To be of any use, reproof Still strong should be and home put, A lecture grave or saying wise The mind is quickly from put;
Instead of gen'ral moral saws, Facts personal lay stress on, And like a surgeon probing deep, Reform is in the lesson.
OH! let not sorrow cloud thine eye, Or doubt oppress thy heart, For love, like truth, can never lie, Nor truth, like love, depart. To be mine own, I've chosen thee, From all the world deems fair; And I've vowed thine own to be, Then wherefore cherish care?
Thou canst not think a love like mine, Could e'er to thee cause pain; Or make thy gentle heart repine That it has loved in vain: Thee still mine eyes desire to see, Like sunlight from above; For all my heart is full of thee, And all my heart is love.
I canna' get my mouth about it, It lies so deeply on my heart, That aye when trying to divulge it, My thoughts fly somehow all apart.
Were I to learn the best confession That e'er by pen of man was writ, To try to speak it in her presence I should not have the power or wit.
As in the rose's opening petals Devotion pure is ever spread, So in the flushings of my countenance She my heart's feelings must have read.
Oh! gladly anywhere I'd venture, Dare anything to prove it true; But to disclose my ardent passion Is just the thing I canna' do.
I canna' get my mouth about it, It lies so deeply on my heart, That aye when trying to divulge it, My thoughts fly somehow all apart.
_On reading his volume, entitled "The Angelicon, a Gallery of Sonnets, on the Divine Attributes, and the Passions, the Graces, and the Virtues."_
THY strains, sweet poet, have the power To give a solace to the mind, What time the clouds of sadness lour,-- Like sighs of thine own "lyrëd wind."
For when thy page I deeply trace, Where thoughts and fancies thickly throng, It brings to mind free nature's grace, Where wood-birds tune their mystic song;
And pleasant streams in ways remote, Where sweetest music loves to reign; Where solitude gives birth to thought, And thought is born of thought again;
Visions of earth, the pure and bright, As poet only hath divined, When high-toned genius pours her light, Upon the rapt and feeling mind.
Well hast thou sung the grace and love Th' Almighty deigns bestow on man, When seeking mercy from above By His own sole appointed plan.
