Yet, ere Colchia's rugged daughter Shall the hand, with murder gory, In the vales of placid gladness Say, hast thou, with kind protection, Hast thou, on the troubled ocean, Brav'd the tempest loud and strong, 90 Where the waves, in wild commotion, Roar Cyanean rocks among? Didst thou roam the paths of danger, Hymenean joys to prove? Spare, O sanguinary stranger, Pledges of thy sacred love! $5 Shall not Heaven, with indignation Monstrous, murd'rous, parricide? 100 LOVE AND MADNESS. AN ELEGY. WRITTEN IN 1795. HARK! from the battlements of yonder tower * The solemn bell has toll'd the midnight hour! "Cease, Mem'ry, cease (the friendless mourner cry'd) To probe the bosom too severely tried! 6 Oh! ever cease, my pensive thoughts, to stray Through the bright fields of Fortune's better day: When youthful hope, the music of the mind, Tun'd all its charms, and E-n was kind! 10 "Yet, can I cease, while glows this trembling frame, In sighs to speak thy melancholy name? I hear thy spirit wail in every storm! In midnight shades I view thy passing form! *Warwick castle. Pale as in that sad hour, when doom'd to feel, "Demons of Vengeance! ye at whose command No! my wild heart sat smiling o'er the plan, "Yes; let the clay-cold breast, that never knew 15 20 25 "And ye, proud fair, whose soul no gladness warms, Save Rapture's homage to your conscious charms! Delighted idols of a gaudy train! Ill can your blunter feelings guess the pain, "Say, then, did pitying Heav'n condemn the deed, 35 When Vengeance bade thee, faithless lover! bleed? Long had I watch'd thy dark foreboding brow, What time thy bosom scorn'd its dearest vow! Sad, though I wept the friend, the lover chang'd, Still thy cold look was scornful and estrang'd, 40 Till from thy pity, love, and shelter thrown, "Oh! righteous Heav'n! 'twas then my tortur'd soul First gave to wrath unlimited control! Adieu the silent look! the streaming eye! The murmur'd plaint! the deep heart-heaving sigh! And pale in blood be sleeps, to wake no more! Tis done! the flame of hate no longer burns; "Oh! 'twas a deed of Murder's deepest grain ! Could Bk's soul so true to wrath remain? A friend long true, a once fond lover fell!-Where Love was foster'd, could not Pity dwell? "Unhappy youth! while yon pale crescent glows, 45 50 50 |