SWEET Sympathy! thou fair, celestial maid,
Thou precious, soft, indefinable tie,
Source of the pitying drop that dims the eye,
Source of the sigh to Friendship's sorrows paid.

Divine inspirer! soul of the inmost soul!
Bringing his mistress to the lover's sight,
Though darkness pours around its deepest night,
And Ocean's wide expanse between them roll.

Oh, thou! descending on the downy wing
Of Cupid, when he steals into the heart,
Art mistress of the sweetly painful smart,
That, tipt with honey, bears a secret sting.

'Tis thou informest the fond lover's breast
Of ev'ry sigh his absent Laura heaves,
Of ev'ry tear its bright recess that leaves,
Bidding prophetic sorrow haunt his rest.

Oh! softer than the breeze to summer dear,
Sweet as the breath of love, than snow more fair,
Daughter of Heaven, and lighter than its air,
Thy robe a zephyr! and thy crown a tear!