And now within my throbbing breast I hasted to the roseate bowers Where Pleasure dwells with Love. There Youth and Love and Beauty bound Then to the daughter of Desire To bright-eyed Pleasure gave the lyre, She tuned the string And smiling softer than the rosy sea When the young Morning blushes on her breast, I heard her sing The song lull'd every care and every thought to rest. Sons of Nature hither haste, The blessings of existence taste; Listen to my friendly lay And your cares shall fly away Quick as fly the wintry snows When the vernal Zephyr blows. Let others courting War's alarms Seek the bloody field of arms, Let others with undaunted soul Bid Bellona's thunders roll, From the lightnings of their eye Let the trembling squadrons fly; Sons of Nature you shall prove A softer fight, the fight of love. While you in soft repose are laid Underneath the myrtle shade, Amid the murky glooms of Death The Sons of Battle pant for breath. Let the philosophic sage, His silver tresses white with age, To scan the laws of Nature o'er Curb'd beneath his harsh controul You the gentler sons of Joy He to curb the passions tries Let the Patriot die to raise The ever verdant bay may bloom! Let Ambition's sons alone And moth-like die amidst a blaze, Before delicious Beauty's throne. Lo! Theora treads the green, All breathing grace and harmony she moves In graceful ringlets floats her golden hair. Expression's liquid lightnings fly, Fair as the Lily when at dawning day Tinged with the morning's bright and purple ray. Yonder scented groves among She will listen to your song, In yonder bower where roses bloom And sip the soul-enlivening wine, There the lyre with melting lay Such the blessings I bestow, Haste my Sons these blessings know! His bloom but for a changeful hour! The rosy cheek is turn'd to clay, No living joys, no transports burn In the dark sepulcral urn, No Laurels crown the fleshless brows, They fade together with the Rose. D. 1796. |