1.
Parent of golden dreams, Romance!
Auspicious Queen of childish
joys,
Who lead’st along, in airy dance,
Thy votive train of girls
and boys;
At length, in spells no longer bound,
I break the fetters of my
youth;
No more I tread thy mystic round,
But leave thy realms for those
of Truth.
2.
And yet ’tis hard to quit the dreams
Which haunt the unsuspicious
soul,
Where every nymph a goddess seems, [i]
Whose eyes through rays immortal
roll;
While Fancy holds her boundless reign,
And all assume a varied hue;
When Virgins seem no longer vain,
And even Woman’s smiles
are true.
3.
And must we own thee, but a name,
And from thy hall of clouds
descend?
Nor find a Sylph in every dame,
A Pylades [1] in every friend?
But leave, at once, thy realms of air
To mingling bands of fairy
elves;
Confess that woman’s false as fair,
And friends have feeling for—themselves?
4.
With shame, I own, I’ve felt thy
sway;
Repentant, now thy reign is
o’er;
No more thy precepts I obey,
No more on fancied pinions
soar;
Fond fool! to love a sparkling eye,
And think that eye to truth
was dear;
To trust a passing wanton’s sigh,
And melt beneath a wanton’s tear!
5.
Romance! disgusted with deceit,
Far from thy motley court
I fly,
Where Affectation holds her seat,
And sickly Sensibility;
Whose silly tears can never flow
For any pangs excepting thine;
Who turns aside from real woe,
To steep in dew thy gaudy
shrine.
6.
Now join with sable Sympathy,
With cypress crown’d,
array’d in weeds,
Who heaves with thee her simple sigh,
Whose breast for every bosom
bleeds;
And call thy sylvan female choir,
To mourn a Swain for ever
gone,
Who once could glow with equal fire,
But bends not now before thy
throne.
7.
Ye genial Nymphs, whose ready tears [iii]
On all occasions swiftly flow;
Whose bosoms heave with fancied fears,
With fancied flames and phrenzy
glow
Say, will you mourn my absent name,
Apostate from your gentle
train?
An infant Bard, at least, may claim
From you a sympathetic strain.
8.
Adieu, fond race! a long adieu!
The hour of fate is hovering
nigh;
E’en now the gulf appears in view,
Where unlamented you must
lie: [iv]
Oblivion’s blackening lake is seen,
Convuls’d by gales you
cannot weather,
Where you, and eke your gentle queen,
Alas! must perish altogether.
[Footnote 1: It is hardly necessary
to add, that Pylades was the companion of Orestes,
and a partner in one of those friendships which, with
those of Achilles and Patroclus, Nisus and Euryalus,
Damon and Pythias, have been handed down to posterity
as remarkable instances of attachments, which in all
probability never existed beyond the imagination of
the poet, or the page of an historian, or modern novelist.]
[Footnote i:
‘Where every girl—.’
[’MS. Newstead’.]]
[Footnote ii:
’But quit at once thy realms of
air
Thy mingling—.’
[’MS. Newstead’.]]
[Footnote iii:
‘Auspicious bards—.’
[’MS. Newstead’.]]
[Footnote iv:
‘Where you are doomed in death to
lie.’
[’MS. Newstead’.]]
