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 Hind1,
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!
Notes
1: “Vitas hinnuleo me similis Chloe.” Horace.