If ever prayer of hapless love
Might gentle hours your pity move
Now urge your flight with speediest wing
And to these arms my Delia bring
Dear maid! what charm like her can cheer
When fortune frowns, the sinking soul!
Her smile unfurls the brow of care,
And sickness owns her song’s control.
Long, long my fond impatient heart
Hath felt suspense’s restless smart!
How slowly mov’d the prince of day!
Yon moon — how tedious her delay!
O Cynthia! down the azure fly,
And bid thy brother shine again,
And tell him, ere he quits the sky
To make my wish no longer vain.
Ah why should fortune’s wayward hate
Thy truest votary’s Love await
And why should all her torments be
Reserv’d for one who loves like me
Nor rest nor peace my bosom knows
Save when perchance some irksome night
If sleep my wearied eye-lids close
My soul to Delia takes its flight
O lend ye hours, a favouring ear!
That hour that brings my charmer here;
That happy hour, my grateful rhyme
Shall rescue from the stream of time
The sprightly notes that tell my joy
For ever give “that hour” to fame;
For never can its meaning die
When join’d in song with Delia’s name.