My love, a timorous and tender flower,
Closes beneath his touch.1

I can never

Shape my thoughts of her into words to her.2
I yielded- I unlock'd her all my breast,
Who, with a grain of manhood well resolved,
Might easily have shook off all her snares;
But foul effeminacy held me yoked

Her bond slave.3

Not deceived,

But fondly overcome with female charm.*

They (women) lie, we lie, all lie, but love no less. 5

The passion of love is to be conquered only by flying."

The weak wanton Cupid

Shall from your neck unloose his amorous folds,
And, like a dewdrop from the lion's mane,

Be shook to air.7

O! for a lover-sightly, sprightly, sincere, and secret!

But yet she listen'd-'tis enough—

Who listens once, will listen twice;
Her heart, be sure, is not of ice,
And one refusal no rebuff.8

He comes too near, - who comes to be denied.

It is a true rule that love is ever rewarded with the reciproque, or with an inward and secret contempt.

1 Coleridge (Remorse).

4 Par. Lost, book ix.
7 Troilus and Cressida.

2 Werner. 3 Samson Agonistes.
6 Don Quixote.

5 Byron.
8 Mazeppa. 9 Bacon.

Shall I like a hermit dwell
On a rock or in a cell,

Calling back the smallest part
That is missing of my heart,
To bestow it where I may
Meet a rival every day?
If she undervalue me,
What care I how fair she be?

Were her hand as rich a prize
As her hairs, or precious eyes,
If she lay them out to take
Kisses for good manners' sake;
And let every lover skip
From her hand unto her lip;
If she seem not chaste to me,

What care I how chaste she be?!

Nay-if she love me not, I care not for her,
Shall I look pale, because the maiden blooms?
Or sigh, because she smiles-and smiles on others?
Not I by heaven! I hold my peace too dear
To let it, like the plume upon her cap,

Shake at each nod that her caprice may dictate.2

Comme je savois bien qu'elles ne pensoient pas à moi, je n'avois ni la simplicité, ni la fatuité de penser à elles. J'aurois pu dire comme Atys, et avec plus de sincerité:

J'aime les roses nouvelles,
J'aime voir à s'en embellir;
Sans leurs épines cruelles,
J'aimerois à les cueillir.3

1 Sir Walter Raleigh.

2 Old Play-motto to one of Scott's chapters (Novels); pro

bably by himself.

3 Marmontel.

He that loves, unloved again,

Hath better store of love than brain.1

But we'll grow auld together, and never find

The loss of youth, when youth grows on the mind.2

One joy shall make us smile, one sorrow mourn ; one age go with us; one hour of death shall close our eyes; and one cold grave shall hold us happy. Say but you hate me not!-Oh!-Speak!-Give but the softest breath to that enchanting word! 3

Wheresoever Providence shall dispose of the most valuable thing I know, I shall ever follow you with my sincerest wishes, and my best thoughts will be continually waiting upon you, when you neither hear of me nor them; your own guardian angels cannot be more constant nor more silent."

Love! a passion which has caused the change of empires; a passion which has inspired heroism, and subdued avarice; a passion which he, who never felt never was happy; and he, who laughs at, never deserves to feel."

Camp. Brit. Poets, iv. 403.

3 Love makes a Man.

2 Allan Ramsay. 4 Sic in orig.

5 Pope (Letters to several Ladies), xix. Johnson, iv. 396. Bosw. Croker's ed.

CHAP. VIII.

MARRIAGE.

Now thou art mine! - for ever mine,

With life to keep, and scarce with life resign.1
I can express no kinder sign of love

Than this fond kiss. O Lord, that lend'st me life,

Lend me a heart replete with thankfulness!

For thou hast given me in this beauteous face
A world of earthly blessings to my soul,

If sympathy of love unite.2

Je veux, avec excès, vous aimer et vous plaire.

Je ne veux en ce monde choisir

Plus grand honneur que vous donner plaisir.*

Thou hast sworn by thy God, my Jeanie,

By that pretty white hand o' thine,

And by a' the lowing stars in heaven,
That thou would aye be mine!
And I have sworn by my God, my Jeanie,
And by that kind heart o' thine,

By a' the stars sown thick owre heaven,

That thou shalt aye be mine!

Then foul fa' the hands that wad loose sic band,

And the heart that wad part sic love;

But there's nae hand can loose my

But the finger o' God above.

1 Byron.
3 De Staël.

band

2 Second Part of King Henry VI. 4 Ronsard to Mary Queen of Scots.

Tho' the wee, wee cot maun be my bield,

An' my claithing e'er sae mean,

I wad lap me up rich i' the faulds of luve,
Heaven's armfu' o' my Jean!

Her white arm wad be a pillow for me,

Fu' safter than the down,

An' luve wad winnow owre us his kind, kind wings, An' sweetly I'd sleep an' soun.

Come here to me then, lass o' my luve,

Come here and kneel wi' me,

The morn is fu' o' the presence o' my God,

And I canna pray but1 thee.

And thou maun speak o' me to thy God,
And I will speak o' thee.2

Hail! wedded love-mysterious law, true source
Of human offspring, sole propriety,

The paradise of all things common else;

By thee adulterous lust was driven from men,
Among the bestial herds to range; by thee,
Founded in reason, loyal, just, and pure,
Relations dear, and all the charities

Of father, son, and brother first were known;
Perpetual fountain of domestic sweets!
Here love his golden shaft employs; here lights
His constant lamp, and waves his purple wings;
Reigns here and revels; not in the bought smile
Of harlots, loveless, joyless, unendear'd,

Casual fruition; nor in court amours,

Mixed dance, or wanton mask, or midnight ball,
Or serenade.3

Felices ter et amplius,

Quos irrupta tenet copula, nec malis

2 Cromek, Reliques, 20. 3 Milton, b. iv. 1. 750.