University of Virginia Library

CXI.

[Beauty's pure native gems, ye quivering hairs!]

Beauty's pure native gems, ye quivering hairs!
Once mingled with my own,
While soft desires, ah me! were all the cares
Two idle hearts had known.
How is it, when I take ye from the shrine
Which holds one treasure yet,
That ye, now all of Nancy that is mine,
Shrink from my fond regret?
Ye leaves that droop not with the plant that bore ye,
Start ye before my breath?
Shrink ye from tender Love who would adore ye,
O ye who fear not Death!