Oh! no, not lovelier looks the muse,
In fiction's gaudy colours drest;
'Tis but the heartless bard's excuse,
'Twas but the apostate poet's zest.

Who like yon sightless seer can raise
Of raptur'd song the strain sublime?
Who sing like him th' immortal's praise,
While truth and Heav'n attest the rhime?

I own, thy wildest paths among
Together, Fancy, have we stray'd;
Together fram'd the simple song,
Inscrib'd to some fictitious maid.

But now when she to whom I bend,
To whom I raise th' adoring eye,
For whom my earliest pray'rs ascend,
For whom shall heave my latest sigh;

O! now when she whose purple bloom
Transcends the hue th' heav'ns dissolve,
What time the sun dispels the gloom,
And gems with dew th' op'ning rose;

O! now when she whose eyes more bright
Than shine those dew drops to the day,
Direct on me their beaming light,
And mock the diamond's fainter ray;

O! now when she whose purest blood
Speaks in her cheeks, whose form so wrought,
As if with wond'rous soul endued,
And gifted with the pow'r of thought;

O! now when pouring on the ear
That strain of force the soul to thrill,
To tempt an angel from his sphere,
And bid the vagrant air be still;

O! now when she descends from Heav'n,
At once my rapture and my theme,--
Say could I hope to be forgiven,
And sing of some poetic dream?

Let those whose sickly fancies chase
In fictious song the phantom fair;
Ixion like their cloud embrace,
And find no lovely substance there.

I sing of plighted love and truth,
Of rapturous hope and fond desire;
Such themes my glowing numbers suit,
To such I string my living lyre.

That lyre, and all its sounds be thine,
Oft as its silver chords among
My hand shall stray, and soul incline
To raise the melody of song.

For, ****, 'tis to thee I owe,
That love and beauty crown my day;
Thine therefore be the strains that flow,
And thine the tributary lay.