For love sincere and friendship free When pass'd was many a painful day, One generous swain her heart approved, He died-and soon her lip was cold, Yet one boon have I to crave; Wilt thou do one tender deed, And strew my pale flowers o'er their grave? LANGHORNE. THE HOTWELLS' PATIENT. An Elegiac Fragment. No more on wavering wing from sweet to sweet O'er summer wilds I urge my restless flight, Morn's first faint blush no more exulting greet, Nor smiles the scene of day in rosy light. Each listless moment ills unnamed oppress, The gaze of friends betrays dissembled fear, With faltering tongue their child my parents bless, As in their eyelids gleams the smother'd tear. Some blight has swept unseer my May of life! The sons of art pronounce their doom austere : And brooding horror loads the stagnant air. Chill'd by the glooms, on this misgiving heart Its own sad trace each flitting object stamps, From yon dim meads depressing breezes part, Appall'd I breathe funereal Dowry's damps." At each advance more direful signs appear; The sash close barr'd against the' intrusive sky; The long loud cough that rends the' affrighted ear, The recent crape, the wearer's downcast eye. Ye snatch'd from life in beauty's sunniest years, Or from the crest of yon firm-rooted rock Where in yon fane the Naiad of the stream Calls round her bubbling urn the pallid hosts, Broad Day displays the poet's gloomiest dream; Styx' sullen banks, loath'd food, and wandering ghosts. Yet not the less I join the' adoring throng, And all the priest of health ordains I keep. Now twice relumed the moon's mild lustres shine; Or lighten'd languor, some auspicious sign Though venal voices join accordant cries, [fill, Till Fame's loud trump the Fount's high virtues Though titled matrons, with uplifted eyes, Sound the dread wonders of the leech's skill, I list perforce with unassenting ear. The fever nightly burns with fiercer flame; Still from myself I shrink with growing fear, To see how grace and youth have fled my frame. Here the lorn exile feels her comforts fail, Bleak through the yawning wainscot drives the wind, The quicken'd sense unsavory fumes assail Her glance declares the housewife's alien mind. Here still does Avarice count his gains from woe; Where'er I stray some baleful eye pursues. The hours no more their wonted task beguile, By these condemn'd, like Danaus' guilty train, Mother! soft parent! earliest fostering friend! Ah! what avail yon groves, green Ashton's boast, The seaborn spirit of the breezy down, The terraced lawn, far Cambria's checquer'd coast? These crags high-piled, proud Clifton's stately crown? In vain it smiles-the lucid long expanse, Stretch'd from yon point where, as the seagod's head, -Fixing in still delight the charmed glance- Ye hoary mourners o'er the untimely dead!- His life's whole treasure in his drooping bride, To times to come, false Naiad of the well! Restored by thee, how Linley pours the note, No votive verse of Sheridan shall tell, No grateful warblings swell the fair one's throat. Nor here Hygeia plants her lovely shrine, No tresses bathes in this polluted wave; From Avon's ooze she deals no gifts divine, Nor treads, well pleased, these precincts of the grave. |