Читать книгу The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 19, No. 548, May 26, 1832 - Various - Страница 2

Thou winged gem, whose starlike splendour

Gleams on the bosom of the rose,

I lore thy light when skies are tender,

And winds are wandering to repose.

The Grecian lute, the Moorish song,

And Crockford's home, with all that's in it,

May challenge fame from many a throng,

But thou, alone, fair bird, canst win it!

I've often watch'd thy plumage glancing

So evanescent in thy bower,

And heard thy silver voice entrancing

Soothe me, as music soothes the flower.

Although diminutive as me,

Thy song is sweeter, who can doubt it?

So, as I cannot sing like thee,

I'll break my lute, and live without it.

Thou minstrel of the sunny air,

Thy vocal fount is rich with song,

And fragrant breezes softly bear

Its silver melody along.

I love to hear thy liquid note

When bees are humming on the rose,

And in their sapphire ocean float

The stars prophetic of repose.

Thou feel'st the sunny influence

Like Memnon's fabled lyre of old,

And wanderest in the beam intense

Which turns the liquid air to gold.

The spirit's bright imaginings

Ne'er soar'd to loftier spheres than thee,

And if I had, thy fairy wings,

Afar from earthly haunts I'd flee.

Insipid are the weekly themes

Of –'s imbecile review,

Whose page with adulation teems,

And makes me "beautifully blue."

But cockney praise is ebbing fast,

And Sappho's lute has lost its power,

And surely my career is past

Like Summer's brightest, loveliest flower.

Arcades ambo, Moore and me

Are Delia Crusca's sweetest doves,

And ours too is the poetry

Which meditative beauty loves.

Sweet bird, farewell! and be it thine

To thrill the blue air with thy song;

But fame will wreathe this brow of mine,

If I am right, and Pope is wrong.