C'est aux esprits frivoles

D'avoir la peur au sein,
Succomber aux tempêtes,
Regretter leur destin!
Mais vous, d'une fierté noble,
Résistez aux chagrins -

Et loin de votre cœur
Repoussez leur venin.
Le sort d'un guerrier

Ainsi dispense les choses,

Le cypre, le laurier,

L'épine avec les roses. Que Dieu suprême et juste

Protège votre gloire !

Pour moi, je chérirai,

A jamais, votre mémoire.

ON A GUITAR,

BROUGHT FROM THE SIEGE OF BADAJOZ BY AN ENGLISH OFFICER.

TELL me, O sweet guitar, whose dulcet strain
Checks the wild tide of grief within my breast,
Whose melting tones can thus beguile my pain
And lull the sorrows of a mind opprest·
Why, as in harmony the full chords swell,
Raising the soul from earth to thoughts divine,
Thy cadence seems so mournfully to tell,

In thrilling tones, of woes that are not mine?
Whence comes it, as I gently press the string,

The sudden tear, unbidden, clouds mine eye? Whence, as I seek a gayer strain to sing

My bosom heaves with an unconscious sigh?
'Tis sympathy, which in my bankrupt heart
Doth bid me in thy mournful cadence trace
A tale of woe thy notes would fain impart

Of scenes beloved thou dost no longer grace.
Thou canst not yield beneath my unskill'd hand
Such melody as there entranced the ear
Of some bright daughter of Iberia's land,

To whom thy sound proclaim'd a lover near.
Touch'd by a stranger hand, thy plaintive song
No more in witching strain on silence floats;
No more will mocking echo there prolong,

In distant murmur, thy impassion'd notes.

The hand that touch'd thee once perchance is cold, He who did bid thee speak of love and mirth, Whose passion thy obedient music told,

Perchance a wounded corpse lies low on earth! And she, the object of thy warbling sweet, May now in beauty's morn neglected lie, And only in her tearful fancy meet

Thy music — and his faithful sigh !

I marvel not thy strings should thus disown
The stranger hand which guides thy melody;
I marvel not reproof should mark the tone,
And seem to say, my skill is mockery.
Despise it not thou wilt not sure deny

At my command thy sweetest sounds to pour
Upon mine ear, in grateful memory

Of those who touch'd thee in thy happier hour. Scorn not my lay but with thee let me mourn

The hapless fate of those no longer near ; The wreath my fancy flings around their urn,

Oh! scorn it not – 'tis hallow'd by a tear.

EVENING REFLECTION.

1816.

BRIGHT is the beam, and glorious is the power
That animate the fervid noontide hour;

The eye that wakes to joy and pleasure's day
Delighted hails the life inspiring ray;
But I, whose sight is dimm'd by weeping care,
Desponding turn aside from daylight's glare
And court sweet Luna's light, her pallid ray,
Softly on distant landscape seen to play.
I watch her trembling radiance pleased to lave
Its modest beams within the colder wave;
Her light, that gives a shadowy partial view
Of the fair scene around, yet gives it true :
Such mellow'd tints to me far dearer are
Than those reflected from Sol's radiant car.
Beneath her modest glow, with aching eyes,
I woo that calm and quiet day denies ;
Admiring, see the lovely planet glide

Through fleecy clouds, and sparkle on the tide.
Sweet moonlight hour! each tripping fay's delight,
Who 'neath thy lamp, dance out the livelong night,
While sweet Titania, in her tiny bower,
Wreathes her a coronet of fragrant flower;
I feel in daylight no such charm is found,
As thy soft influence now sheds around.

TO A FRIEND,

WITH A PAINTING OF A MOSS ROSE.

1818.

THE charms now fading from my view
Which once this flower graced,

Can ne'er by any rival bloom

Be from my thoughts effaced.

No rose of Cashmere ever shed
A richer fragrance there,
Enwreathing tresses, gracing forms
As exquisite as rare.

'T was bathed in morning's early dew When placed upon thy breast,

And seem'd to blush with conscious pride, On such kind heart to rest.

Oh! may its perfume there exhaled

Ne'er wholly lose its power,

But breathing still in memory

Adorn thy latest hour:

May all its sweetness unimpair'd
In future days be thine,
And in the varied fate we meet

Its thorns be only mine!