| |
| WHOE’ER thou art, to whom this secret shade | |
| Inviting seems, where many a wild flower flings | |
| Its odor round, and many a murmur soothes | |
| Of distant falling waters the pleased ear;— | |
| If solitude may claim thy thoughts awhile, | 5 |
| Here rest and meditate—her cell is here. | |
| And say, does love thy willing bosom bind, | |
| Thy heart all anxiousness,—thy soul all sigh? | |
| Haply the virgin, in whose clasping arms | |
| A promised paradise thy fancy paints, | 10 |
| Whose swelling bosom heaves upon the sight | |
| More beautiful than ocean’s foam-tipt wave— | |
| Whose kindling eyes, with lavish lustre, thrill | |
| Thy trembling frame,—(a meek simplicity, | |
| And innocence assuming,—specious show!) | 15 |
| Exults, in wanton triumph, at thy sighs, | |
| And mocks their incense.—Rouse thee from thy trance; | |
| And let the light of reason guide thee safe | |
| To love’s pure altar. Does ambition urge | |
| Thy steps to tempt her dangerous paths?—Beware! | 20 |
| Think how the storm can rage:—yet the rough blast | |
| That lays the mighty oak a ruin round, | |
| With all its hundred arms that waved to heaven, | |
| Passes as harmless o’er the lowly blossom, | |
| As does the zephyr’s sigh. And rivers strong, | 25 |
| Rushing their rugged channels through, each rock, | |
| Opposing, chafes to angry foam and roar. | |
| While the hush’d stream, fed from its placid fount, | |
| Winds through the flow’ry vale its silver way: | |
| And, as a quiet pilgrim seeks his shrine, | 30 |
| Flows on, to wed with ocean’s distant tide. | |
| Mortal!—whoe’er thou art, should thy pursuit | |
| Be happiness—thou need’st not wander far, | |
| If in thy breast no baneful passions wage | |
| Unholy warfare; and religion mild | 35 |
| Has led thy steps to her own hallow’d mount, | |
| Where hope, with upward eye, and seraph wand | |
| Points to the sky:—but if thy blacken’d heart | |
| Nourish revenge, or hatred, or the asp | |
| Of envy pale—or discontentment’s gall | 40 |
| O’erflows within—or filthy avarice | |
| Disturbs thy dreams,—thou, curst of heaven, shalt find | |
| Peace but a sound—and happiness a shade! | |
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