Of thee, for whom with passion true
My thoughts all flow'd, my hopes all grew.
My thoughts of beauty, as I raised
My eyes, and on that fine form gazed
My hopes-exalted, pare, divine,
That all that beauty might be mine.
But ah! those hopes, those visions gay,
Like morning-dew have pass'd away;
That beauty will, ere long, be press'd
In other arms, to happier breast;
That smile, that lip, that glance divine
Some cares shall sootbe-but ah! not mine;
That voice, in music's sweetest strain,
Shall whisper peace and love again,-
But not to me,-the pangs I feel
No eye shall weep, no voice shall heal-
My name green in thy mem❜ry yet,
"Twill be thy pleasure to forget.
Farewell, then, pleasure! bliss, farewell!
Welcome, ye frightful fiends of hell!
Despair, with all thy horrid train,
Welcome! within my bosom reign!
With horror now my fancy teems;
Come, restless nights and scaring dreams--
Come, wretched mornings,-days of pain
Come, aging fevers, burn my brain!
Come, welcome Death! then, aim thy dart!
Transfix thine arrow in my heart!
Ye gentle worms, destroy my frame !
Oblivion, swallow up my name !
But, Q ye angel forms who share
The realms above, Eliza spare!
In sisterly affection shed
Your choicest blessings on her head.
Be her's the pleasures friends bestow,
The purest pleasures here below;
Whatever else can render blest
The human heart, the human breast.
And, when her spirit flits away
From this frail tenement of clay,
O waft it to its native air,
And tnne her soul to pleasure there!
DEPARTED grandeur! how thy relics lie,
In scatter'd fragments, on the fair domain !
Calm is the crystal stream that wanders by,
And sweet the flow'rs that bloom upon thy plain!
Luxuriant shrubs fantastically wind
Their dark green arms to hide thy dull decay;
In sportive growth the shatter'd columns bind,
And through the broken casements love to stray.
The wild moss peeps upon thy ruin❜d wall;
The night-breeze round thy mould'ring turret sighs ;
In the damp cloisters loathsome reptiles crawl;
And through the fretted arch the owlet flies.
From yonder azure sky pale Cynthia's beam,
With softest ray of mellow'd silver light,
Shines on the wave of Roche's winding stream,
Plays on the grass, and tints each rocky height.
Beneath that beam the ruin'd pile appears
Almost its former grandeur to display ;
Ivy and darkness veil the waste of years,
And Fancy adds what Time hath swept away.
With retrospective glance I turn and view,
In the long lapse of ages past away,
This pile complete, as when at first it threw
Its shade around unbroken by decay.
I see the spire that met the rising morn,
Sparkling beneath its earliest, sweetest ray;
I see the cross upon its summit borne,
Which caught the latest glimpse of closing day!
I hear the pealing organ's boundless swell
The matin-song that floats upon the gale ;—
I hear the tinkling of the vesper-bell,
Whose well-known sound reverberates thro' the vale.
These verses have already appeared in a provincial Newspaper; and those in our last numher on Conisbro' Castle, by the same writer, will have been seen by many of our readers, in the Sheffield Iris. They are both now published with some alterations and corrections; a circumstance, which, in connection with their intrinsic merits, may justify their insertion in the Northern Star.-Ed.
Pensive I muse in every gloomy cell;
(Alas, that gloom should lurk in fane so fair!) Where bigot Zeal and Superstition dwell,
And deep Remorse, and low-brow'd dark Despair.
O'er uselesss charms, there captive beauties pine,
And fade like canker'd roses on a tree,
Or bloom like unseen flow'rs, or gems that shine
In undiscover'd chambers of the sea.
There unrequited love heaves many a sigh,
Reclines her cheek bereft of wonted hue ;
From strangers' gaze withdraws her sunken eye,
And mourns o'er joys removed, and swain untrue.
In vain for her the beams of morning play
On mountain-peak, and dance on bubbling-rill
In vain for her those beams may melt away,
Or evening linger on the western hill.
That eye is lustreless which loved to greet
The sun, which shone where rocks on rocks recline ;-
That heart is broken which was wont to beat,
With pure delight, at summer-sun's decline.
Well may her eye be dim- her cheek be pale-
For, ah! full well we guess what they must feel
Who cherish long a faithless lover's tale,
And smart with wounds that time can never heal.
Perish the wretch who would a maid deceive;
Sport with her feelings-her affections gain ;—
Then leave her placed in lonely cells, to grieve,
Or blighted hopes of bliss indulged in vain!
There Genius sits, with unexpanded wings,
Which might have waved on Learning's lofty tow'rs; There Talent lies, which might have quaff'd the springs Of Helicon, and pluck'd its sweetest flow'rs.
With pow'rs unused, such inmates live and die,
Esteem'd no more than others of their fold;
Thus, in his chest, the miser's treasures lie,
Vain as the dust that gathers with his gold.
And, there the victim of unfeeling Pride
Rolls her blue eye, confined in popish den:
There mingle those who long the world have tried,
And sought delight amidst the haunts of men,
Bat are there none who here contentment find?
Is this no home for lovely happiness?
Is here no shelter from affliction's wind?
No balm for grief-no cordial for distress?
Is there no star so bright that it might cheer
The captive's soul-the broken spirit raise
Is there no san, or does no hope appear
To gild their prospect ofexpected days?
Is there no heav'n-born sentiment benign
To quell the pang that rends a guilty breast?
There is!-RELIGION points to realms divine-
To seats of bliss,- to everlasting rest!
Religion is that star-that sun,-and all
The warmth and splendour of her beams may know ;
From her who kneels within yon Abbey's wall,
To him who roves o'er Greenland's hills of snow.
Religion dwells upon Britannia's plains,
And tunes the song that swells in Uri's vales;
Breathes in Ausonia's soft enchanting strains,
And mounts the wings of India's burning gales.
Her hand will wipe away the wat❜ry gem
That twinkles in the lonely mourner's eye;
Will raise the flow'r that droops upon its stem;
Will cheer the soul, and fix its hopes on high.-
But now farewell, bright cross, and rising spire,
Sweet matin-song, and tinkling vesper-bell !
Ye lovely victims of misfortune dire,
And verdant lawn, and hallow'd-fane, farewell!
The vision fades that first inspired my lay;
The Abbey's pomp and splendour disappear;
A clearer view reveals it in decay,
And shows me nought but desolation here.
Yet, oft will memory flit around thy tow'rs;
Delighted rove thy lovely prospects o'er ;
Transported muse in thy romantic bow'rs;
Sit on thy rocks, and by thy waters pore.
And Fancy, too, thy proudest days recalling,
Shall, with thy present state, compare thy past;
And, from thy walls, to dust and ruin falling,
Cry,-Man, like these, must fall to dust at last!
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