Stay yet awhile, my Fanny, stay,

Nor from these outstretch'd arms depart ;

'Tis gone! the vision's snatch'd away!

I feel it by my breaking heart.

Lady, forgive this burst of pain,

That seeks a sad and short relief,

In coining from a 'wilder'd brain

A solace for impassion'd grief.

But sing no more that fearful air,

For sweet and sprightly though it be,

It wakes in me a deep despair,

By its unhallow'd gaiety.

THE POET'S WINTER SONG TO HIS WIFE.

THE birds that sang so sweet in the summer skies are

fled,

And we trample 'neath our feet leaves that flutter'd o'er

our head;

The verdant fields of June wear a winding-sheet of white, The stream has lost its tune, and the glancing waves their light.

We too, my faithful wife, feel our winter coming on, And our dreams of early life like the summer birds are

gone;

My head is silver'd o'er, while thine eyes their fire have

lost,

And thy voice, so sweet of yore, is enchain'd by age's

frost.

But the founts that live and shoot through the bosom

of the earth,

Still prepare each seed and root to give future flowers

their birth;

And we, my dearest Jane, spite of age's wintry blight, In our bosoms will retain Spring's florescence and delight.

The seeds of love and lore that we planted in our youth, Shall develop more and more their attractiveness and truth;

The springs beneath shall run, though the snows be on our head,

For Love's declining sun shall with Friendship's rays be fed.

Thus as happy as when young shall we both grow old, my wife,

On one bough united hung of the fruitful Tree of Life; May we never disengage through each change of wind

and weather,

Till in ripeness of old age we both drop to earth together!

VOL. I.

SONG TO FANNY.

NATURE! thy fair and smiling face

Has now a double power to bless, For 'tis the glass in which I trace My absent Fanny's loveliness.

Her heav'nly eyes above me shine,

The rose reflects her modest blush,

She breathes in every eglantine,

She sings in every warbling thrush.

That her dear form alone I see

Need not excite surprise in any,

For Fanny's all the world to me,

And all the world to me is Fanny.

SONG TO FANNY.

THY bloom is soft, thine eyes are bright,

And rose-buds are thy lips, my Fanny,

Thy glossy hair is rich with light,

Thy form unparagon'd by any;

But thine is not the brief array

Of charms which time is sure to borrow,

Which accident may blight to-day,

Or sickness undermine to-morrow.

No-thine is that immortal grace

Which ne'er shall pass from thy possession,

That moral beauty of the face

Which constitutes its sweet expression;