University of Virginia Library

SONNETS.

[Now, if the muses held me not in scorn]

Now, if the muses held me not in scorn,
I'd shape a poem, perfect, fair and round
As that thin band of gold wherewith I bound
Your slender finger our betrothal morn;
And in the circuit of this faultless rhyme
I'd place the dear initials of your name—
Three koh-i-noors to glisten for all time!
So would I lift my finger, and make fame
Couch, like that well bred mastiff at your feet
Lapping your hand with dangerous tenderness.
And such a magic should this song possess,
Maidens would wear it, like a musk-pouch, sweet,
Upon their pinkish bosoms, night and day,
To keep foul dreams and untrue loves away.

[Land of Delight! you did not hold us long]

Land of Delight! you did not hold us long:
Three moons we spent with Hassan, but those three,
Like flies in amber, lie in memory—
Three languid moons, three moons of dream and song.
When Hassan played, the musky winds of night
Trembled, and turned to music with delight!
Lo! it was melody's insanity:
Now 'twas a honey-throated nightingale,
And now a sigh, a soul in agony,
A troubled dead-march with melodious wail,
A fall of tears—then it came daintily,
Like the perfuméd air that smote the sail
Of Cleopatra's golden barge, when she
Sailed down to Tarsus to Mark Antony.

[I am not with you, Stoddard, in your sighs]

“I am not with you, Stoddard, in your sighs
Because the Hamadryads and the Fauns
Have left the moonlight lonely in the lawns!
Let science kill them with her piercing eyes,
Let death be Oberon's and Titania's doom,
Poor moonlight nothings! let the faery broods
Quit our demesne.” ... But that was in my room
In the hot city, not in these still woods
Where I have slept and dreamed the whole day long
I did their pigmy majesties much wrong,
And have been punished (such was their device,)
By them in mask; for see! this emerald spear
Of grass hath pricked a ruby on my ear,
And that fierce humble-bee hath stung me twice!

TO THE QUEEN'S HEALTH.