title: A Song, Written to Italian Music
author: Clement Clarke Moore
date: pub. 1844
source: Poems (New York: Bartlett & Welford, 1844), pp. 101-102; scan https://archive.org/details/poemsmoor00moorrich (leaves n116 ff.)
form: mixed (song; mainly iambic trimeter with tetrameter lines)
lines: 23
attribution: certain
notes: Song lyric for an Italian air; irregular stanza and line lengths. TOC gives p. 101; the poem occupies pp. 101-102 (TOC wrongly puts Old Dobbin at 104). Heading as printed: 'A SONG. / WRITTEN TO ITALIAN MUSIC.'.

Sweet Maid, could wealth or power
Thy heart to love incline,
I would not bless the hour,
The hour that calls thee mine.
Ah! no, beneath the Heaven
Blooms not so fair a flower
As love that's freely given.

Dear youth, have not these eyes,
To thine so oft returning,
Ah! say, have not these tell-tale sighs,
These cheeks with blushes burning,
My every thought bespoken?
Do these denote disguise?
Do these false love betoken?

Oh! bliss, all bliss transcending,
When souls congenial blending,
The sacred flame inspire
Of love's etherial fire.
Such love, from change secure,
For ever shall endure.
True love like this, of heavenly birth,
Not here confin'd to mortal earth,
Shall to immortal Heaven aspire.