Clustering forelocks grace his head;
But forelocks alone he wears;
All behind he closely shears;
This you will find some luckless day,
When Love is hurt, and turns his face away.
Love displays with tints of fire
The complexion of desire.
Gleam his eyes with animation
Of sidelong insinuation.
O, what wicked eyes are they!
Steal all you can, they seem to say.
His babbling talk is sweet as song
As 'twere new milk upon his tongue;
And his treble pipe is strong;
And a thousand sparkling graces
With his prate he interlaces.
And his rosebud lips dissever
With the pretty fond pretendings
Of mantling smiles upon them ever,
To cover frauds, and pert offendings:
And oft with roguish courtesy,
And aspect of humility,
In a wandering pilgrim's guise
He a forlorn petition plies
For a place to lay his head:
But when his suit has fairly sped,
And he has housed himself within,
He his frolics doth begin.
Step by step his will and pleasure
Grows to license without measure.
He, forsooth, the keys must keep
Of all your hearts; his verdict sweep
Old dwellers thence, and all their traces;
And set new lodgers in their places.
He lays down new laws; 'tis treason
To think to combat them by reason.
And Love, who first was but a guest,
Thus becomes a household pest;
And persecutes, and sacrifices,
All who oppose his quaint devices.
Now to requite these plain foreshowings
Of Love's features, thoughts, and doings,
Be you, I pray, in turn confiding:
Say, if you can, where Love is hiding.
Ah! would you then my child conceal
From me? I caution you reveal
Your knowledge of him, frankly wholly :
What, hide young love? 'tis madness-folly !
He imprisonment defies;
By the tongue, the pulse, the eyes
A thousand loop-holes-out he flies.
Be advised in time, or you
Shall your contumacy rue.
One in false compassion may
A serpent in his bosom cherish;
But flings it forth in light of day,
Rather than by its venom perish!
Love then sojourns not here? I find him not;
I must search out on earth some happier spot;
Or reascend to heaven, mourning my hopeless lot!
AN INCIDENT IN A SCULPTURE GALLERY.
S once within a stately hall
Of sculpture musingly I wandered, Where shapes of Grecian mould, and all
Sweet lines of gracefulness I pondered;
Flitting through window or through door,
A butterfly on pinions airy
Came thither from her sunny bower,
Like visitor from realms of fairy.
And who a feeling might repress
Of wonder new and strange at seeing 'Mongst things so still and colourless That animated gorgeous being?
Nay, more; with instinct free from doubt, And unfeigned love, already plighted,
Her other self she singled out,
And upon PSYCHE'S statue lighted.
Let those, who will, contract their brows,
And put their own interpretation,
With barren saws of whys and hows,
On that poetic visitation.
'Twere best with self-collected mind To banish every crude conjecture, And take the moral that we find,
Though but an insect read the lecture.
Mark thou the symbols and the grades
By which soul-elevating Nature
The coldness of these times upbraids
In many an allegoric feature.
And in old age, and pride of youth,
Do thou rejoice, whilst yet thou'rt able, To water in the soil of Truth
The vine of world-encircling Fable.
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