Poems (1791) :: :: University of Virginia Library

Fat Mirth, and Gallantry the gay,
And romping Extasy 'gin play.
Now myriads of young Cupids rise,
And open all their joy-bright eyes,
Filling with infant prate the grove,
And lisp in sweetly-fault'ring love.
In the middle of the ring,
Mad with May, and wild of wing,
Fire-ey'd Wantonness shall sing.

By the rivulet on the rushes,
Beneath a canopy of bushes,
Where the ever-faithful Tray,
Guards the dumplins and the whey,
Collin Clout and Yorkshire Will
From the leathern bottle swill.

Their scythes upon the adverse bank
Glitter 'mongst th'entangled trees,
Where the hazles form a rank,
And court'sy to the courting breeze.

Ah! Harriot! sovereign mistress of my heart,
Could I thee to these meads decoy,

New grace to each fair object thou'dst impart,
And heighten ev'ry scene to perfect joy.

On a bank of fragrant thyme,
Beneath yon stately, shadowy pine,
We'll with the well-disguised hook
Cheat the tenants of the brook;
Or where coy Daphne's thickest shade
Drives amorous Phœbus from the glade,
There read Sydney's high-wrought stories
Of ladies charms and heroes glories;
Thence fir'd, the sweet narration act,
And kiss the fiction into fact.

Or satiate with nature's random scenes,
Let's to the gardens regulated greens,
Where taste and elegance command
Art to lend her dædal hand,
Where Flora's flock, by nature wild,
To discipline are reconcil'd,
And laws and order cultivate,
Quite civiliz'd into a state.

From the sun and from the show'r,
Haste we to yon boxen bow'r,
Secluded from the teizing pry
Of Argus' curiosity:
There, while Phœbus' golden mean,
The gay meridian is seen,

Ere decays the lamp of light,
And length'ning shades stretch out to night—
Seize, seize the hint—each hour improve
(This is morality in love)
Lend, lend thine hand—O let me view
Thy parting breasts, sweet avenue!
Then,—then thy lips, the coral cell
Where all th'ambrosial kisses dwell!
Thus we'll each sultry noon employ
In day-dreams of exstatic joy.