Albanio

Temperate, when winter waves its snowy wing, Is the sweet water of this sylvan spring; And when the heats of summer scorch the grass, More cold than snow: in your clear looking-glass, Fair waves! the memory of that day returns, With which my soul still shivers, melts, and burns; Gazing on your clear depth and lustre pure, My peace grows troubled, and my joy obscure; Recovering you, I lose all self-content: To whom, alas, could equal pains be sent! Scenes that would soothe another's pangs to peace, Add force to mine, or soothe but to increase. This lucid fount, whose murmurs fill the mind, The verdant forests waving with the wind, The odours wafted from the mead, the flowers In which the wild bee sits and sings for hours, These might the moodiest misanthrope employ, Make sound the sick, and turn distress to joy; I only in this waste of sweetness pine To death! oh beauty, rising to divine! Oh curls of gold! oh eyes that laughed with light! Oh swanlike neck! oh hand as ivory white! How could an hour so mournful ever rise To change a life so blest to tears and sighs, Such glittering treasures into dust! I range From place to place, and think, perhaps the change, The change may partly temper and control The ceaseless flame that thus consumes my soul. Deceitful thought! as though so sharp a smart By my departure must itself depart: Poor languid limbs, the grief is but too deep That tires you out! Oh that I could but sleep Here for awhile! the heart awake to pain, Perchance in slumbers and calm dreams might gain Glimpse of the peace with which it pants to meet, Though false as fair, and fugitive as sweet. Then, amiable kind Sleep, descend, descend! To thee my wearied spirit I commend.