1.
Oh! when shall the grave hide forever
my sorrow?
Oh! when shall my soul wing
her flight from this clay?
The present is hell! and the coming to-morrow,
But brings with new torture,
the curse of to-day.
2.
From my eye flows no tear, from my lips
fall no curses,
I blast not the fiends, who
have hurl’d me from bliss,
For poor is the soul which bewailing rehearses,
Its querulous grief, when
in anguish like this—
3.
Was my eye, ’stead of tears, with
red fury flakes bright’ning.
Would my lips breathe a flame,
which no stream could assuage,
On our foes should my glance launch in
vengeance its lightning,
With transport my tongue give
a loose to its rage.
4.
But now tears and curses alike unavailing,
Would add to the souls of
our tyrants delight;
Could they view us, our sad separation
bewailing,
Their merciless hearts would
rejoice at the sight.
5.
Yet still though we bend with a feign’d
resignation,
Life beams not for us with
one ray that can cheer,
Love and hope upon earth bring no more
consolation,
In the grave is our hope,
for in life is our fear.
6.
Oh! when, my ador’d, in the tomb
will they place me,
Since in life, love and friendship,
for ever are fled,
If again in the mansion of death I embrace
thee,
Perhaps they will leave unmolested—the
dead.
1805.
* * * *
1.
When I hear you express an affection so
warm,
Ne’er think, my belov’d,
that I do not believe,
For your lip, would the soul of suspicion
disarm,
And your eye beams a ray,
which can never deceive.
2.
Yet still, this fond bosom regrets whilst
adoring,
That love like the leaf, must
fall into the sear,
That age will come on, when remembrance
deploring,
Contemplates the scenes of
her youth, with a tear.
3.
That the time must arrive, when no longer
retaining
Their auburn, these locks
must wave thin to the breeze.
When a few silver hairs of those tresses
remaining,
Prove nature a prey to decay,
and disease.
4.
’Tis this, my belov’d, which
spreads gloom o’er my features
Tho’ I ne’er shall
presume to arraign the decree;
Which God has proclaim’d as the
fate of his creatures,
In the death which one day
will deprive me of thee.
5.
No jargon of priests o’er our union
was mutter’d,
To rivet the fetters of husband
and wife;
By our lips, by our hearts, were our vows
alone utter’d,
To perform them, in full,
would ask more than a life.
6.
But as death my belov’d, soon or
late, shall o’ertake us,
And our breasts which alive
with such sympathy glow,
Will sleep in the grave, till the blast
shall awake us,
When calling the dead, in
earth’s bosom laid low.
7.
Oh! then let us drain, while we may, draughts
of pleasure,
Which from passion like ours
will unceasingly flow;
Let us pass round the cup of love’s
bliss in full measure,
And quaff the contents as
our nectar below.
1805.
* * *
ON A DISTANT VIEW OF THE VILLAGE AND
SCHOOL OF HARROW ON THE HILL. 1806.
Ye scenes of my childhood, whose lov’d
recollection,
Embitters the present, compar’d
with the past;
Where science first dawn’d on the
powers of reflection,
And friendships were form’d,
too romantic to last.
2.
Where fancy yet joys, to retrace the resemblance,
Of comrades in friendship,
and mischief allied;
How welcome once more your ne’er
fading remembrance,
Which rests in the bosom,
though hope is deny’d.
3.
Again I revisit the hills where we sported,
The streams where we swam,
and the fields where we fought;
The school where loud warn’d by
the bell we resorted,
To pore o’er the precepts
by Pedagogues taught.
4.
Again I behold where for hours I have
ponder’d,
As reclining at eve on yon
tombstone I lay;
Or round the steep brow of the churchyard
I wander’d,
To catch the last gleam of
the sun’s setting ray.
5.
I once more view the room with spectators
surrounded,
Where as Zanga I trod on Alonzo
o’erthrown;
While to swell my young pride such applauses
resounded,
I fancied that MOSSOP[5] himself
was outshone.
6.
Or as Lear I pour’d for the deep
imprecation,
By my daughters of kingdom
and reason depriv’d:
Till fir’d by loud plaudits, and
self adulation,
I consider’d myself
as a Garrick reviv’d.
7.
Ye dreams of my boyhood how much I regret
you,
As your memory beams through
this agoniz’d breast,
Thus sad and deserted, I ne’er can
forget you,
Though this heart throbs to
bursting by anguish possest.
8.
I thought this poor brain fever’d
even to madness,
Of tears as of reason forever
was drain’d,
But the drops which now flow down this
bosom of sadness,
Convince me, the springs have
some moisture retain’d.
9.
Sweet scenes of my childhood! your blest
recollection,
Has wrung from these eye-lids
to weeping long dead,
In torrents, the tears of my warmest affection,
The last and the fondest,
I ever shall shed.
[Footnote 5: MOSSOP, a cotempory
of GARRICK, famous for his performance of Zanga,
in YOUNG’s tragedy of the Revenge.]
* * *
*
