| |
| WHAT though while the wonders of nature exploring, | |
| I cannot your light, mazy footsteps attend; | |
| Nor listen to accents, that almost adoring, | |
| Bless Cynthia’s face, the enthusiast’s friend: | |
| |
| Yet over the steep, whence the mountain stream rushes, | 5 |
| With you, kindest friends, in idea I rove; | |
| Mark the clear tumbling crystal, its passionate gushes, | |
| Its spray that the wild flower kindly bedews. | |
| |
| Why linger you so, the wild labyrinth strolling? | |
| Why breathless, unable your bliss to declare? | 10 |
| Ah! you list to the nightingale’s tender condoling, | |
| Responsive to sylphs, in the moon beamy air. | |
| |
| ’Tis morn, and the flowers with dew are yet drooping, | |
| I see you are treading the verge of the sea: | |
| And now! ah, I see it—you just now are stooping | 15 |
| To pick up the keep-sake intended for me. | |
| |
| If a cherub, on pinions of silver descending, | |
| Had brought me a gem from the fret-work of heaven; | |
| And smiles, with his star-cheering voice sweetly blending, | |
| The blessings of Tighe had melodiously given; | 20 |
| |
| It had not created a warmer emotion | |
| Than the present, fair nymphs, I was blest with from you | |
| Than the shell, from the bright golden sands of the ocean | |
| Which the emerald waves at your feet gladly threw. | |
| |
| For, indeed, ’tis a sweet and peculiar pleasure, | 25 |
| (And blissful is he who such happiness finds,) | |
| To possess but a span of the hour of leisure, | |
| In elegant, pure, and aerial minds. | |
| |
| See Notes. |
| |
