es 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.

Yet do I know full well
How much my praise must wrongful prove to you,
But how the great desire can I oppose,
Which ever in me grows,
Since what surpasses thought 'twas mine to view,
Though that nor others' wit nor mine can tell?
Eyes! guilty authors of my cherish'd pain,
That you alone can judge me, well I know,
When from your burning beams I melt like snow,
Haply your sweet disdain
Offence in my unworthiness may see;
Ah! were there not such fear,
To calm the heat with which I kindle near,
'Twere bliss to die: for better far to me
Were death with them than life without could be.

If yet not wasted quite--
So frail a thing before so fierce a flame--
'Tis not from my own strength that safety came,
But that some fear gives might,
Freezing the warm blood coursing through its veins,
To my poor heart better to bear the strife.
O valleys, hills, O forests, floods, and plains,
Witnesses of my melancholy life!
For death how often have ye heard me pray!
Ah, miserable fate!
Where flight avails not, though 'tis death to stay;
But, if a dread more great
Restrain'd me not, despair would find a way,
Speedy and short, my lingering pains to close,
--Hers then the crime who still no mercy shows.

Why thus astray, O grief,
Lead me to speak what I would leave unsaid?
Leave me, where pleasure me impels, to tread:
Not now my song complains
Of you, sweet eyes, serene beyond belief,
Nor yet of him who binds me in such chains:
Right well may you observe the varying hues
Which o'er my visage oft the tyrant strews,
And thence may guess what war within he makes,
Where night and day he reigns,
Strong in the power which from your light he takes:
Blessed ye were as bright,
Save t