With heaven's and earth's delights alike unblest,
Without a smile, without a tear repressed,
In calm contentment midst those musing scenes,
Where all from love the ardent spirit weans,
Where calm, pale thought and peace thy bosom share,
Without a wish perchance, without a care?
"Oh! if thy breast thus placidly inclined,
Neglects the hopes, the mem'ries left behind,
Far be from me to steal oblivion's balm,
Or wake thy spirit from its slumbers calm-
Far be from me to bid thee share my wo,
Or teach one earthly sordid tear to flow!
If such thy thoughts-think on. Each moment give
To dreams that fly not, joys that ever live;
Or else undazzled with the meteor light,
That beams upon the devot's 'wildered sight,
Forgetting love, content, with mild repose,
Close thy meek eyes on all this world of woes;
Fancy my heart as e'en thine own at rest,
By no mad wishes, vain regrets possetid,
Glide through the holy tenour of thy way,
And angels wake thee to eternal day!
"But if thy thought (as fondly I would dream)
Still lingers o'er the dear forbidden theme-
If in the solemn aisle, or lonely cell,
My form within thy breast presumes to dwell,
Then will I dare to wake the thoughts of years,
And bid them point to all my woes and tears-
Then will I tell thee how my heart does lie
A sepulchre to guard thy memory,
And claim thy love as mine, ere other ties
Forbade thy wishes, and restrained thy sighs!
If still remembrance visits e'er thy breast,
Think that my bosom is his place of rest-
Think that my love remains to thee unchanged,
By care, by time, by absence unestranged.
If still with fond regret must turn thine eye
To scenes long loved, but long, alas ! past by—
If all the joy that blest our happier years,
Unbroke by grief, unwashed away by tears,
On the lost hours of wished-for rest must thrill,
And hopes remembered haunt thy bosom still,
Think that my spirit, martyr to regret,
Curses the joys it never can forget,
And brooding o'er the brightest of the past,
Detests the light that glittered but to blast!
No joy in all man's mockery of smiles,
His lying friendships and his serpent wiles;
One present grief absorbs each other care,
And all the future offers but despair.
Hope to remembrance fondly borrowing flies,
And Memory turns on thee her dazzled eyes;
As after gazing on the sun, his rays
Where'er we turn, still glitter on our gaze.
Thus would I chide my thoughts away from thee;
But still that one-loved form alone I see→→→→
In every land, in every scene I find
The prospect altered, but the same my mind;
Memory too true the vision still renews,
That as I fly my varying path pursues.
"Pardon the hopes, the fears, the visions vain,
The sorrows, and the madness of this strain ;
Forget (if so thou canst) the hand that writes,
The mind that framed, the heart that this indites;
Be thou as calm as night, as bright as day,
As soft as evening, and as morning gay ;-
While I will dwell in tempest and in storm
(Horrors thy path that never shall deform)→→
Will love thee still until my sun is set,
And death shall teach the lesson to forget.".
"Contentment! airy phantom, that mankind
Pursue in vain, without the hope to find;
From infancy to age that still they chase,
Till death obstructs the way, and ends the race-
Where, where art thou? The palace holds thee not;
The hermit's cavern, nor the peasant's cot,
Alike th' inestimable boon is gone,
From toiling labour and the care-built throne.
"Think'st thou, Lorenzo, that a breast like mine,
Is of this jewel the untroubled shrine ?
Deem'st thou my heart so cold, or yet so strong,
To yield each joy, or tamely bear each wrong?
That it is weak, the world need not be told,
Nor thou, Lorenzo, that it is not cold.
Bear witness, ev'ry unavailing tear,
That calm contentment is no inmate here;
Lone in this solemn pause and awful gloom,
Where fond affection finds a hopeless tomb→→→
Without one ray to promise its release,
The grave in all things, but the grave's still peace;
By night, by day, I wander through the glade,
And hail the kindred melancholy shade;
Pore o'er the sepulchres of mortals gone,
And envy them their quiet couch of stone;
While the slow hours drag heavy o'er my head,
That tardy lead me to that dreamless bed;
And yon dull marker of the steps of time,
Pours through the echoing aisles his lengthened chime,
And seems to dwell on every painful stroke,
As if in record of some heart that broke.
"And dost thou ask, beloved, if in my cell Thine image comes with memory to dwell ? Lorenzo, when to thee I gave my heart, 'Twas young in nature, and untaught by art Thou know'st the trials we together shared ; Thou feel'st the sorrows cannot be repaired; Thou'st seen the daylight of our hopes pass by; Thou'st marked each flower of pleasure bloom and die; Thou'st watched thy sun, with mine for ever set: Ask thine own breast if mine can e'er forget. "Oh! could oblivion wipe away the stain,
Left on the heart by agony and pain→→
Could the forced thought, to tyrant power a prey,
Forget the pangs that tore its rights away-
Robbed it of all the energies that soar,
And chained it down to rise again no more-—--
Could these be banished from the o'erfraught mind,
Memory of pleasure would remain behind;
Regret, enthroned on clouds, would issue forth
A deeper shadow o'er the desert earth.
But why, Lorenzo, in my aching breast,
By care, by love, by memory oppress'd
Why should I waken all this train of woes,
That wisdom's voice should sooth into repose?
But will they sleep? Ah, never! Yet be mine,
To check that spirit that would, still repine-
Like some sad mother, when her infant's cry
Demands the needful but unhoped supply,
Lulls it to sleep, and though no aid be near,
Wipes from her cheek the unavailing tear,
And fancies when the plaint of want is o'er,
That famine gnaws its little heart no more.
"Oh, mem'ry, cease! and let me live alone,
Alike to sorrows and to joys unknown;
Nor hope with lying dreams to lead me on,
Nor thou, to point to objects loved and gone;
Oh! let me sink into that lowly bed,
Where dim forgetfulness shall hide my head;
Where death on life my weary eyes shall close,
And sleep eternal steep me in repose.
Eternal! can it be? Without a thought-
A calm, by passions and by cares unfraught:
This soul that human chains could ne'er repress;
Plunged in the airy void of nothingness-
Lost-gone for ever-all its feelings past,
And death, the first of peace, of pangs the last ?
Oh no! How false the thought-how vain the sigh!
The spirit here was never made to die;
But soaring o'er the sorrows of its state,
The heir of heaven, to know a brighter fate;
And glad of freedom, proud of its release,
To sport with happiness, and dwell with peace,
Without a wish, without regret or pain-
Without Lorenzo! Then it were in vain-
That joy were none Lorenzo did not share;
Heaven were not heaven without his form was there.
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