TO …. ….
ON SEEING HER WITH A WHITE VEIL AND A RICH GIRDLE.
Put off the vestal Veil, nor, oh!
Let weeping angels View it;
Your cheeks belie its virgin snow.
And blush repenting through it.
Put off the fatal zone you wear;
The shining pearls around it
Are tears, that fell from Virtue there,
The hour when Love unbound it.
WRITTEN IN THE BLANK LEAF OF A LADY'S COMMONPLACE BOOK.
Here is one leaf reserved for me,
From all thy sweet memorials free;
And here my simple song might tell
The feelings thou must guess so well.
But could I thus, within thy mind,
One little vacant corner find,
Where no impression yet is seen,
Where no memorial yet hath been,
Oh! it should be my sweetest care
To write my name for ever there!
TO MRS. BL——.
WRITTEN IN HER ALBUM.
They say that Love had once a book
(The urchin likes to copy you),
Where, all who came, the pencil took,
And wrote, like us, a line or two.
'Twas Innocence, the maid divine,
Who kept this volume bright and fair.
And saw that no unhallowed line
Or thought profane should enter there;