Poems, on various subjects :: :: University of Virginia Library

Oh! Sensibility! Thou busy nurse
Of Inj'ries once receiv'd, why wilt thou feed
Those serpents in the soul? their stings more fell
Than those which writh'd round Priam's priestly son;
I feel them here! They rend my panting breast,
But I will tear them thence: ah! effort vain!
Disturb'd they grow rapacious, while their fangs

Strike at poor Memory; wounded she deplores
Her ravish'd joys, and murmurs o'er the past.

Why shrinks my soul within these prison walls,
Where wretches shake their chains? Ill-fated youth,
Why does thine eye run wildly o'er my form,
Pointed with fond enquiry? 'Tis not Me,
Thy restless thought would find; the silent tear
Steals gently down his cheek: ah! could my arms
Afford thee refuge, I would bear thee hence
To a more peaceful dwelling. Vain the wish!
Thy pow'rs are all unhing'd, and thou wouldst sit
Insensible to sympathy: farewell.
Lamented being! ever lost to hope,
I leave thee, yea despair myself of cure.

For, oh, my bosom bleeds, while griefs like thine
Increase the recent pang. Pensive I rove,
More wounded than the hart, whose side yet holds
The deadly arrow: Friendship, boast no more
Thy hoard of joys, o'er which my soul oft hung;
Like the too anxious miser o'er his gold.
My treasures all are wreck'd; I quit the scene
Where haughty Insult cut the sacred ties
Which long had held us: Cruel Julius! take
My last adieu. The wound thou gav'st is death,
Nor can'st e'en thou recall my frighted sense
With Friendship's pleasing sound; yet will I clasp
Thy valued image to my aching mind,
And viewing that, forgive thee; will deplore
The blow that sever'd two congenial souls!

Officious Sensibility! 'tis thine
To give the finest anguish, to dissolve
The dross of spirit, till all essence, she
Refines on real woe; from thence extracts
Sad unexisting phantoms, never seen.

Yet, dear ideal mourner, be thou near
When on Lysander's tears I silent gaze;
Then, with thy viewless pencil, form his sigh,
His deepest groan, his sorrow-tinged thought,
Wish immature, impatience, cold despair,
With all the tort'ring images that play,
In sable hue, within his wasted mind.

And when this dreary group shall meet my thought,
Oh! throw my pow'rs upon a fertile space,

Where mingles ev'ry varied soft relief.
Without thee, I could offer but the dregs
Of vulgar consolation; from her cup
He turns the eye, nor dare it soil his lip!
Raise thou my friendly hand; mix thou the draught
More pure than ether, as ambrosia clear,
Fit only for the soul; thy chalice fill
With drops of sympathy, which swiftly fall
From my afflicted heart: yet—yet beware,
Nor stoop to seize from Passion's warmer clime
A pois'nous sweet.—Bright cherub, safely rove
Thro' all the deep recesses of the soul!
Float on her raptures, deeper tinge her woes,
Strengthen emotion, higher waft her sigh,
Sit in the tearful orb, and ardent gaze
On joy or sorrow. But thy empire ends

Within the line of spirit. My rough soul,
O Sensibility! defenceless hails,
Thy feelings most acute. Yet, ye who boast
Of bliss I ne'er must reach, ye, who can fix
A rule for sentiment, if rules there are,
(For much I doubt, my friends, if rule e'er held
Capacious sentiment) ye sure can point
My mind to joys that never touch'd the heart.
What is this joy? Where does its essence rest?
Ah! self-confounding sophists, will ye dare
Pronounce that joy which never touch'd the heart?
Does Education give the transport keen,
Or swell your vaunted grief? No, Nature feels
Most poignant, undefended; hails with me
The Pow'rs of Sensibility untaught.

Bedlam.