So pensive with regret, and worse,
Awakening keen remorse?

Strangers are ye? O not more strange

The form that seeks my mental eye,

And bids my fevered fancy range

Το yon etherial sky;

Not there as wont my God to seek;

But one who erst with faded cheek,
With features melancholy, pale,

And voice whose tone was Sorrow's wail,
To vent, unseen, his bosom'd care,
Sought yonder shade, and found me there.
Though o'er June's dawning beauties hung,
The radiant smiles of morn,

Though many a rose-bud incense flung,
On the mild gales that round them sung,
And every tree with music rung,

He wandered pensive, lorn.

Faint were his steps, his features too
Slow sorrow seem'd to shade,
And every trembling sigh he drew
Some secret grief betrayed.
Before the fiend of pride awoke,
Compassion's tender throb to sink;
While his sad looks to pity spoke,

I gave refreshing drink.

But when, to taste at every morn

That draught again his words implied;
Although my heart to give it yearned,

To that pure wish my rising pride

No sanction gave, forbear, my heart, the deed is o'er,
And thou, sweet Memory, hold! O touch that string no more!
Pleased with the scene, the stranger paused awhile;

Then turning with a sorrow-tinctured smile,,
Graced his sad thanks, and still the youth delayed,

And, leaning on a broken fence, surveyed

The scene I loved so well;

Then did my heart with pity swell;

My heart relented, but my pride forbade

Its generous impulse, and I left him in the shade. Sad contrariety in human minds:

Oft when the tear of feeling pleads to flow,
Opposing pride the heart-warmed tribute binds,
Nor suffers it to tell the bosom's guiltless glow;
And made the sacrifice at Custom's shrine,

Does the sweet calm of virtuous Peace return?
Not soon, I ween, to bosoms framed as mine,
Prone every error to review and mourn.
He wandered hence; but O too oft

Would come as twilight's shadow, stealing soft,
Or roving frequent in the moon's faint smile,
His genius waked by Fancy's witching guile,
With all Affliction's tender pathos wove,
His songs of sorrow and ideal love.

Not loved! why drinks his memory such a tear?
Why, ever mournful to pale Memory's ear
Comes the sad voice of one so slightly known?
Why, since his death, are his mild features grown
Familiar with my mind, and there reviewed
With almost love's regret in solitude.

I loved thee not, sad stranger! no, my heart

Felt not for thee Affection's tender smart;
Nor wished with love thy bosom's peace to break,
But all the sympathy that Grief might wake;

I felt, nor blushed to feel and cherish here;

I let thee mourn alone, but gave thy grief a tear. And yet within my fault-convicted heart,

One chilling pang of self-reproach I feel;

For did not giddy smiles of satire start,

O'er songs that well might Pity's tribute steal. Though many of thy woes were Fancy-born, Might they not touch a heart to Pity true? Though with ideal grief thy soul was torn, Sorrow is sorrow, and a tear its due. But e'en the real afflictions of thy heart, Could not for thee a mild indulgence claim;

And did I rudely bid thee hence depart,
For loving nere a tender song to frame?
Alas! if I had bade him stay

In this sweet spot the summer day,
And let his lip each morn and eve
The milky beverage receive;

Beneath those fair embowering trees,
He might have quaffed a healthful breeze,
And gathered for his cheek a bloom;
And not with such poetic mind
His genius and his life resigned,
Thus early for a tomb.

E'en now on zephyr's fluttering wing,
His livelier songs might float,
And happier genius touch a string,

To wake a lovelier note.

But Hope's soft hand no more shall wreathe

A garland for the lyre,

That knew with melody to breathe

What Fancy could inspire.

Thou once, sad stranger! here, where art thou now?
Beyond where yon cerulean vapours twine
Their misty figures round pale Evening's brow,
Wak'st thou a lyre divine?

O thou! who sorrowed here when summer's sun
Lured from its mossy womb the infant rose,
Art sainted now, when autumn, chill and dun,
A yellow tribute to the wild heath strows.

Unfriended mourner! all thy woes are o'er,
Beneath those shades thou ne'er shalt wander more,

To weave a sonnet for thy heart's relief,

Or like me startle at the falling leaf.

The plaintive murmur of thy muse is hushed;

And though upon thy lowly bed

The seasons' chilling rains ere shed,
Perchance thy spirit gladly fled,

And with immortal ecstacies high flushed,

O'erlooks this narrow vale of tears from heaven:
If so, once child of sorrow! look on mine,
And whilst around thee beams celestial twine,
Bend from the skies, and bid thy lyre divine
Breathe one celestial strain to tell me I'm forgiven.