Poetical fragments of the late Richard Alfred Millikin ::

Pale goddess, by thy ray serene
I fondly tread the level green,
Where Lee in beauty rolls,
His smooth and ample tide,
'Mid fields in flowers profuse and woody knolls,
Thy silver lamp my guide.

To thee I tune a rural shell
In some lone seqester'd dell,
Where hums the secret rill
Thro' shrubs that tangling meet.
Or gurgling brook that flies its native hill
With limpid current fleet.

For these the gentle sounds thou lov'st to hear,
These Cynthia suit thy sad and chaster ear,
And not the trumpet's clangour,
Or the nerve-wounding fife,
Thee more delights the lute's harmonious langour
That shuns the voice of strife.

Thou shalt my frequent steps direct,
When by thy calmer radiance deck'd,

The murmuring streams and groves
And meadows mildly bright,
Invite to converse sweet the timid loves;
Beneath thy kinder light.—

And fays, as poets feign, and fairy throng,
And elfin's light, the pride of antique song,
To the warm fancy then
Appear from hall or bower,
In gaudy troops to ride o'er flood and fen,
Exerting fairy power.

But when the rose of morn with blushing light,
Buds in the laughing East, each fading sprite
To rocky dens retreating,
Break off their airy show;
And then fond lovers endless vows repeating
At parting fonder grow.—

University of Virginia Library

TO CYNTHIA.