Should beauty's soul-enchanting smile, Love-kindling looks, and features gay, Should these thy wandering eye beguile, And steal thy wareless heart away; That heart shall soon with sorrow swell, Far from his hive one summer-day The morn, the noon, in play he passed, But when the shades of evening came, No parent brought the due repast, And faintness seized his little frame. By nature urged, by instinct led, Where streams mourned round a mossy bed, Of kindred race, but brighter dies, The tints that streamed with glossy gold, The stranger wondered to behold, And to its beauteous bosom flew. Not fonder haste the lover speeds, Nor glows his eye with brighter glee, Ah! pity much his youth untried, But where the genial virtues dwell. In vain he seeks those virtues there; An aged bee, whose labours led Thro' those fair springs, and meads of gold, His feeble wing, his drooping head Beheld, and pitied to behold. "Fly, fond adventurer, fly the art "That courts thine eye with fair attire; "Who smiles to win the heedless heart, "Will smile to see that heart expire. "This modest flower of humbler hue, "That boasts no depth of glowing dyes, "Arrayed in unbespangled blue, "The simple cloathing of the skies "This flower, with balmy sweetness blest, 66 May yet thy languid life renew:" He said, and to the Violet's breast The little vagrant faintly flew. |