THE QUARREL OF LOVE AND MARRIAGE. WHEN Love and Hymen both were boys, They fix'd a day of smiling weather, To show each other all their toys, And pass an afternoon together. To Hymen's bower young Cupid came, And Hymen's brightest torch was lighted. But Hymen soon, capricious elf, (Now Hymen's but a peevish fellow,) Told Love he wish'd the bow himself; And then began to pout and bellow. Love gave his friend the weapon strait, Chang'd his best bow, and fullest quiver. QUARREL OF LOVE AND MARRIAGE. While each his proper arms possest, Men neither could nor would resist 'em, For Hymen's fires inflamed their breast, And Cupid's arrows seldom missed 'em. But changing thus their arms about, While Hymen blunts the shafts of Cupid. 'Twas this dissolv'd their union sweet, And broke Affection's firmest tether; And now, if Love and Hymen meet, They seldom sojourn long together! 23 STANZAS. THE Pilgrim, tho' compell'd to fly Hath once beheld the sacred shine. A pilgrim o'er life's cheerless steep, For oh! at thoughts of thee and thine, E'en Sorrow's self might cease to weep! Thy faint farewell that bade me flee, I see suffused with Sorrow's dew; E'en now, I press thy cheek so wet, And hear thee weep, Adieu! Adieu! WRITTEN IN AN ALBUM. LADY! when first, with eager eyes, This yet unblemish'd book we see, The thoughtful mind, at once, descries In this fair scroll, the type of thee. For, on the white and virgin face So, to thy mind's unfolding scroll, STANZAS. SAY, did ye mark the Sun to-day, How bursting through the evening cloud, He chased the twilight shades away, And gilded all his sable shroud? And then, methought, he ling'ring stood, And, ere he sunk beneath the flood, So when the Christian's day is past, So when life's well-spent journey o'er, Lies pictured in the approving breast, 'Tis his the landscape to explore, And bless the view, and sink to rest! |