'Tis that delightful transport we can feel,
Which painters cannot paint, or words reveal.
Nor any art we know of,—can conceal.
Canst thou describe the sun-beams to the blind,
Or make him feel a shadow with his mind?
So neither can we by description show
This first of all felicities below.

When happy Love pours magic o'er the soul,
And all our thoughts in sweet delirium roll;
When Contemplation spreads its rainbow wings,
And every flutter some new rapture brings;
How sweetly then our moments glide away,
And dreams repeat the raptures of the day;
We live in ecstasy to all things kind,
For love can teach a moral to the mind.
But are there not some other marks that prove,
What is this wonder of the soul, call'd love?

O yes, there are, but of a different kind,
The dreadful horrors of a dismal mind.
Some jealous fury throws her poison'd dart,
And rends in pieces the distracted heart,

When love's a tyrant, and the soul a slave,
No hopes remain to thought, but in the grave;
In that dark den, it sees an end to grief,
And what was once its dread, becomes relief.

What are the iron chains that hands have wrought?
The hardest chains to break, are those of thought.
Think well of this, ye lovers, and be kind,
Nor play with torture—or a tortured mind.

What is a mine—a treasury—a dower—
A magic talisman of mighty power?
A poet's wide possession of the earth.
He has th' enjoyment of a flower's birth
Before its budding—ere the first red streaks,—
And Winter cannot rob him of their cheeks.

Look—if his dawn be not as other men's!
Twenty bright flushes—ere another kens
The first of sunlight is abroad—he sees
Its golden 'lection of the topmost trees,
And opes the splendid fissures of the morn.

When do his fruits delay, when doth his corn
Linger for harvesting? Before the leaf
Is commonly abroad, in his piled sheaf
The flagging poppies lose their ancient flame.
No sweet there is, no pleasure I can name,
But he will sip it first—before the lees.
'Tis his to taste rich honey,—ere the bees
Are busy with the brooms. He may forestall
June's rosy advent for his coronal;
Before th' expectant buds upon the bough,
Twining his thoughts to bloom upon his brow.

Oh! blest to see the flower in its seed,
Before its leafy presence; for indeed
Leaves are but wings on which the summer flies,
And each thing perishable fades and dies,
Escap'd in thought; but his rich thinkings be
Like overflows of immortality:
So that what there is steep'd shall perish never,
But live and bloom, and be a joy forever.