"The water's reflection is true,
The green is enamell'd to view,
And Philomel sings on the spray;
The gale is the breathing of spring,
'Tis fragrance it bears on its wing,
And the bee is assur'd it is May."
"Pardon (said Silvio with a gushing tear),
'Tis spring, sweet nymph, but Laura is not here."
In sending these verses to Mrs. Sheridan, he had also written her a description of some splendid party, at which he had lately been present, where all the finest women of the world of fashion were assembled. His praises of their beauty, as well as his account of their flattering attentions to himself, awakened a feeling of at least poetical jealousy in Mrs. Sheridan, which she expressed in the following answer to his verses—taking occasion, at the same time, to pay some generous compliments to the most brilliant among his new fashionable friends. Though her verses are of that kind which we read more with interest than admiration, they have quite enough of talent for the gentle themes to which she aspired; and there is, besides, a charm about them, as coming from Mrs. Sheridan, to which far better poetry could not pretend.
TO SILVIO.
"Soft flow'd the lay by Avon's sedgy side,
While o'er its streams the drooping willow hung
Beneath whose shadow Silvio fondly tried
To check the opening roses as they sprung.
In vain he bade them cease to court the gale,
That wanton'd balmy on the zephyr's wing;
In vain, when Philomel renew'd her tale,
He chid her song, and said 'It was not Spring.'
For still they bloom'd, tho' Silvio's heart was sad,
Nor did sweet Philomel neglect to sing;
The zephyrs scorned them not, tho' Silvio had,
For love and nature told them it was Spring.
[Footnote: As the poem altogether would be too long, I have here omitted
five or six stanzas]
* * * * *
To other scenes doth Silvio now repair,
To nobler themes his daring Muse aspires;
Around him throng the gay, the young, the fair,
His lively wit the listening crowd admires.
And see, where radiant Beauty smiling stands,
With gentle voice and soft beseeching eyes,
To gain the laurel from his willing hands,
Her every art the fond enchantress tries.