If the damsel smiled
Once in seven years only,
All their wanderings dreary
Ample guerdon knew.

Now one day's caprice

Weighs down years of smiling,
Youthful hearts are rovers,

Love is bought and sold.
Fortune's gifts may cease,
Love is less beguiling:
Wiser were the lovers

In the days of old.

Thomas Love Peacock [1785-1866]

SONG

How delicious is the winning
Of a kiss at Love's beginning,
When two mutual hearts are sighing
For the knot there's no untying!

Yet remember, 'midst your wooing,
Love has bliss, but Love has ruing;
Other smiles may make you fickle,
Tears for other charms may trickle.

Love he comes, and Love he tarries,
Just as fate or fancy carries;

Longest stays, when sorest chidden;

Laughs and flies, when pressed and bidden.

Bind the sea to slumber stilly,

Bind its odor to the lily,

Bind the aspen ne'er to quiver,

Then bind Love to last forever!

Love's a fire that needs renewal

Of fresh beauty for its fuel:

Love's wing moults when caged and captured,

Only free, he soars enraptured.

Stanzas

Can you keep the bee from ranging,
Or the ringdove's neck from changing?
No! nor fettered Love from dying

In the knot there's no untying.

475

Thomas Campbell [1777-1844]

STANZAS

COULD Love for ever

Run like a river,

And Time's endeavor

Be tried in vain

No other pleasure
With this could measure,

And like a treasure

We'd hug the chain.

But since our sighing

Ends not in dying,

And, formed for flying,

Love plumes his wing;

Then for this reason
Let's love a season;

But let that season
Be only Spring.

When lovers parted
Feel broken-hearted,

And, all hopes thwarted,

Expect to die;
A few years older,
Ah! how much colder
They might behold her

For whom they sigh!
When linked together,
In every weather,

They pluck Love's feather

From out his wing-

He'll stay for ever,

But sadly shiver

Without his plumage,
When past the Spring.

Like Chiefs of Faction,

His life is action

A formal paction

That curbs his reign,

Obscures his glory,
Despot no more, he
Such territory

Quits with disdain.
Still, still advancing,
With banners glancing,
His power enhancing,

He must move onRepose but cloys him, Retreat destroys him, Love brooks not a

Degraded throne.

Wait not, fond lover!

Till years are over,

And then recover,

As from a dream. While each bewailing The other's failing, With wrath and railing,

All hideous scemWhile first decreasing, Yet not quite ceasing, Wait not till teasing All passion blight: If once diminished Love's reign is finishedThen part in friendship,

And bid good-night.

So shall Affection

To recollection

The dear connection

They Speak O' Wiles"

Bring back with joy:
You had not waited
Till, tired or hated,
Your passions sated
Began to cloy.

Your last embraces
Leave no cold traces-
The same fond faces

As through the past;
And eyes, the mirrors
Of your sweet errors,
Reflect but rapture—
Not least though last.

True, separations

Ask more than patience;

What desperations

From such have risen!

But yet remaining,

What is 't but chaining

Hearts which, once waning,

Beat 'gainst their prison?

Time can but cloy love,
And use destroy love:
The winged boy, Love,

Is but for boys-
You'll find it torture

Though sharper, shorter,

To wean and not

Wear out your joys.

477

George Gordon Byron [1788-1824]

"THEY SPEAK O' WILES"

THEY speak o' wiles in woman's smiles,

An' ruin in her ee;

I ken they bring a pang at whiles

That's unco' sair to dree;

But mind ye this, the half-ta 'en kiss,
The first fond fa'in' tear,

Is, heaven kens, fu' sweet amends,
An' tints o' heaven here.

When two leal hearts in fondness meet,

Life's tempests howl in vain;
The very tears o' love are sweet
When paid with tears again.

Shall hapless prudence shake its pow?

Shall cauldrife caution fear?

Oh, dinna, dinna droun the lowe

That lights a heaven here!

William Thom [1798?-1848]

"LOVE WILL FIND OUT THE WAY”

OVER the mountains

And over the waves,

Under the fountains

And under the graves,

Under floods that are deepest,
Which Neptune obey,

Over rocks that are steepest,
Love will find out the way.

Where there is no place

For the glow-worm to lie,
Where there is no space

For receipt of a fly,

Where the midge dares not venture,
Lest herself fast she lay,
If Love come, he will enter,
And find out the way.

You may esteem him

A child for his might,

Or you may deem him
A coward from his flight: