SERENADE, BY GEORGE FREDERIC BUSBY, ESQ. BREATHE Soft, my lyre; in lowly-murmur'd strains And with what fond excess he loves her, tell; How oft by Guadalquivir's vine-bower'd shores, While every glance from those celestial eyes, That love was mute and wrapt in dumb delight. And sure the heart, that tenants that soft breast, Those ruby lips, impress'd by Cupid's seal, The melting joys love only can impart. Then, folding in these blest, these rapturous, arms, Whether to those inhospitable climes, Where Nature sleeps in hyperborean chains, Or where his tropic throne Apollo climbs, And pours his scorching fires o'er eastern plains, I go Delight shall wave his wings around me, Nature's vicissitudes were nought to me; With thee, my amulet, my shield from harm, My every thought should concentrate in thee, And every hour reveal some secret charm. Sleep, loveliest daughter of my native Spain; Breeze of the night, on silent pinion fleeting, Fan thou the couch where virgin beauty slumbers; Still'd be my throbbing heart's tumultuous beating; And cease, my faithful lyre, thy plaintive numbers. ON THE PORTRAIT OF A YOUNG LADY, BY MARY RUSSELL MITFORD. SEE, fairest among many fair, Yon graceful Maid, with smiling air, Her silken scarf, in floating ring, Like rainbow in th' Autumnal Heaven. The dark curls sporting in the wind; With fairy foot keeps equal measure : Joy sparkles in her radiant eye; Her light form seems to bound on high; Such the fair form: the fairer mind "Tis not in Painter's art to bind. That form with ever-changing grace In variable spell: That mind, like planet star, we trace Its own pure circle fixed to run ; Ill it beseems the playful muse Imp with gay plume the wings of Time, ON A ROSE. THY rose, oh, Venus! blooms one fleeting day; T. M. A. S. JOHN THE BAPTIST: A Prize Poem, RECITED IN THE THEATRE, OXFORD, IN THE YEAR 1809. HARK! through the desert wilds, what awful voice Swells on the gale, and bids the world rejoice? What Prophet form, in holy raptures led, The grey mists hovering o'er his sacred head, Prepares on earth Messiah's destined way, And hastes, the mighty Messenger of Day? Lo! echoing skies resound his gladsome strain, "Messiah comes! ye rugged paths be plain; "The Shiloh comes! ye towering cedars bend, "Swell forth, ye vallies, and, ye rocks, descend; "The withered branch let balmy fruits adorn, And clustering roses 'twine the leafless thorn; "Burst forth, ye vocal groves, your joy to tell"The God of Peace redeems his Israel." How beauteous are the feet of those who bear Roused at the solemn call, from all her shores |