Attuning all their passions into love;

Where friendship full-exerts her softest power,

Perfect esteem enliven'd by desire

Ineffable, and sympathy of soul;

Thought meeting thought, and will preventing will,
With boundless confidence: for naught but love

Can answer love, and render bliss secure.
Let him, ungenerous, who, alone intent

To bless himself, from sordid parents buys
The lothing virgin, in eternal care,
Well-merited, consume his nights and days;
Let barbarous nations, whose inhuman love
Is wild desire, fierce as the suns they feel;
Let eastern tyrants, from the light of heaven
Seclude their bosom-slaves, meanly possess'd
Of a mere lifeless, violated form:

While those whom love cements in holy faith,
And equal transport, free as Nature live,
Disdaining fear. What is the world to them,
Its pomp, its pleasure, and its nonsense all!
Who in each other clasp whatever fair
High fancy forms, and lavish hearts can wish:

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The father's luster and the mother's bloom.
Then infant reason grows apace, and calls
For the kind hand of an assiduous care.
Delightful task! to rear the tender thought,
To teach the young idea how to shoot,
To pour the fresh instruction o'er the mind,
To breathe the enlivening spirit, and to fix
The generous purpose in the glowing breast.
Oh speak the joy! ye whom the sudden tear
Surprises often, while you look around,

And nothing strikes your eye but sights of bliss,
All various nature pressing on the heart;

An elegant sufficiency, content,

Retirement, rural quiet, friendship, books,

Ease and alternate labor, useful life,

Progressive virtue, and approving Heaven.
These are the matchless joys of virtuous love:
And thus their moments fly. The Seasons thus,
As ceaseless round a jarring world they roll,
Still find them happy; and consenting Spring
Sheds her own rosy garland on their heads:
Till evening comes at last, serene and mild;

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When after the long vernal day of life,
Enamor'd more, as more remembrance swells

With many a proof of recollected love,
Together down they sink in social sleep;
Together freed, their gentle spirits fly

To scenes where love and bliss immortal reign.

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