Poems, Dialogues in Verse and Epigrams :: :: University of Virginia Library

“You snatcht and held me pale with fright
Till life almost had fled?
At every swell more close I prest
With jealous care that lovely breast;
Of every tender word afraid,
I cast a broader, deeper shade,
And trembled so, I fell between
Two angel-guards, by you unseen:
There, pleasures, perils, all forgot,
I clung and fainted: who would not?
Yet certainly, this transport over,
I should, for who would not? recover.
Yes! I was destined to return
And sip anew the crystal urn,
Where with four other sister sprays
I bloom'd away my pleasant days.
But less and less and less again
Each day, hour, moment, is the pain
My little shrivel'd heart endures . .
Now can you say the same for yours?
I torn from her and she from you,
What wiser thing can either do
Than with our joys our fears renounce
And leave the vacant world at once?
When she you fondly love must go,
Your pangs will rise, but mine will cease;
I never shall awake to woe,
Nor you to happiness or peace.”