The time I've lost in wooing,

In watching and pursuing

  The light, that lies

  In woman's eyes,

Has been my heart's undoing.

Tho' Wisdom oft has sought me,

I scorned the lore she brought me,

  My only books

  Were woman's looks,

And folly's all they've taught me.

Her smile when Beauty granted,

I hung with gaze enchanted,

  Like him the Sprite,[1]

  Whom maids by night

Oft meet in glen that's haunted.

Like him, too, Beauty won me,

But while her eyes were on me,

  If once their ray

  Was turned away,

O! winds could not outrun me.

And are those follies going?

And is my proud heart growing

  Too cold or wise

  For brilliant eyes

Again to set it glowing?

No, vain, alas! the endeavor

From bonds so sweet to sever;

  Poor Wisdom's chance

  Against a glance

Is now as weak as ever.

[1] This alludes to a kind of Irish fairy, which is to be met with, they say, in the fields at dusk. As long as you keep your eyes upon him, he is fixed, and in your power;—but the moment you look away (and he is ingenious in furnishing some inducement) he vanishes. I had thought that this was the sprite which we call the Leprechaun; but a high authority upon such subjects, Lady Morgan, (in a note upon her national and interesting novel, O'Donnel), has given a very different account of that goblin.