LOVE AND MADNESS, AN ELEGY. Written in 1795. HARK! from the battlements of yonder tower* The solemn bell has toll'd the midnight hour! 46 Cease, memory, cease (the friendless mourner cried) To probe the bosom too severely tried! Oh! ever cease, my pensive thoughts, to stray Through the bright fields of Fortune's better day; * Warwick Castle. When youthful Hope, the music of the mind, Tuned all its charms, and E -n was kind! "Yet, can I cease, while glows this trembling frame, In sighs to speak thy melancholy name? I hear thy spirit wail in every storm! In midnight shades I view thy passing form! "Demons of Vengeance! ye at whose command I grasp'd the sword with more than woman's hand, Say ye, did Pity's trembling voice controul, Or horror damp the purpose of my soul? No! my wild heart sat smiling o'er the plan, Till Hate fulfill'd what baffled Love began! "Yes; let the clay-cold breast that never knew One tender pang to generous Nature true, Half-mingling pity with the gall of scorn, Condemn this heart, that bled in love forlorn! "And ye, proud fair, whose soul no gladness warms, Save rapture's homage to your conscious charms! Delighted idols of a gaudy train, Ill can your blunter feelings guess the pain, "Say, then, did pitying Heaven condemn the deed, When vengeance bade thee, faithless lover! bleed? Long had I watch'd thy dark foreboding brow, What time thy bosom scorn'd its dearest vow! Sad, though I wept the friend, the lover changed, Still thy cold look was scornful and estranged, Till from thy pity, love, and shelter, thrown, I wander'd, hopeless, friendless, and alone! "Oh! righteous Heaven! 'twas then soul my tortured First gave to wrath unlimited controul ! Adieu the silent look! the streaming eye! The murmur'd plaint! the deep heart-heaving sigh! Long-slumbering Vengeance wakes to better deeds; He shrieks, he falls, the perjured lover bleeds! Now the last laugh of agony is o'er, And pale in blood he sleeps, to wake no more! |