Hold me fast against my will. While those magic chains confine me, To her will I must resign me. Ah, the change in truth is great! Love! kind love! release me straight! 1775. ----- TO BELINDA. [This song was also written for Lily. Goethe mentions, at the end of his Autobiography, that he overheard her singing it one evening after he had taken his last farewell of her.] WHEREFORE drag me to yon glittering eddy, With resistless might? Was I, then, not truly blest already In the silent night? In my secret chamber refuge taking, 'Neath the moon's soft ray, And her awful light around me breaking, Musing there I lay. And I dream'd of hours with joy o'erflowing, Golden, truly blest, While thine image so beloved was glowing Deep within my breast. Now to the card-table hast thou bound me, 'Midst the torches glare? Whilst unhappy faces are around me, Dost thou hold me there? Spring-flow'rs are to me more rapture-giving, Now conceal'd from view; Where thou, angel, art, is Nature living, Love and kindness too. 1775. ----- MAY SONG. How fair doth Nature Appear again! How bright the sunbeams! How smiles the plain! The flow'rs are bursting From ev'ry bough, And thousand voices Each bush yields now. And joy and gladness Fill ev'ry breast! Oh earth!--oh sunlight! Oh rapture blest! Oh love! oh loved one! As golden bright, As clouds of morning On yonder height! Thou blessest gladly The smiling field,-- The world in fragrant Vapour conceal'd. Oh maiden, maiden, How love I thee! Thine eye, how gleams it! How lov'st thou me! The blithe lark loveth Sweet song and air, The morning flow'ret Heav'n's incense fair, As I now love thee With fond desire, For thou dost give me Youth, joy, and fire, For new-born dances And minstrelsy. Be ever happy, As thou lov'st me! 1775.* ----- WITH A PAINTED RIBBON. LITTLE leaves and flow'rets too, Scatter we with gentle hand, Kind young spring-gods to the view, Sporting on an airy band. Zephyr, bear it on the wing, Twine it round my loved one's dress; To her glass then let her spring, Full of eager joyousness. Roses round her let her see, She herself a youthful rose. Grant, dear life, one look to me! 'Twill repay me all my woes, What this bosom feels, feel thou. Freely offer me thy hand; Let the band that joins us now Be no fragile rosy band! 1770. ----- WITH A GOLDEN NECKLACE. THIS page a chain to bring thee burns, That, train'd to suppleness of old, On thy fair neck to nestle, yearns, In many a hundred little fold. To please the silly thing consent! 'Tis harmless, and from boldness free; By day a trifling ornament, At night 'tis cast aside by thee. But if the chain they bring thee ever, Heavier, more fraught with weal or woe, I'd then, Lisette, reproach thee never If thou shouldst greater scruples show.