When shall these eyes cease to weep;
    When shall this world-wearied frame,
    Cover’d by the cold sod, sleep?—­
    Sure, beneath yon planet’s beam,
    None like me have made such moan;
    This to every bower is known.

    Sad my nights; from morn till eve,
    Tenanting the woods, I sigh: 
    But, ere I shall cease to grieve,
    Ocean’s vast bed shall be dry,
    Suns their light from moons shall gain. 
    And spring wither on each plain.

    Pensive, weeping, night and day,
    From this shore to that I fly,
    Changeful as the lunar ray;
    And, when evening veils the sky,
    Then my tears might swell the floods,
    Then my sighs might bow the woods!

    Towns I hate, the shades I love;
    For relief to yon green height,
    Where the rill resounds, I rove
    At the grateful calm of night;
    There I wait the day’s decline,
    For the welcome moon to shine.

    Oh, that in some lone retreat,
    Like Endymion I were lain;
    And that she, who rules my fate,
    There one night to stay would deign;
    Never from his billowy bed
    More might Phoebus lift his head!

    Song, that on the wood-hung stream
    In the silent hour wert born,
    Witness’d but by Cynthia’s beam. 
    Soon as breaks to-morrow’s morn,
    Thou shalt seek a glorious plain,
    There with Laura to remain!

    DACRE.

SESTINA VIII.

La ver l’ aurora, che si dolce l’ aura.

SHE IS MOVED NEITHER BY HIS VERSES NOR HIS TEARS.

      When music warbles from each thorn,
    And Zephyr’s dewy wings
    Sweep the young flowers; what time the morn
    Her crimson radiance flings: 
    Then, as the smiling year renews,
    I feel renew’d Love’s tender pain;
    Renew’d is Laura’s cold disdain;
    And I for comfort court the weeping muse.

    Oh! could my sighs in accents flow
    So musically lorn,
    That thou might’st catch my am’rous woe,
    And cease, proud Maid! thy scorn: 
    Yet, ere within thy icy breast
    The smallest spark of passion’s found,
    Winter’s cold temples shall be bound
    With all the blooms that paint spring’s glowing vest.

    The drops that bathe the grief-dew’d eye,
    The love-impassion’d strain
    To move thy flinty bosom try
    Full oft;—­but, ah! in vain
    Would tears, and melting song avail;
    As vainly might the silken breeze,
    That bends the flowers, that fans the trees,
    Some rugged rock’s tremendous brow assail.

    Both gods and men alike are sway’d
    By Love, as poets tell;—­
    And I, when flowers in every shade
    Their bursting gems reveal,
    First felt his all-subduing power: 
    While Laura knows not yet the smart;
    Nor heeds the tortures of my heart,
    My prayers, my plaints, and sorrow’s pearly shower!