With wrathful gesture and deep groans, deplore
Their glory vanish'd, and their race no more!
Not so sad Mary's injured form appears:
In death still lovely, shining still in tears,
She mourns the beauty Nature gave in vain,
And kingdoms lost to drag à galling chain.
Yet nothing humbled, in her grief a queen,
A generous calm upon her brow is seen;
With spirit unsubdued she meets her fate,
And rises greater from her rival's hate;
That haughty rival, whose relentless mind
Nor pity touch'd nor faith had power to bind.
Come, royal Mary, fair and gentle shade!
Ne'er shall my verse a soul so soft upbraid.
Compassion, shedding drops of kindly dew,
Shall with her veil thy failings hide from view;
Nor Darnley's wrongs nor Bothwell's love appear,
Thy softness and thy fate alone remember'd here.
Oh, come, thy woe with equal woe combine,
And mix thy sighs, and mix thy tears with mine;
Amidst my tears shalt thou lamented be;
Amidst my sighs a sigh shall burst for thee.
Thou too with me in sorrow bear a part,
Thou too deplore the mistress of my heart.
I ask no soothing balm, no soft relief
But this, the sad society of Grief.
Is there not grief, which no oblivion knows,
But still looks back with pain, nor can in Death
This cavern be my roof, this stone my bed:
Welcome, ye spirits of the mournful dead!
Here while I musing sit will Fancy call
No brighter visions from her airy hall?
* The scene is in view of Fotheringay.
Fix'd on the dear idea let me dwell
Of her so lately lost, and loved so well.
Recall the' impassion'd look, the tender name,
The fond expressions of our mutual flame,
The glow of rapture and the yielding smile,
Till fond illusion every sense beguile,
My soul on Hope's ecstatic pinion rise
And pierce the' eternal barrier of the skies,
Faith be my guide along the starry way
Till Mercy bids unfold the gates of day.
Lo! the bright mansions of the world unknown!
The blaze of glory! and the sovran throne!
The harmonies of heaven give forth their voice,
Stars shout to stars,and worlds with worlds rejoice!
The' immortal choir, the hymn of praise I hear!
The cherubim and seraphim appear!
And that fair spirit, led by constant truth,
Bright in the bloom of heaven's eternal youth?
My wife, my best beloved, they lead along,
And ring their harps and peal the nuptial song!
Visions of joy still hover o'er my head,
No longer bitter are the tears I shed,
No tear, no grief pollutes the realms above, There all who mourn have rest, and there still triumphs love.
THE EARL OF CARYSFORT.
ON THE DEATH OF A SISTER.
FROM learned solitudes where Science reigns
With undivided sway o'er Granta's plains;
From cloisters echoing with no vulgar noise,
But vocal only to the Muse's voice;
Say, should the murmur of a sigh arise?
Should tears e'er glisten in a student's eyes?
Can study ease the soul to grief a prey,
Books soothe the mind and charm our woes away?
Can they recall the peace for ever fled,
Or calm my sorrows for a sister dead?
Ah no! in vain I read, in vain peruse
What Plato taught, or woo the Mantuan Muse:
At every pause my Mary's form appears,
Awakes my memory, and renews my tears.
My books I quit, and seek the lonely shades
Where elms majestic rear their leafy heads;
Where Gothic domes and halls old Camus laves,
And shows the classic temples in his waves.
Even there that voice which wont to charm my ear,
Borne in soft murmurs through the evening air,
Seems sweetest music midst the waving trees,
Then, lost in sighs, expires upon the breeze:
In each lone walk my Mary's form appears,
Awakes my memory, and renews my tears.
Now to my couch in vain for rest I fly,
No rest awaits, though slumbers close my eye.
Maria comes, the same in form and face,
Those eyes of jet, those dimples rich with grace;
I fondly gaze o'er all the well known charms,
And snatch my lost Maria to my arms:
My eager transports burst the happy sleep,
I wake, to find 'twas but a dream, and weep.
Oh! ye who round a parent's marble mourn
'That virtuous age has reached the mortal bourn,'
Vain are your tears, those griefs unjust assuage,
Age follows youth, and death succeeds to age.
When spring's gay hours, when summer's joys are
pass'd,
The grave's chill winter then must come at last.
But when the budding rose of youth displays
The golden promise of a length of days,
Who but must weep to view the faded flower
Cropp'd ere its prime, and in its springtide hour?
Who but must weep that youth and early bloom
Should fail to save a beauty from the tomb?
Where is that kindred soul by Heaven decreed*
With her alone to live, with her to bleed;
Who, if our prayers could Mary's fate prolong,
With her had pass'd the maze of life along?
Perhaps, unconscious of those tender ties,
And her who calls him early to the skies,
Perhaps e'en now his spirit flits away
To join his Mary in the realms of day:
Or far away on angel pinions borne,
In regions fairer than the poet's morn,
Through heaven's bright worlds they wing their
happy flight,
And wandering sail on floods of purest light. Bless'd maid! though now, where seraphs sweep the string,
Where heavenly choirs to heavenly harpings sing,
Though hymns divine salute thy ravish'd ears,
Awake to all the music of the spheres,
Yet, ah! attend, a voice of tuneful woe
Ascends in murmurs from the world below;
Like Abel's incense, now it dares to rise,
Pass through the clouds and steal into the skies.
If sighs may there be heard, if tears may flow,
If angels e'er can taste a moment's woe,
My sorrows hear, and with a sigh approve
This last sad tribute of a brother's love.
* In allusion to Dr. Watts's beautiful theory of united souls.
ON THE DEATH OF A LADY.
OH! snatch'd away in beauty's bloom,
On thee shall press no panderous tomb;
But on thy turf shall roses rear
Their leaves the earliest of the year,
And the wild cypress wave in tender gloom:
And oft by yon blue gushing stream
Shall Sorrow lean her drooping head,
And feed deep thought with many a dream,
And lingering pause and lightly tread;
Fond wretch! as if her step disturb'd the dead!
Away! we know that tears are vain,
That Death nor hears nor heeds distress:
Will this unteach us to complain?
Or make one mourner weep the less?
And thou-who tell'st me to forget,
Thy looks are wan, thine eyes are wet.
Low beneath that turf there sleeps
Beauty's choicest treasure:
Love, in anguish, o'er her weeps
Vanish'd dreams of pleasure.
Scatter oft, ye maidens, there
Buds of dewy roses :
Sweeter than those buds the fair
Who now in death reposes.
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