear,

9.

By another possest,

May she live ever blest!

Her name still my heart must revere:
With a sigh I resign

What I once thought was mine,
And forgive her deceit with a Tear.

10.

Ye friends of my heart,

Ere from you I depart,

This hope to my breast is most near:
If again we shall meet

In this rural retreat,

May we meet, as we part, with a Tear.

11.

When my soul wings her flight

To the regions of night,

* And my corse shall recline on its bier,

* And my body shall sleep on its bier."-Private volume.—ED.

As ye pass by the tomb
Where my ashes consume,

Oh! moisten their dust with a Tear.

12.

May no marble bestow

The splendour of woe
Which the children of vanity rear;

No fiction of fame

Shall blazon my name,

All I ask-all I wish-is a Tear.

October 26, 1806.

TO MISS

1.

ELIZA, what fools are the Mussulman sect,

Who to woman deny the soul's future existence; Could they see thee, Eliza, they'd own their defect, And this doctrine would meet with a general resistance.

2.

Had their prophet possess'd half an atom of sense,
He ne'er would have women from paradise driven;
Instead of his houris, a flimsy pretence,

With women alone he had peopled his heaven.

* Found only in the private volume.-ED.