Oh! if to you were known
    That beauty which I sing, immense, divine. 
    As unto him on whom its glories shine! 
    The heart had then o’erflown
    With joy unbounded, such as is denied
    Unto that nature which its acts doth guide. 
    How happy is the soul for you that sighs,
    Celestial lights! which lend a charm to life,
    And make me bless what else I should not prize! 
    Ah! why, so seldom why
    Afford what ne’er can cause satiety? 
    More often to your sight
    Why not bring Love, who holds me constant strife? 
    And why so soon of joys despoil me quite,
    Which ever and anon my tranced soul delight?

    Yes, ’debted to your grace,
    Frequent I feel throughout my inmost soul
    Unwonted floods of sweetest rapture roll;
    Relieving so the mind,
    That all oppressive thoughts are left behind,
    And of a thousand only one has place;
    For which alone this life is dear to me. 
    Oh! might the blessing of duration prove,
    Not equall’d then could my condition be! 
    But this would, haply, move
    In others envy, in myself vain pride. 
    That pain should be allied
    To pleasure is, alas! decreed above;
    Then, stifling all the ardour of desire,
    Homeward I turn my thoughts, and in myself retire.

    So sweetly shines reveal’d
    The amorous thought within your soul which dwells,
    That other joys it from my heart expels: 
    Hence I aspire to frame
    Lays whereon Hope may build a deathless name,
    When in the tomb my dust shall lie conceal’d. 
    At your approach anguish and sorrow fly;
    These, as your beams retire, again draw nigh;
    Yet outward acts their influence ne’er betray,
    For doting memory
    Dwells on the past, and chases them away. 
    Whatever, then, of worth
    My genius ripens owes to you its birth. 
    To you all honour and all praise is due—­
    Myself a barren soil, and cultured but by you.

    Thy strains, O song! appease me not, but fire,
    Chanting a theme that wings my wild desire: 
    Trust me, thou shalt ere long a sister-song acquire.

    NOTT.

      Since mortal life is frail,
    And my mind shrinks from lofty themes deterr’d,
    But small the trust which I in either feel: 
    Yet hope I that my wail,
    Which vainly I in silence would conceal,
    Shall, where I wish, where most it ought, be heard. 
    Beautiful eyes! wherein Love makes his nest,
    To you my song its feeble descant turns,
    Slow of itself, but now by passion spurr’d;
    Who sings of you is blest,
    And from his theme such courteous habit learns
    That, borne on wings of love,
    Proudly he soars each viler thought above;
    Encouraged thus, what long my harass’d heart
    Has kept conceal’d, I venture to impart.