Thy sacred influence grateful may I own; TO CYNTHIA, A FRAGMENT. FAIR are thy cold chaste beams, thy virgin face, Of mild ethereal hue and sweet aspect, How many know thee not, nor aught regard Thy tints delicious that are wont appear On evening's shadowy mantle moist and grey! What though, dear maid, thou bear'st a borrow'd beam, The sickly sister of the gaudy sun, How have I gazed thy beauties! when alone At close of day, pacing in mournful mood The yellow margin of the steril main, Shagg'd with the sleet-worn summit of the cliff, Ah! who but you bears witness to the vows TO PHILOMEL, A FRAGMENT. No noise I heard, but all was still as death, VERSES WRITTEN ON A WINTER'S NIGHT. WHO heeds it when the lightning's forked gleam The rifted towers of old Cilgarran strikes? Keen from the piercing East, or when the blast Nor dare, though hunger gnaws, to dog its heels, Before old age comes on, and beckons death, Ere the poor body rots and falls to dust.— TO THE MEMORY OF MISS LUCY S N, A young Woman, who, being betrayed into much undeserved misfortune, was at last thrown upon the town; and, concluding her life at the age of two-and-twenty, with Suicide, was inhumanly refused burial by the parish in which she died. HARK, hark, methinks a calling voice I hear! A voice I well remember once was dear, “I gave you all *, exclaims some shade unbless'd, "From Heaven's delaying hand no vengeance due, "Tis she-grief-sunk, yet why that haggard eye, Full fondly had I hoped some luckier day, * See Shakspeare's Lear. And bid thy tender frailties reassume Fair Virtue's injur'd grace, and banish'd bloom, That Peace, with joy-fledged wing, within thy breast Might still find warm her long-forsaken nest: Much have I wish'd to me that angry Heaven An angel-like reclaiming power had given, For ever to have won thee from distress, And lodged thee in the arms of happiness, Before the sated world had left its prey, And flung thee like a faded flower away; Vain wish, how blind to fate!-'twas e'en deny'd, At life's last hour to linger by thy side, With kind concern to assist each sinking sense, And lend fresh warmth to faltering penitence; When dim with Death's eclipse thy speaking eye In trembling hope held converse with the sky, Or through th' eventful past seem'd sick to run, And fain had found th' eventful tale undone. Let Levite prudence with contented sneer Reserve for meaner clay his abject tear, Ah! may he long this luckless dust forego, And hoard for kindred minds his sordid woe; Though thy pale bones beneath the common sky, Cold as the heart he bears, forgotten lie, Their martyr cause to other souls they trust, And leave relentless Caution to be just : Well pleas'd her tear-wet mantle to have laid O'er thy sad wounds by fell misfortune made, Pity shall ever place her best thoughts there, And kiss the spot proscribed without a fear; With vindicating voice shall damn to rest Base Censure's fiend-like bark, and Scandal's jest ; Telling weak man to him it ne'er was given, To mark the bounds of mercy out to Heaven. |