L'AMANT MUTIN.

FRAGMENT XIX.

"Sans depit sans legerte je quitte un amant volage, Et je reprend ma liberte-sans regreter mon esclavage." BERNARD LE JEUNE.

I.

NAY, if you threaten, all is over;

Ne'er dart that rebel look at me!

I languish too, to turn a rover,

So take your shackles-both are free.

II.

No galling steel that chain composes,

Which once I fondly wove for thee;

See! it is form'd of breathing roses,

And dew'd with tears love stole from me.

III.

But now if o'er its bloomy flushing

INDIFF'RENCE sheds her chilling air,

And o'er each bud (still faintly blushing) Congeals each tear that lingers there,

IV.

Why break at once the useless fetter,

Since round thy heart no more 'tis bound;

But while its roses thus you scatter,

Think not its thorns my breast shall wound.

V.

And yet hadst thou still been that lover,

That all I hoped to find in thee,

I ne'er had turn'd a careless rover,

I ne'er had been thus idly free.

VI.

But o'er my lip, in fondness dying,

No sigh of love e'er breath'd its soul,

Until some heart more fondly sighing,

My sigh into existence stole.

VII.

And if some tender pangs I cherish'd,

From thee I caught the pleasing anguish;

But when with thee those sweet pangs perish'd,

I felt them in my bosom languish.

TO-MORROW.

FRAGMENT XX.

Nessun maggior dolore,

Che recordarsi del tempo felice, nella miseria."

DANTE.

I.

VISIONS of fleeting pleasure! spare, oh!

spare me!

Hence! shades of many a bliss, and many a sorrow;

In vain from this cool medium 1 would ye

tear me,

With joy's indeed to-day-but, what to-morrow?

h"A cool suspense from pleasure and from pain."

POPE.

II.

For every blessing your possession brought me

Left in its absence still a kindred sorrow,

And tho' to-day with many a joy you sought me, You'd leave me, lost to every joy, to-morrow.

III.

Like this rich flow'r, which now in sweet decay Droops on my breast its head in seeming sorrow; For though its beauties charm each sense to-day, My breast will only wear its thorns to-morrow.