Poems to Thespia :: :: University of Virginia Library

What have I done, what crime in me is found,
What secret evil lurking in my breast,
That while all nature else is smiling round,
Heaven has on me it's heaviest stroke impress'd?

Have I e'er dropp'd a wish of other's harm?
Or done an ill, tho ne'er to be reveal'd?
Have I not always breathed the emotion warm
On the chaste lip of social virtue seal'd?

Ah! is it not enough, that far away
From my own native, happy fields I rove,
Far from each friendly name condemn'd to stray,
And torn by cruel force from her I love?

But must thro her the barbed steel be sent,
Which piercing, with severest torture wounds?
Must She I love convey the punishment,
Which Justice will confess exceeds its bounds?

On me rain all your woes, ye righteous powers!
Tho hard, I'll strive the misery to bear,
View sickness steal away my lingering hours
On tainted wing, nor drop a pining tear.

But ah! the gentle Virgin's tender frame—
O bright hair'd Chastity! O Angel Truth!
If ye are aught beyond an empty name,
Save, save in pity innocence and youth!

Shield, shield me from the racking thought! I spy
From her cold cheek the bland suffusion fled;
Dead is the piercing magic of her eye,
The lustre-darting beam of sense is dead.

She calls on me—Oh! snatch the last embrace!
Woods, rivers, mountains, countries intervene.
Oh! curse of curses! ne'er that lovely face
Again shall I behold: e'en the last scene

Some dreary satisfaction might afford,
Some solace to the madness of despair,
Gloating in secret on his gloomy hoard,
With eye intorted viewing what is there.