TO DELIA. Eliza Day Alexander Huber Editor Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford
Broad Street Oxford OX1 3BG UK
Eighteenth-Century Poetry Archive
Taylor Institution Library St Giles' Oxford OX1 3NA UK info@eighteenthcenturypoetry.org https://www.eighteenthcenturypoetry.org/
Oxford This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. T132359 Daye, Eliza, b. ca. 1734. Poems, on Various Subjects. Liverpool Printed by J. M'Creery 1798 pp. [81]-83. [2],x,[4],258p.; 8°

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TO DELIA . FADE thy leaves thou beauteous rose , In those sweet scenes which thee disclose ? And droops thy head thou lily fair , Declining in the balmy air ? Then take your beauty's transient power , Ye pageants of a summer's hour : And if there be yet aught more frail , Give it to the passing gale . Can brilliant gems , can glittering ore , My Delia's health or peace restore ? Thy treasures back , oh earth ! receive , Or blindly still let fortune give . How weak the pride of grandeur's sway ! Since all are born of equal clay ; Vainly alike we place our trust , In noble or in servile dust . Think not my Delia beauty's charm , Could guard thy growing years from harm , Or teach misfortune's pensive brow , With conscious dignity to glow . Be mental worth my Delia's care , Unfading charm ! divinely fair ! Oh may its spell with potent ray , Thro' youth and age direct thy way . And take , oh take ! th' instructive page , Which wisdom gives for every age ; So shall thy richly polish'd mind , Collect its treasures unconfin'd . My Delia ! see for noble blood , Thy words be gentle , actions good : Let all thy thoughts exalted be , And virtue thy nobility . Then at devotion's hallow'd shrine , Give every grace a seal divine ; For prayers and deeds united rise , To Heaven the richest sacrifice . If prosperous scenes shall thee surround , These be thy valued treasures found ; While fair humility shall reign , A guardian o'er the heavenly train . But , if thy tide of joys run low , And friends with happier day should go , Still mistress o'er thyself be seen , And let thy virtues hail thee queen !