The Home Book of Verse, vol 4 | Page 4

Under the lindens?
Walter Savage Landor [1775-1864]
ADVICE
To write as your sweet mother does Is all you wish to do. Play, sing, and smile for others, Rose! Let others write for you.
Or mount again your Dartmoor gray, And I will walk beside, Until we reach that quiet bay Which only hears the tide.
Then wave at me your pencil, then At distance bid me stand, Before the caverned cliff, again The creature of your hand.
And bid me then go past the nook To sketch me less in size; There are but few content to look So little in your eyes.
Delight us with the gifts you have, And wish for none beyond: To some be gay, to some be grave, To one (blest youth!) be fond.
Pleasures there are how close to Pain And better unpossessed! Let poetry's too throbbing vein Lie quiet in your breast.
Walter Savage Landor [1775-1864]
TO FANNY
Never mind how the pedagogue proses, You want not antiquity's stamp; The lip, that such fragrance discloses, Oh! never should smell of the lamp.
Old Chloe, whose withering kisses Have long set the Loves at defiance, Now, done with the science of blisses, May fly to the blisses of science!
Young Sappho, for want of employments, Alone o'er her Ovid may melt, Condemned but to read of enjoyments, Which wiser Corinna had felt.
But for you to be buried in books - Oh, Fanny! they're pitiful sages; Who could not in one of your looks Read more than in millions of pages!
Astronomy finds in your eyes Better light than she studies above, And Music must borrow your sighs As the melody fittest for Love.
In Ethics - 'tis you that can check, In a minute, their doubts and their quarrels; Oh! show but that mole on your neck, And 'twill soon put an end to their morals.
Your Arithmetic only can trip When to kiss and to count you endeavor; But eloquence glows on your lip When you swear that you'll love me for ever.
Thus you see what a brilliant alliance Of arts is assembled in you, - A course of more exquisite science Man never need wish to pursue.
And, oh! - if a Fellow like me May confer a diploma of hearts, With my lip thus I seal your degree, My divine little Mistress of Arts!
Thomas Moore [1779-1852]
"I'D BE A BUTTERFLY"
I'd be a Butterfly born in a bower, Where roses and lilies and violets meet; Roving for ever from flower to flower, And kissing all buds that are pretty and sweet! I'd never languish for wealth, or for power, I'd never sigh to see slaves at my feet: I'd be a Butterfly born in a bower, Kissing all buds that are pretty and sweet.
O could I pilfer the wand of a fairy, I'd have a pair of those beautiful wings; Their summer days' ramble is sportive and airy, They sleep in a rose when the nightingale sings. Those who have wealth must be watchful and wary; Power, alas! naught but misery brings! I'd be a Butterfly, sportive and airy, Rocked in a rose when the nightingale sings!
What, though you tell me each gay little rover Shrinks from the breath of the first autumn day: Surely 'tis better when summer is over To die when all fair things are fading away. Some in life's winter may toil to discover Means of procuring a weary delay - I'd be a butterfly; living, a rover, Dying when fair things are fading away!
Thomas Haynes Bayly [1797-1839]
"I'M NOT A SINGLE MAN" Lines Written In A Young Lady's Album
A pretty task, Miss S---, to ask A Benedictine pen, That cannot quite at freedom write Like those of other men. No lover's plaint my Muse must paint To fill this page's span, But be correct and recollect I'm not a single man.
Pray only think, for pen and ink How hard to get along, That may not turn on words that burn, Or Love, the life of song! Nine Muses, if I chooses, I May woo all in a clan; But one Miss S--- I daren't address - I'm not a single man.
Scribblers unwed, with little head, May eke it out with heart And in their lays it often plays A rare first-fiddle part. They make a kiss to rhyme with bliss, But if I so began, I have my fears about my ears - I'm not a single man.
Upon your cheek I may not speak, Nor on your lip be warm, I must be wise about your eyes, And formal with your form; Of all that sort of thing, in short, On T. H. Bayly's plan, I must not twine a single line - I'm not a single man.
A watchman's part compels my heart To keep you off its beat, And I might dare as soon to swear At you, as at your feet. I can't expire