OF TEMPER.
17
Go! lest her touch their tender tones destroy,
Teach them to vibrate to thy notes of joy!
Go! and restore, by stilling mental strife,
Health to faint Love, and happiness to life!'
So spake that friend of Man, who lights above
His heavenly lamp of Hymeneal love:
In his just aim my kindred spirit join'd,
And flew obedient to the charge assign'd.
Hence, as the bias sways the unconscious bowl,
I long unseen have sway'd the careless soul;
Tho' oft I feel my power by Spleen subdu'd,
In the shrill Vixen, and the sullen prude,
In some fair forms my soft dominion grows,
Like fragrance, rising from the opening rose:
Still I preserve, in many a lovely face,
That gay good-humour, and that constant grace,
Which heavenly powers united to infold
In perfect Woman's new-created mould;
When Nature, in her infant beauty blest,
The last and loveliest of her works carest.
Teach them to vibrate to thy notes of joy!
Go! and restore, by stilling mental strife,
Health to faint Love, and happiness to life!'
So spake that friend of Man, who lights above
His heavenly lamp of Hymeneal love:
In his just aim my kindred spirit join'd,
And flew obedient to the charge assign'd.
Hence, as the bias sways the unconscious bowl,
I long unseen have sway'd the careless soul;
Tho' oft I feel my power by Spleen subdu'd,
In the shrill Vixen, and the sullen prude,
In some fair forms my soft dominion grows,
Like fragrance, rising from the opening rose:
Still I preserve, in many a lovely face,
That gay good-humour, and that constant grace,
Which heavenly powers united to infold
In perfect Woman's new-created mould;
When Nature, in her infant beauty blest,
The last and loveliest of her works carest.
