TO THE MEMORY OF A YOUNG LADY,
Who died February 14, 1774.
WRITTEN IN FEBRUARY, 1794.
BELOV'D Eliza! in the peaceful grave,
Where, undisturb'd, thy beauteous reliques rest,
Thy faithful lover's deep regret receive,
The sad o'erflowings of his aching breast,
That still, with fondest love and grief opprest,
Unceasing thinks on thee.
Fir'd with the love of thee in earliest youth,
While the high pulse of life with vigour beat,
He still preserves, with undiminish'd truth,
A heart which, stranger to the world's deceit,
With purest passion's unabated heat,
Unceasing thinks on thee.
Snatch'd, in thy opening bloom, from life, from love,
Ere yet thy bosom knew life's anxious care;
With charms that even the coldest heart might move-
Charms !—that surpass'd the fairest of the fair—
Thy lover, left a prey to deep despair,
Unceasing thinks on thee.
Though twice ten suns their annual course have run, Since thou to happier realms hast wing'd thy flight; Clos'd thy career, in virtue's path begun,
And chang'd this nether world for realms of light; Yet still my soul, amidst this vale of night,
Unceasing thinks on thee.
How oft, as musing on thy moss-grown grave,
Does busy thought, with sad remembrance, trace
The time, the place, the happy chance, that gave
First to my view the beauties of thy face;
Whilst, with regret, which time can ne'er efface,
I ceaseless think on thee.
Oh! might my verse, in tuneful numbers, flow
Free as my tears, unbounded too as they,
To sing thy praises; and my poignant woe,
In mournful cadence, still should pour the lay
From the warm heart, that to its latest day,
Shall ceaseless think on thee.
Long have I hop'd and wish'd the happy hour
That shall from life and anguish set me free;
From bitter sorrows, and misfortune's power;
In blissful shades thy angel-form to see,
And free from sad regrets and misery,
For ever dwell with thee.
SWEETEST isle, of lake or main,
Sirmio, with what joy again
I revisit thy dear shore;
All my wandering labours o'er.
Scarce my senses I believe,
When they tell me, nor deceive,
That not through Asia's fields I roam,
But safely view my native home.
O what more blissful, than to find
Repose from care, and ease of mind-
With foreign toil long wearied grown,→
On that dear spot, on which alone,
Our hearts are fix'd; and pleasures past
Revive, and fill our bliss at last;
That genial spot, that sacred ground,
Where youth its earliest habits found?
How sweet, within my native shed,
То press the dear deserted bed!
Such joy as this, by pain procur'd,
Repays the labours I've endur'd.
Delightful Sirmio, hail! rejoice
To hear thy master's well-known voice;
Hail his late, but glad return:
And ye, hard by, who pour your urn,
Ye waters of the Larian lake,
In your old neighbour's joy partake:
And all ye sports that home attend,
Exult, and laugh, to meet your friend.
OR, THE LOVER'S RESOLUTION.
THROUGH weeds and thorus, and matted underwood,
I force my way; now climb, and now descend
O'er rocks, or bare or mossy, with blind foot
Crushing the purple whorts *; while oft unseen,
Hurrying along the drifted forest leaves,
The scar'd snake rustles. Onward still I toil,
I know not, ask not whither. A new joy
Lovely as light, sudden as summer gust,
And gladsome as the first-born of the spring,
Beckons me on, or follows from behind,
Playmate or guide.
I feel that I am free.
The fir-trees, and th'
The master-passion quell'd,
With dun-red bark
unfrequent slender oak
Forth from this tangle wild of bush and brake
Soar up, and form a melancholy vault
High o'er me, murm'ring like a distant sea.
No myrtle-walks are here! These are no groves
For Love to dwell in; the low stumps would gore
*Vaccinium Myrtillus, known by the different names of Whorts, Whortle-berries, Bil-berries; and, in the North of England, Bleaberries, and Bloom-berries.
His dainty feet; the briar and the thorn
Make his plumes haggard; till, like wounded bird,
Easily caught, the dusky Dryades,
With prickles sharper than his darts, would mock
His little Godship, making him per force
Creep thro' a thorn bush on yon hedgehog's back.
This is my hour of triumph! I can now
With my own fancies play the merry fool,
And laugh away worse folly, being free.
Here will I seat myself beside this old,
Hollow, and weedy oak, which ivy-twine
Clothes, as with net-work: here will couch my limbs
Close by this river, in this silent shade,
As safe and sacred from the step of man
As an invisible world-unheard, unseen,
And list'ning only to the pebbly stream
That murmurs with a dead, yet bell-like, sound
Tinkling, or bees, that in the neighb'ring trunk,
Make honey-hoards. This breeze, that visits me,
Was never Love's accomplice, never rais'd
The tendril ringlets from the maiden's brow,
And the blue, delicate veins above her cheek;
Ne'er play'd the wanton-never half-disclos'd
The maiden's snowy bosom, scatt'ring thence
Eye-poisons for some love-distemper'd youth,
Who ne'er, henceforth, may see an aspen-grove
Shiver in sun-shine, but his feeble heart
Shall flow away, like a dissolving thing.
Sweet breeze! thou only, if I guess aright,
Liftest the feathers of the robin's breast,
Who swells his little breast, so full of song,
Singing above me on the mountain ash.
And thou too, desart stream! no pool of thine,
Tho' clear as lake in latest summer eve,
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