While love with sweet enchantment melts the soul.
"In transport lost, by trembling hope imprest,
The blushing virgin sunk upon my breast,
While hers congenial beat with fond alarms; 510
Dissolving softness! Paradise of charms!
Flash'd from our eyes, in warm transfusion flew
Our blending spirits that each other drew!
O bliss supreme! where virtue's self can melt
With joys that guilty pleasure never felt;
Form'd to refine the thought with chaste desire,
And kindle sweet affection's purest fire.
Ah! wherefore should my hopeless love, she cries,--
While sorrow bursts with interrupting sighs,--
For ever destined to lament in vain, 520
Such nattering, fond ideas entertain?
My heart through scenes of fair illusion stray'd,
To joys decreed for some superior maid.
'Tis mine, abandon'd to severe distress,
Still to complain, and never hope redress--
Go then, dear youth! thy father's rage atone,
And let this tortured bosom beat alone.
The hovering anger yet thou mayst appease:
Go then, dear youth! nor tempt the faithless seas.
Find out some happier maid, whose equal charms 530
With fortune's fairer joys may bless thy arms:
Where, smiling o'er thee with indulgent ray,
Prosperity shall hail each new-born day:
Too well thou know'st good Albert's niggard fate
Ill fitted to sustain thy father's hate.
Go then, I charge thee by thy generous love,