This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
40
love's mistake.

"Ask not the word from my lips, love;
Need'st thou so idle a sign!
Dost thou not hear my heart answer,
Thus beating softly on thine?"


LOVE'S MISTAKE
Oh mission pure, from realms divine,
Young Love was sent to Virtue's shrine,
But, wild and gay, he "stopp'd to play"
With sportive Beauty by the way.

She led him thro' her balmy bowers,
She chain'd him with a wreath of flowers,
She charm'd him with her magic smile,
And softly murmur'd—"Rest awhile!"

Alas! his sight is blinded quite,
By Beauty's dazzling glance of light;