Matilda Bethem

Forgive me, if I wound your ear, By calling of you Nancy, Which is the name of my sweet friend, The other’s but her fancy. Ah, dearest girl! how could your mind The strange distinction frame? The whimsical, unjust caprice, Which robs you of your name. Nancy agrees with what we see A being wild and airy; Gay as a nymph of Flora’s train, Fantastic as a fairy. But Anna’s of a different kind, A melancholy maid, Boasting a sentimental soul, In solemn pomp arrayed. Oh ne’er will I forsake the sound, So artless and so free Be what you will with all mankind, But Nancy still with me.

Now spring appears, with beauty crowned And all is light and life around, Why comes not Jane? When friendship calls, Why leaves she not Augusta’s walls? Where cooling zephyrs faintly blow, Nor spread the cheering, healthful glow That glides through each awakened vein, As skimming o’er the spacious plain, We look around with joyous eye, And view no boundaries but the sky. Already April’s reign is o’er, Her evening tints delight no more; No more the violet scents the gale, No more the mist o’erspreads the vale; The lovely queen of smiles and tears, Who gave thee birth, no more appears; But blushing May, with brow serene, And vestments of a livelier green, Commands the winged choir to sing, And with wild notes the meadows ring. O come! ere all the train is gone, No more to hail thy twenty-one; That age which higher honour shares, And well become the wreath it wears. From lassitude and cities flee, And breathe the air of heaven, with me.