Not in those climes where I have late been straying,
Though Beauty long hath there been matchless deemed,
Not in those visions to the
heart displaying
Forms which it sighs but to have only dreamed,
Hath aught like thee in truth or
fancy seemed:
Nor, having seen thee, shall I vainly
seek
To paint those charms which
varied as they beamed-
To such as see thee not my words were weak;
To those who
gaze on thee, what
language could they speak?
Ah! mayst thou ever be what now thou art,
Nor unbeseem the
promise of thy spring,
As
fair in form, as warm yet pure in
heart,
Love's
image upon
earth without his wing,
And
guileless beyond Hope's imagining!
And surely she who now so fondly rears
Thy youth, in thee,
thus hourly brightening,
Beholds the rainbow of her
future years,
Before whose heavenly hues all
sorrow disappears.
Young Peri of the West!-'tis well for me
My years already doubly number thine;
My loveless eye unmoved may
gaze on thee,
And
safely view thy ripening beauties
shine:
Happy, I ne'er shall see them in
decline;
Happier, that while all younger hearts shall bleed
Mine shall
escape the
doom thine eyes
assign
To those whose
admiration shall
succeed,
But mixed with pangs to Love's even loveliest hours decreed.
Oh! let that eye, which, wild as the gazelle's,
Now brightly
bold or beautifully
shy,
Wins as it wanders, dazzles where it dwells,
Glance o'er this page, nor to my
verse deny
That smile for which my breast might vainly
sigh,
Could I to thee be ever more than friend:
This much, dear maid,
accord; nor question why
To one so young my
strain I would
commend,
But
bid me with my
wreath one matchless lily
blend.
Such is thy name with this my
verse entwined;
And long as kinder eyes a look shall cast
On Harold's page, Ianthe's here enshrined
Shall
thus be first beheld, forgotten last:
My days once numbered, should this
homage past
Attract thy fairy fingers near the
lyre
Of him who hailed thee, loveliest as thou wast,
Such is the most my
memory may
desire;
Though more than Hope can
claim, could Friendship less
require?