Blest is the youth whom fav’ring fates ordain The treasures of her love, and charms to gain! The fragrant branch with curling tendrils bound, With breathing odours--blooming beauty crown’d.
Sweet is the cheer her sprightly wit supplies! Bright is the sparkling azure of her eyes! Soft o’er her neck her lovely tresses flow! Warm in her praise the tongues of rapture glow!
Here is the voice--tun’d by harmonious love, Soft as the songs that warble through the grove! Oh! sweeter joys her converse can impart! Sweet to the sense, and grateful to the heart!
Gay pleasures dance where’er her footsteps bend, And smiles and rapture round the fair attend: Wit forms her speech, and wisdom fills her mind, And sight and soul in her their object find.
Her pearly teeth, in beauteous order plac’d; Her neck with bright, and curling tresses grac’d. But ah, so fair!--in wit and charms supreme, Unequal song must quit its darling theme.
Here break I off;--let sparkling goblets flow, And my full heart its cordial wishes show: To her dear health this friendly draught I pour. Long be her life, and blest its every hour.
[Footnote 19: Hair is a favourite object with all the Irish poets, and endless is the variety of their description: “Soft misty curls;” “Thick branching tresses of bright redundance;” “Locks of fair waving beauty;” “Tresses flowing on the wind like the bright waving flame of an inverted torch.” They even appear to inspire it with expression: as, “Locks of gentle lustre;” “Tresses of tender beauty;” “The maid with the mildly flowing hair,” &c. &c.]
“They leap, exulting, like the bounding roe.”
Many of our modern gentlemen seem to take infinite delight in reversing the original order of things; for instance, placing the heels where the head should be, as nothing possibly can confer so much honour upon a gentleman, as being able to vie with a Venetian running footman of former times, who would post at the rate of some eight miles an hour, with a dozen, pounds weight of lead clapped in each pocket, by way of expediting his progress. In these remarks, however, I do not intend to level the least sarcasm at _pedestrianism_, which, if properly attended to, may, in the lapse of time, render the properties of the canine race of no utility whatsoever; nor, indeed, does it at all signify how the game be caught, for a troop of Mercury-heeled puppies would do just as well as a full pack of hounds. To be sure I am at a loss on the score of _scent_, and the nose is confessedly a most material point to be considered, unless to this _leg exercise_ we allow the man to possess the keen sight of the greyhound, which will remove the objection, though the odds are much against him, as he makes so little use of his eyes as never to see that which he ought to do.