Yes, 'debted to your grace, Frequent I feel throughout my inmost soul Unwonted floods of sweetest rapture roll; Relieving so the mind, That all oppressive thoughts are left behind, And of a thousand only one has place; For which alone this life is dear to me. Oh! might the blessing of duration prove, Not equall'd then could my condition be! But this would, haply, move In others envy, in myself vain pride. That pain should be allied To pleasure is, alas! decreed above; Then, stifling all the ardour of desire, Homeward I turn my thoughts, and in myself retire.
So sweetly shines reveal'd The amorous thought within your soul which dwells, That other joys it from my heart expels: Hence I aspire to frame Lays whereon Hope may build a deathless name, When in the tomb my dust shall lie conceal'd. At your approach anguish and sorrow fly; These, as your beams retire, again draw nigh; Yet outward acts their influence ne'er betray, For doting memory Dwells on the past, and chases them away. Whatever, then, of worth My genius ripens owes to you its birth. To you all honour and all praise is due-- Myself a barren soil, and cultured but by you.
Thy strains, O song! appease me not, but fire, Chanting a theme that wings my wild desire: Trust me, thou shalt ere long a sister-song acquire.
Since mortal life is frail, And my mind shrinks from lofty themes deterr'd, But small the trust which I in either feel: Yet hope I that my wail, Which vainly I in silence would conceal, Shall, where I wish, where most it ought, be heard. Beautiful eyes! wherein Love makes his nest, To you my song its feeble descant turns, Slow of itself, but now by passion spurr'd; Who sings of you is blest, And from his theme such courteous habit learns That, borne on wings of love, Proudly he soars each viler thought above; Encouraged thus, what long my harass'd heart Has kept conceal'd, I venture to impart.
Yet do I know full well How much my praise must wrongful prove to you, But how the great desire can I oppose, Which ever in me grows, Since what surpasses thought 'twas mine to view, Though that nor others' wit nor mine can tell? Eyes! guilty authors of my cherish'd pain, That you alone can judge me, well I know, When from your burning beams I melt like snow, Haply your sweet disdain Offence in my unworthiness may see; Ah! were there not such fear, To calm the heat with which I kindle near, 'Twere bliss to die: for better far to me Were death with them than life without could be.