No More Learning

Too well those lovely lips disclose
The triumphs of the opening Rose;
O fair! O graceful! bid them prove
As passive to the breath of Love.
In tender accents, faint and low,
Well-pleased I hear the whispered "No! "
The whispered "No"--how little meant!
Sweet Falsehood that endears Consent!
For on those lovely lips the while
Dawns the soft relenting smile,
And tempts with feigned dissuasion coy
The gentle violence of Joy.

? 1794.




NOT AT HOME


That Jealousy may rule a mind
Where Love could never be
I know; but ne'er expect to find
Love without Jealousy.

She has a strange cast in her ee,
A swart sour-visaged maid--
But yet Love's own twin-sister she,
His house-mate and his shade.

Ask for her and she'll be denied:--
What then? they only mean
Their mistress has lain down to sleep,
And can't just then be seen.

? 183O.
NAMES

[FROM LESSING]


I ask'd my fair one happy day,
What I should call her in my lay;
By what sweet name from Rome or Greece;
Lalage, Nesera, Chloris,
Sappho, Lesbia, or Doris,
Arethusa or Lucrece.

"Ah! " replied my gentle fair,
"Beloved, what are names but air?
Choose thou whatever suits the line;
Call me Sappho, call me Chloris,
Call me Lalage or Doris,
Only, only call me Thine. "

_Morning Post_, August 27,1799.




TO LESBIA

Vivamus, mea Lesbia, atque amemus. --CATULLUS.


My Lesbia, let us love and live,
And to the winds, my Lesbia, give
Each cold restraint, each boding fear
Of age and all her saws severe.
Yon sun now posting to the main
Will set,--but 'tis to rise again;--
But we, when once our mortal light
Is set, must sleep in endless night.
Then come, with whom alone I'll live,
A thousand kisses take and give!
Another thousand! --to the store
Add hundreds--then a thousand more!
And when they to a million mount,
Let confusion take the account,--
That you, the number never knowing,
May continue still bestowing--
That I for joys may never pine,
Which never can again be mine!

_Morning Post_, April 11, 1798.




THE DEATH OF THE STARLING

Lugete, O Veneres, Cupidinesque. --CATULLUS.