M, AND LOOKING BACK.

O, subtle Love! thy peace is war,
It wounds and kills without a scar,
It works unknown to any sense,
Like the decrees of Providence,
And with strange silence shoots me through,
The fire of Love doth fell like snow.
Hath she no quiver, but my heart?
Must all her arrows hit that part?
Beauties like heav'n their gifts should deal
Not to destroy us, but to heal.
Strange art of Love! that can make sound,
And yet exasperates the wound:
That look she lent to ease my heart,
Hath pierc'd it, and improv'd the smart.

IN ETESIAM LACHRYMANTEM.

O Dulcis Iuctus, risuque potentior omni!
Quem decorant lachrimis sidera tanta suis.
Quam tacitae spirant aurae! vultusque nitentes
Contristant veneres, collachrimantque suae!
Ornat gutta genas, oculisque simillima gemma:
Et tepido vivas irrigat imbre rosas.
Dicite Chaldaei! quae me fortuna fatigat,
[C?D?]um formosa dies et sine nube perit[65]?

FOOTNOTES:

[65] The original has _peruit_.

TO ETESIA GOING BEYOND SEA.

Go, if you must! but stay--and know
And mind before you go, my vow.
To ev'ry thing, but heav'n and you,
With all my heart I bid adieu!
Now to those happy shades I'll go
Where first I saw my beauteous foe!
I'll seek each silent path where we
Did walk; and where you sat with me
I'll sit again, and never rest
Till I can find some flow'r you press'd.
That near my dying heart I'll keep,
And when it wants dew I will weep:
Sadly I will repeat past joys
And words, which you did sometimes voice
I'll listen to the woods, and hear
The echo answer for you there.
But famish'd with long absence I,
Like infants left, at last shall cry,
And tears--as they do milk--will sup
Until you come, and take me up.

ETESIA ABSENT.

Love, the world's life! what a sad death
Thy absence is! to lose our breath
At once and die, is but to live
Enlarg'd, without the scant reprieve
Of pulse and air; whose dull returns
And narrow circles the soul mourns.
But to be dead alive, and still
To wish, but never have our will,
To be possess'd, and yet to miss,
To wed a true but absent bliss,
Are ling'ring tortures, and their smart
Dissects and racks and grinds the heart!
As soul and body in that state
Whi