When o'er each babe you look a last adieu, And gaze on Innocence that smiles asleep, Shall no fond feeling beat, to Nature true, Charm thee to pensive thought....and bid thee weep When the young suppliants clasp their Parent dear, Nature shall throb in ev'ry tender string,.... Thy horror-smitten hands afar shall fling CHORUS. Hallow'd Earth! with indignation Mark, oh, mark the murd'rous deed! Radient eye of wide Creation Watch the damned parricide! Yet, ere Colchia's rugged daughter Perpetrate the dire design, And consign to kindred slaughter Children of thy golden line! Shall the hand with murder gory Cause immortal blood to flow? Sun of Heaven!....array'd in glory In the vales of placid gladness Say, hast thou, with kind protection, Tender cares, and pleasing pain? Hast thou, on the troubled ocean, Brav'd the tempest loud and strong, Where the waves, in wild commotion, Roar Cyanean rocks among? Didst thou roam the paths of danger, Hymenean joys to prove? Spare, O sanguinary stranger, Pledges of thy sacred love! Shall not Heaven, with indignation, Watch thee o'er the barb'rous deed? Shalt thou cleanse, with expiation, Monstrous, murd'rous, parricide? LOVE AND MADNESS; AN ELEGY. WRITTEN IN 1795. HARK! from the battlements of yonder tower* "Cease, Mem'ry, cease (the friendless mourner cry'd), To probe the bosom too severely tried! "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! * Warwick Castle. Pale as in that sad hour, when doom'd to feel, "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 souls 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 Heav'n 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! |