FANNY FAIR.

To Fanny fair could I impart
The cause of all my woe!
That beauty which has won my heart,
She scarcely seems to know:
Unskill'd in art of womankind,
Without design she charms;
How can those sparkling eyes be blind,
Which every bosom warms?

She knows her power is all deceit,
The conscious blushes shows,
Those blushes to the eye more sweet
Than th' op'ning budding rose :
Yet the delicious fragrant rose,
That charms the sense so much,
Upon a thorny brier grows,

And wounds with ev'ry touch.

At first when I beheld the fair,
With raptures I was blest;

But as I would approach more near,
At once I lost my rest;

Th' inchanting sight, the sweet surprise,
Prepare me for my doom;

One cruel look from those bright eyes
Will lay me in my tomb.

[From the Tea Table Miscellany. Burns in his first letter to George Thomson, calls it insipid stuff and a disgrace to a collection of songs.' The Editor had great misgivings after such an opinion from such a man as Burns whether he should insert it--but as the poet says in his Dream:

There's mony waur been o' the race, so he thought proper here to admit it.]

DELIA.

GEORGE LORD LYTTELTON.

Born 1709-Died 1773.

When Delia on the plain appears,
Awed by a thousand tender fears,
I would approach, but dare not move :
Tell me, my heart, if this be love?

Whene'er she speaks, my ravish'd ear
No other voice but hers can hear,
No other wit but hers approve :
Tell me my heart if this be love?

If she some other youth commend, Though I was once his fondest friend, His instant enemy I prove:

Tell me, my heart, if this be love?

When she is absent, I no more
Delight in all that pleas'd before,
The clearest spring, or shadiest grove :
Tell me, my heart, if this be love?

When, fond of power, of beauty vain,
Her nets she spread for every swain;
I strove to hate, but vainly strove :
Tell me, my heart, if this be love?

MYRA.

GEORGE LORD LYTTELTON.

Say, Myra, why is gentle love
A stranger to that mind,
Which pity and esteem can move;
Which can be just and kind?

Is it, because you fear to share
The ills that Love molest;
The jealous doubt, the tender care,,
That rack the amorous breast?

Alas! by some degree of woe

We every bliss must gain:

The heart can ne'er a transport know,
That never feels a pain.

THE HEAVY HOURS ARE ALMOST PASS'D.

GEORGE LORD LYTTELTON.

The heavy hours are almost pass'd
That part my love and me:
My longing eyes may hope at last
Their only wish to see.

But how, my Delia, will you meet
The man you've lost so long?
Will love in all your pulses beat,
And tremble on your tongue?

Will you in every look declare
Your heart is still the same,
And heal each idly anxious care,
Our fears in absence frame.

Thus, Delia, thus I paint the scene,
When shortly we shall meet;
And try what yet remains between
Of loitering time to cheat.

But if the dream that soothes my mind
Shall false and groundless prove;
If I am doom'd at length to find
You have forgot to love;

All I of Venus ask, is this:
No more to let us join:

But grant me here the flattering bliss
To die, and think you mine.

Yes, I'm in love, I feel it now,
And Celia has undone me;

And yet I swear I can't tell how

The pleasing plague stole on me.

"Tis not her face that love creates,
For there no graces revel;

'Tis not her shape, for there the fates,
Have rather been uncivil.

'Tis not her air, for sure in that

There's nothing more than common,
And all her sense is only chat,

Like any other woman.

Her voice, her touch might give th' alarm,
'Twas both perhaps, or neither;

In short, 'twas that provoking charm
Of Celia altogether.

[William Whitehead succeeded Colley Cibber as Poet Laureat. poems, and his name are now sinking into obscurity.]

His

STELLA.

DR. JOHNSON.

Born 1709-Died 1784.

Not the soft sighs of vernal gales,
The fragrance of the flowery vales,
The murmurs of the crystal rill,
The vocal grove, the verdant hill;
Not all their charms, though all unite
Can touch my bosom with delight.