Sonnet LVI

TO A TIMID YOUNG LADY,

DISTRESSED BY THE ATTENTIONS

OF AN AMIABLE, AND ACCEPTED LOVER.

What bashful wildness in those crystal eyes,

Fair Zillia!—Ah! more dear to Love the gaze

That dwells upon its object, than the rays

Of that vague glance, quick, as in summer skies

The lightning's lambent flash, when neither rise

Thunder, nor storm.—I mark, while transport plays

Warm in thy Lover's eye, what dread betrays

Thy throbbing heart:—yet why from his soft sighs

Fleet'st thou so swift away?—like the young Hind,

That bending stands the fountain's brim beside,

When, with a sudden gust, the western wind

Rustles among the boughs that shade the tide:

See, from the stream, innoxious and benign,

Starting she bounds, with terror vain as thine!