My lovely Silvia, while in blooming youth
Your mental powers are active all and gay,
Attend the voice (the voice of Love and Truth)
That courts your notice in the moral lay.
Those active powers the Lord of nature gave,
To Reason’s rule by Choice alone confin’d:
For Reason’s empire never knew a slave;
Her sway is gentle, and her laws are kind.
Her subjects take their orders from her eye,
While she to each their various talks assigns;
And now o’er Nature’s ample field they fly,
A field far richer than Peruvian mines.
Here with unwearied diligence they rove,
Collecting treasures to enrich the mind;
And many a plant (through nature’s fragrant grove)
Of virtues rare, and fadeless bloom, they find.
And now with treasures fraught returning home,
Before their Queen display the sacred spoil:
And while arrang’d in order round her dome,
Her approbation crowns the pleasing toil.
When chill’d by Time’s cold hand, those sprightly powers
Inclin’d to rest, on longer chuse to roam,
Those mental stores shall cheer the wintry hours,
And flow’rs unfading breathe their sweets at home.
Extracting food amid the vernal bloom,
So flies the industrious bee around the vale,
With native skill she forms the waxen-comb,
To keep for wintry-days the rich regale.
(Ann Steele)
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Based on Topics: Love Poems, Mind Poems, Nature Poems, Home Poems, Money & Wealth Poems, Law & Regulation Poems, Vice & Virtue Poems, Slavery Poems, Morality PoemsBased on Keywords: silvia, approbation, diligence, assigns, regale, extracting, peruvian, arrang