In Mousseau’s sweet Arcadian dale
Fair Delphine pours the plaintive strain;
She charms the list’ning nightingale,
And seems th’ enchantress of the plain.
Bless’d be those lips, to music dear;
Sweet songstress! never may they move
But with such sounds, to soothe the ear,
And melt the yielding heart to love.
May sorrow never bid them pour
From the torn heart one suff’ring sigh;
But be thy life a fragrant flow’r,
Blooming beneath a cloudless sky!
IMPROMPTU TO MADAME C——
WRITTEN AT PARIS,
Upon her appearing equally modestly and elegantly dressed, amidst the Semi-Nakedness of the Rest of the Female Fashionables.
Whilst, in a dress that one might swear
The whole was made of woven air,
Pert Fashion spreads her senseless sway
Over the giddy and the gay
(Who think, by showing all their charms,
Lovers will fly into their arms),
In thee shall Wit and Virtue find
A friend more genial to their mind;
And Modesty shall gain in thee
A surer, chaster, victory.
SONNET
UPON A SWEDISH COTTAGE,
Written on the Road,
WITHIN A FEW MILES OF STOCKHOLM.
Here, far from all the pomp Ambition seeks,
Much sought, but only whilst untasted prais’d,
Content and Innocence, with rosy cheeks,
Enjoy the simple shed their hands have rais’d.
On a gray rock it stands, whose fretted base
The distant cat’ract’s murm’ring waters lave,
Whilst o’er its mossy roof, with varying grace,
The slender branches of the white birch wave.
Around the forest-fir is heard to sigh,
On which the pensive ear delights to dwell,
Whilst, as the gazing trav’ller passes by,
The gray goat, starting, sounds his tinkling bell.
Oh! in my native land, ere life’s decline,
May such a spot, so wild, so sweet, be mine!