Astronomy finds in those eyes Better light than she studies above; And Music would borrow your sighs As the melody fittest for Love.
Your Arithmetic only can trip If to count your own charms you endeavor; And Eloquence glows on your lip When you swear that you'll love me for ever.
Thus you see, what a brilliant alliance Of arts is assembled in you;-- A course of more exquisite science Man never need wish to pursue.
And, oh!--if a Fellow like me May confer a diploma of hearts, With my lip thus I seal your degree, My divine little Mistress of Arts!
Sweet spirit! if thy airy sleep Nor sees my tears not hears my sighs, Then will I weep, in anguish weep, Till the last heart's drop fills mine eyes.
But if thy sainted soul can feel, And mingles in our misery; Then, then my breaking heart I'll seal-- Thou shalt not hear one sigh from me.
The beam of morn was on the stream, But sullen clouds the day deform; Like thee was that young, orient beam, Like death, alas, that sullen storm!
Thou wert not formed for living here, So linked thy soul was with the sky; Yet, ah, we held thee all so dear, We thought thou wert not formed to die.
And do I then wonder that Julia deceives me, When surely there's nothing in nature more common? She vows to be true, and while vowing she leaves me-- And could I expect any more from a woman?
Oh, woman! your heart is a pitiful treasure; And Mahomet's doctrine was not too severe, When he held that you were but materials of pleasure, And reason and thinking were out of your sphere.
By your heart, when the fond sighing lover can win it, He thinks that an age of anxiety's paid; But, oh, while he's blest, let him die at the minute-- If he live but a _day_, he'll be surely betrayed.
In witching slumbers of the night, I dreamt I was the airy sprite That on thy natal moment smiled; And thought I wafted on my wing Those flowers which in Elysium spring, To crown my lovely mortal child.
With olive-branch I bound thy head, Heart's ease along thy path I shed, Which was to bloom through all thy years; Nor yet did I forget to bind Love's roses, with his myrtle twined, And dewed by sympathetic tears.
Such was the wild but precious boon Which Fancy, at her magic noon, Bade me to Nona's image pay; And were it thus my fate to be Thy little guardian deity, How blest around thy steps I'd play!