| |
| O THOU pale orb that silent shines | |
| While care-untroubled mortals sleep! | |
| Thou seest a wretch who inly pines. | |
| And wanders here to wail and weep! | |
| With woe I nightly vigils keep, | 5 |
| Beneath thy wan, unwarming beam; | |
| And mourn, in lamentation deep, | |
| How life and love are all a dream! | |
| |
| I joyless view thy rays adorn | |
| The faintly-marked, distant hill; | 10 |
| I joyless view thy trembling horn, | |
| Reflected in the gurgling rill: | |
| My fondly-fluttering heart, be still! | |
| Thou busy pow’r, remembrance, cease! | |
| Ah! must the agonizing thrill | 15 |
| For ever bar returning peace! | |
| |
| No idly-feign’d, poetic pains, | |
| My sad, love-lorn lamentings claim: | |
| No shepherd’s pipe—Arcadian strains; | |
| No fabled tortures, quaint and tame. | 20 |
| The plighted faith, the mutual flame, | |
| The oft-attested pow’rs above, | |
| The promis’d father’s tender name; | |
| These were the pledges of my love! | |
| |
| Encircled in her clasping arms, | 25 |
| How have the raptur’d moments flown! | |
| How have I wish’d for fortune’s charms, | |
| For her dear sake, and her’s alone! | |
| And, must I think it! is she gone, | |
| My secret heart’s exulting boast? | 30 |
| And does she heedless hear my groan? | |
| And is she ever, ever lost? | |
| |
| Oh! can she bear so base a heart, | |
| So lost to honour, lost to truth, | |
| As from the fondest lover part, | 35 |
| The plighted husband of her youth? | |
| Alas! life’s path may be unsmooth! | |
| Her way may lie thro’ rough distress! | |
| Then, who her pangs and pains will soothe | |
| Her sorrows share, and make them less? | 40 |
| |
| Ye wingèd hours that o’er us pass’d, | |
| Enraptur’d more, the more enjoy’d, | |
| Your dear remembrance in my breast | |
| My fondly-treasur’d thoughts employ’d: | |
| That breast, how dreary now, and void, | 45 |
| For her too scanty once of room! | |
| Ev’n ev’ry ray of hope destroy’d, | |
| And not a wish to gild the gloom! | |
| |
| The morn, that warns th’ approaching day, | |
| Awakes me up to toil and woe; | 50 |
| I see the hours in long array, | |
| That I must suffer, lingering, slow: | |
| Full many a pang, and many a throe, | |
| Keen recollection’s direful train, | |
| Must wring my soul, were Phoebus, low, | 55 |
| Shall kiss the distant western main. | |
| |
| And when my nightly couch I try, | |
| Sore harass’d out with care and grief, | |
| My toil-beat nerves, and tear-worn eye, | |
| Keep watchings with the nightly thief: | 60 |
| Or if I slumber, fancy, chief, | |
| Reigns, haggard-wild, in sore affright: | |
| Ev’n day, all-bitter, brings relief | |
| From such a horror-breathing night. | |
| |
| O thou bright queen, who o’er th’ expanse | 65 |
| Now highest reign’st, with boundless sway | |
| Oft has thy silent-marking glance | |
| Observ’d us, fondly-wand’ring, stray! | |
| The time, unheeded, sped away, | |
| While love’s luxurious pulse beat high, | 70 |
| Beneath thy silver-gleaming ray, | |
| To mark the mutual-kindling eye. | |
| |
| Oh! scenes in strong remembrance set! | |
| Scenes, never, never to return! | |
| Scenes, if in stupor I forget, | 75 |
| Again I feel, again I burn! | |
| From ev’ry joy and pleasure torn, | |
| Life’s weary vale I’ll wander thro’; | |
| And hopeless, comfortless, I’ll mourn | |
| A faithless woman’s broken vow! | 80 |
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