Item Info

Scripts/Text: Roman script
Language: English
Physical Description: Leaf
Material: Laid paper; watercolor; ink
Transcription:

A \ Poem

List, all your virgin train, whose gentle souls \ Melt at love’s tail and fan his sacred fires. \ Whose gen’rous warmth no sordid wish controuls. \ But all is sympathy and soft desires

And ye, ingenious youth, Who sick of fame, \ Seek purer joys then what ambition yields, \ Who for substantial bliss exchange a name, \ And trip with Cupid o’er his flowery fields!

Full two months past, these eyes did first behold \ Her who subdu’d and turn’d my soul to love, \ Cast were her charms in nature’s loveliest moulds, \ Soft was her bosom as the Turtle dove.

Yet ah! how oft did sportive Echo’s voice, \ Ere yet my love was told, fast by yon grot \ Enthron’d in airy slate, with mimic noise. \ Mock all my sighs for Susan and a Cot?

But not so niggard was the tender maid - \ For whom I breath’d my passion in her ear, \ Her kindness more than every sight repaid \ She shed a chrystal flood for every tear.

Long have we lov’d – but lov’d as yet in vain – \ For when the lover lacks the dirty Ore. \ In these curs’d days, nor truth nor worth can gain \ A parent’s voice – and I alass! am poor.

Yet richer far than he who sits on thrones \ And more my pw’r than his whose will his law, \ Is not a virtuous heart love precious stones - \ To rule it softly, harder than to awe?

Let pining lovers seek the silent shade. \ Shed the vain tear and breathe the empty sigh, \ I’d rather cheerfully enjoy my maid - \ I’d rather live for Susan’s sake than die.

Give me kind heaven this Girl I so dearly love \ Give to us both sound health – a humble Cot - \ So shall our daily praises mount above, \ To the kind donor of our peaceful lot.

Category: Other
Media Type: Manuscripts
Source: Rare Book Department
Notes:

Hand-drawn; hand-colored; hand-lettered. The poem in Roman script is in the center of the document. It is framed on the sides and above by undulating leafy vines. The tile “A poem” is within an oval frame. Behind it is an angel with a bow and arrows, or Cupid.

Creation Place State/Province: State/Province:Unknown

Creation Year (Single Year or Range Begin): ca. 1825
Image Dimensions Width: 32 cm
ShelfMark: FLP 186
Creator Name: Anonymous - Decorator
Anonymous - Scrivener