Touch'd by a beam from Beauty all-divine, Did e'er thy bofom her fweet influence own, In pleafing tumult pour'd through every vein, And panting at the heart, when first our eye Receives impreffion! Then, as paffion grew, Did heaven confenting to thy with indulge That blifs no wealth can bribe, no power bestow, That blifs of angels, love by love repaid? Heart ftreaming full to heart in mutual flow Of faith and friendship, tenderness and truth- If thefe thy fate diftinguifh'd, thou wilt then, My joys conceiving, image my defpair, How total! how extreme! For this, all this, Late my fair fortune, wreck'd on yonder flood, Lies loft and bury'd there-O, awful heaven! Who to the wind and to the whelming wave Her blameless head devoted, thou alone Canft tell what I have loft-0, ill-starr'd maid! O, most undone Amyntor! Sighs and tears,
And heart-heav'd groans, at this, his voice fupprefs'd: The reft was agony and dumb defpair.
Now o'er their heads damp night her ftormy gloom Spread, cre the glimmering twilight was expir'd, With huge and heavy horror closing round
In doubling clouds on clouds. The mournful scene, 195 The moving tale, Aurelius deeply felt:
And thus reply'd, as one in Nature skill'd, With foft affenting forrow in his look,
And words to foothe, not combat hopeless love.
Amyntor, by that heaven who fees thy tears! By faith and friendship's fympathy divine! Could I the forrows heal I more than fhare, This bofom, trust me, fhould from thine transfer Its fharpest grief. Such grief, alas! how juft? How long in filent anguish to descend, When reafon and when fondness o'er the tomb Are fellow-mourners? He, who can refign, Has never lov'd: and wert thou to the fenfe, The facred feeling of a lofs like thine, Cold and infenfible, thy breaft were then No mansion for humanity, or thought
Of noble aim. Their dwelling is with love, And tender pity; whofe kind tear adorns The clouded cheek, and fanctifies the foul They foften, not subdue. We both will mix, For her thy virtue lov'd, thy truth laments, Our focial fighs and ftill, as morn unveils The brightening hill, or evening's mifty fhade Its brow obfcures, her gracefulness of form,
Her mind all-lovely, each enobling each,
Shall be our frequent theme. Then fhalt thou hear From me, in fad return, a tale of woes, So terrible-Amyntor, thy pain'd heart, Amid its own, will fhudder at the ills
That mine has bled with-But behold! the dark 425 And drowsy hour steals fast upon our talk. Here break we off: and thou, fad mourner, try Thy weary limbs, thy wounded mind, to balm With timely fleep. Each gracious wing from heaven
Of thofe that minifter to erring man, Near-hovering, hufh thy paffions into calm ; Serene thy flumbers with prefented scenes Of brightest vifion; whisper to thy heart That holy peace which goodness ever fhares And to us both be friendly as we need.
NOW midnight rofe, and o'er the general scene,
Air, ocean, earth, drew broad her blackest veil, Vapour and cloud. Around th' unsleeping isle, Yet howl'd the whirlwind, yet the billow groan'd; And, in mix'd horror, to Amyntor's ear
Borne through the gloom, his fhrieking fenfe appall'd. Shook by each blaft, and swept by every wave, Again pale memory labours in the storm: Again from her is torn, whom more than life His fondnefs lov'd. And now, another shower Of forrow, o'er the dear unhappy maid, Effufive ftream'd; till late, through every power The foul fubdued funk fad to flow repofe : And all her darkening scenes, by dim degrees,
Were quench'd in total night. A pause from pain 15
Not long to laft: for Fancy, oft awake
While Reason fleeps, from her illusive cell
wild shapes of vifionary fear,
Of vifionary blifs, the hour of rest
To mock with mimic fhews. And lo! the deeps 20
In airy tumult fwell. Beneath a hill Amyntor heaves of overwhelming feas;
Or rides, with dizzy dread, from cloud to cloud, The billow's back. Anon, the shadowy world Shifts to fome boundless continent unknown, Where folitary, o'er the ftarless void,
Dumb filence broods. Through heaths of dreary length. Slow on he drags his ftaggering ftep infirm
With breathlefs toil; hears torrent floods afar Roar through the wild ; and, plung'd in central caves, 30 Falls headlong many a fathom into night.
Yet there, at once, in all her living charms, And brightening with their glow the brown abyss, Rofe Theodora. Smiling, in her eye
Sat, without cloud, the foft-confenting foul, That, guilt unknowing, had no wish to hide. A fpring of fudden myrtles flowering round Their walk embower'd; while nightingales beneath Sung fpoufals, as along th' enamel'd turf
They seem'd to fly, and interchang'd their fouls, Melting in mutual foftness. Thrice his arms The Fair encircled: thrice fhe fled his grasp, And fading into darkness mix'd with air— O, turn! O, stay thy flight!-fo loud he cry'd, Sleep and its train of humid vapours fled. He groan'd, he gaz'd around: his inward fenfe Yet glowing with the vision's vivid beam, Still, on his eye, the hovering fhadow blaz’d; Her voice still murmur'd in his tinkling ear; Grateful deception! till returning thought
Left broad awake, amid th' incumbent lour Of mute and mournful night, again he felt His grief inflam'd throb fresh in every vein. To frenzy ftung, upstarting from his couch, The vale, the fhore, with darkling step he roam'd, 55 Like fome drear spectre from the grave unbound: Then, fcaling yonder cliff, prone o'er its brow He hung, in act to plunge amid the flood
Scarce from that height difcern'd. Nor reafon's voice, Nor ow'd fubmiffion to the will of heaven, Restrains him; but, as passion whirls his thought, Fond expectation, that perchance efcap'd, Though paffing all belief, the frailer skiff, To which himself had borne th' unhappy Fair, May yet be seen. Around, o'er fea and fhore, He roll'd his ardent eye; but nought around On land or wave within his ken appears, Nor fkiff, nor floating corfe, on which to fhed The last sad tear, and lay the covering mold! And now, wide open'd by the wakeful hours Heaven's orient gate, forth on her progress comes Aurora smiling, and her purple lamp
Lifts high o'er earth and fea : while, all-unveil'd, The vast horizon on Amyntor's eye Pours full its fcenes of wonder, wildly great, Magnificently various. From this steep, Diffus'd immenfe in rolling profpect lay
The northern deep. Amidft, from space to space, Her numerous ifles, rich gems of Albion's crown, As flow th' afcending mists disperse in air,
« ПредишнаНапред » |