And while this charmed gift we send,
We know where'er your footsteps bend,
The looks and tones that win the friend,
That kindness, nature, truth, attend,
Are yours, and must be with you still,
Angelic guards, go where they will,
To ward off much surrounding ill,
And happiest destinies fulfil.
XVIII.
_Written jointly with a particular Friend, after a conversation
similar to the subject, with the Damon of the Story_.
--------
Believing love was all a bubble,
And wooing but a needless trouble,
Damon grew fond of posied rings,
And many such romantic things;
But whether it were Fortune's spite,
That study wound his brain too tight,
Or that his fancy play'd him tricks,
He could not on the lady fix.
He look'd around,
And often found,
A damsel passing fair;
"_She's good enough,_" he then would cry,
And rub his hands, and wink his eye,
"_I'll be enamour'd there!_"
He thus resolved; but had not power
To hold the humour "_half an hour_"--
And critics, vers'd in Cupid's laws,
Pretended they had found a clause,
In an old volume on the shelf;--
Which said, if arrows chanc'd to fly,
When no bright nymph was passing by,
And lighted on a vacant breast;
The swain, Narcissus-like possest,
Strait doated on himself!
If so, his anxious friends declar'd
All future trouble might be spar'd:
A heart thus pierc'd would never rove,
Nor meanly seek a second love;
No distance e'er could give him pain--
No rivalry torment his brain.
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