Poems and miscellanies selected from the writings of Miss Eliza Townsend Printed but not published |
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ON A WREATH
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 | Poems and miscellanies selected from the writings of Miss Eliza Townsend |  |
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ON A WREATH
BROUGHT BY F. ALEXANDER FROM THE TOMB OF ABELARD AND HELOISE, IN PERE LE CHAISE.
The wreath! but not of laurel leaved,The conqueror's prize of yore;
The meed of murders past achieved,
The stimulant to more!
The wreath! but not from off the vine
The bacchanalian's boast,
Of revelry and wrath the sign,
Of soul and sense the cost.
The sabre's flame, the cup's desire,
These flow'rets ne'er have fed:
Such vanities the living fire,
These only deck the dead!
A pilgrim to the funeral shrine
Of famed but fatal love, to me
The relic brought; nor verse of mine
May chide the friendly felony:
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That same sepulchral earth enshrined,
The amity of many a year,
The cordial heart, the beaming mind,
That, from its native Tagus borne,
From orange groves his waters lave,
Where flows the stranger Seine to mourn,
Was doomed to find a foreign grave!
| Poems and miscellanies selected from the writings of Miss Eliza Townsend | |