Page:The poetical works of Thomas Campbell.djvu/287

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267

Here, too, the air's harmonious—deep-toned doves
Coo to the fife-like carol of the lark;
And when they cease, the holy nightingale
Winds up his long, long shakes of ecstasy,
With notes that seem but the protracted sounds
Of glassy runnels bubbling over rocks.


SONG.

To Love in my heart, I exclaimed t'other morning,
Thou hast dwelt here too long, little lodger, take warning.
Thou shalt tempt me no more from my life's sober duty,
To go gadding, bewitched by the young eyes of beauty.
For weary's the wooing, ah! weary,
When an old man will have a young dearie.

The god left my heart, at its surly reflections,
But came back on pretext of some sweet recollections,
And he made me forget what I ought to remember,
That the rose-bud of June cannot bloom in November.
Ah! Tom, 'tis all o'er with thy gay days—
Write psalms, and not songs for the ladies.

But time's been so far from my wisdom enriching,
That the longer I live, beauty seems more bewitching;
And the only new lore my experience traces,
Is to find fresh enchantment in magical faces.
How weary is wisdom, how weary!
When one sits by a smiling young dearie!