Sonnet LVI. To A Timid Young Lady, Distressed By The Attentions Of An Amiable, And Accepted Lover.

What bashful wildness in those crystal eyes, Fair Zillia!—Ah! more dear to LOVE the gaze That dwells upon its object, than the rays Of that vague glance, quick, as in summer skies The lightning's lambent flash, when neither rise Thunder, nor storm.—I mark, while transport plays Warm in thy Lover's eye, what dread betrays Thy throbbing heart:—yet why from his soft sighs Fleet'st thou so swift away?—like the young Hind, That bending stands the fountain's brim beside, When, with a sudden gust, the western wind Rustles among the boughs that shade the tide: See, from the stream, innoxious and benign, Starting she bounds, with terror vain as thine! 1: “Vitas hinnuleo me similis Chloe.” HORACE.