Pleased to have found his guardian care so vain;
While oft a blush of shame his pale cheek wears,
To find his thoughts so much less pure than theirs.
Oh! they were pure! pure as the moon, whose ray
Loves on the shrines of virgin-saints to play;
Pure as the falling snow, ere yet its shower
Bends with its weight its own pale fragile flower.
Not fourteen years were Irza’s; nay, ’tis true,
Most maids at twelve know more than Irza knew:
And scarce two more had spread with silken down