Beauty like a shadow flies,
And our youth before us dies.
Or, would youth and beauty stay,
Love hath wings, and will away:
Love hath swifter wings than time;
Change in love to heaven does climb:
Gods, that never change their state,
Vary oft their love and hate.

Phyllis to this truth we owe
All the love betwixt us two:
Let not you and I inquire
What has been our past desire;
On what shepherd you have smiled,
Or what nymphs I have beguiled:
Leave it to the planets, too,
What we shall hereafter do:

For the joys we now may prove,

Take advice of present love.

Edmund Waller.

XXXIII.

THE HOUR OF LOVE.

LEONARD.

THE sun upon the lake is low,

The wild birds hush their song,
The hills have evening's deepest glow,
Yet Leonard tarries long.
Now all whom varied toil and care

From home and love divide,

In the calm sunset may repair
Each to the loved one's side.

The noble dame on turret high,
Who waits her gallant knight,
Looks to the western beam to spy
The flash of armour bright.

The village maid, with hand on brow
The level ray to shade,

Upon the footpath watches now

For Colin's darkening plaid.

Now to their mates the wild swans row,

By day they swam apart,

And to the thicket wanders slow

The hind beside the hart.

The woodlark at his partner's side
Twitters his closing song-

All meet whom day and care divide,
But Leonard tarries long!

Sir Walter Scott.

XXXIV.

THE HOUR OF LOVE.

COUNTY GUY.

AH! County Guy, the hour is nigh,
The sun has left the lea,

The orange-flower perfumes the bower,
The breeze is on the sea.

The lark, his lay who trilled all day,
Sits hushed his partner nigh;

Breeze, bird, and flower confess the hour,
But where is County Guy?

The village maid steals through the shade
Her shepherd's suit to hear;

To Beauty shy, by lattice high,
Sings high-born Cavalier.

The star of Love, all stars above,

Now reigns o'er earth and sky,

And high and low the influence know-
But where is County Guy?

Sir Walter Scott.

XXXV.

LOVE'S PRESENT.

WHERE found Love his yesterday?
Where is Love's to-morrow?-say
Love has only now.

We can swear it, we who stand,
In Love's present, hand in hand,—
Thou and I, dear, I and thou.

By-and-by and Long-ago,

Last month's buds, next winter's snow,-
Love has only now.

Do we wot of rathe or sere

In Love's boundless summer year,
Thou and I, dear, I and thou?

Suns that rose and suns that set;
Gone for ever and Not yet-
Love has only now.

Do we count by dawn and night,
Dwelling in Love's perfect light,

Thou and I, dear, I and thou?

XXXVI.

Augusta Webster.

LOVE'S SEASON, SPRING.

IT was a lover and his lass

With a hey and a ho, and a hey-nonino !
That o'er the green cornfield did pass
In the spring time, the only pretty ringtime,
When birds do sing hey ding a ding:

Sweet lovers love the Spring.

Between the acres of the rye
These pretty country folks would lie :

This carol they began that hour,
How that life was but a flower:

And therefore take the present time

With a hey and a ho, and a hey-nonino!
For love is crownèd with the prime
In springtime, the only pretty ringtime,
When birds do sing hey ding a ding:

Sweet lovers love the Spring.

William Shakespeare.

XXXVII.

TRUE LOVELINESS.

IT is not beauty I demand,

A crystal brow, the moon's despair, Nor the snow's daughter, a white hand, Nor mermaid's yellow pride of hair:

Tell me not of your starry eyes,

Your lips that seem on roses fed,
Your breasts, where Cupid tumbling lies
Nor sleeps for kissing of his bed ;-

A bloomy pair of vermeil cheeks

Like Hebe's in her ruddiest hours, A breath that softer music speaks

Than summer winds a-wooing flowers,

These are but gauds: nay what are lips?
Coral beneath the ocean-stream,
Whose brink when your adventurer slips
Full oft he perisheth on them.

And what are cheeks, but ensigns oft
That wave hot youth to fields of blood
Did Helen's breast, though ne'er so soft,
Do Greece or Ilium any good?

Eyes can with baleful ardour burn;

Poison can breath, that erst perfumed;
There's many a white hand holds an urn
With lovers' hearts to dust consumed.

For crystal brows there's nought within;
They are but empty cells for pride;
He who the syren's hair would win
Is mostly strangled in the tide.

Give me, instead of beauty's bust,
A tender heart, a loyal mind
Which with temptation I would trust,
Yet never linked with error find,—

One in whose gentle bosom I

Could pour my secret heart of woes,
Like the care-burthened honey-fly
That hides his murmurs in the rose,-

My earthly comforter! whose love
So indefeasible might be

That, when my spirit wonned above,
Hers could not stay, for sympathy.

XXXVIII.

LOVE'S IDEAL.

SHALL I tell you whom I love?
Hearken then a while to me;
And if such a woman move
As I now shall versify;
Be assured 't is she, or none,
That I love, and love alone.

Nature did her so much right

As she scorns the help of art, In as many virtues dight

As e'er yet embraced a heart.

Anonymous.