TO IANTHE. {1}

   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?

CANTO THE FIRST.

I.

   Oh, thou, in Hellas deemed of heavenly birth,
   Muse, formed or fabled at the minstrel’s will! 
   Since shamed full oft by later lyres on earth,
   Mine dares not call thee from thy sacred hill: 
   Yet there I’ve wandered by thy vaunted rill;
   Yes! sighed o’er Delphi’s long-deserted shrine
   Where, save that feeble fountain, all is still;
   Nor mote my shell awake the weary Nine
To grace so plain a tale—­this lowly lay of mine.