 | Poems of Freneau |  |
ELEGIAC LINES.
With life enamoured, but in death resigned,To seats congenial flew the unspotted mind:
Attending spirits hailed her to that shore
Where this world's winter chills the soul no more.
Learn hence, to live resigned;—and when you die
No fears will seize you, when that hour is nigh.
Transferred to heaven, Amanda has no share
In the dull business of this world of care.
Her blaze of beauty, even in death admired,
A moment kindled, but as soon expired.
Sweet as the favourite offspring of the May
Serenely mild, not criminally gay:
Adorned with all that nature could impart
To please the fancy and to gain the heart;
Heaven ne'er above more innocence possessed,
Nor earth the form of a diviner guest:
A mind all virtue!—flames descended here
From some bright seraph of some nobler sphere;
Yet, not her virtues, opening into bloom,
Nor all her sweetness saved her from the tomb,
From prospects darkened, and the purpose crossed,
Misfortune's winter,—and a lover lost;
Nor such resemblance to the forms above,
The heart of goodness, and the soul of love!
To please the fancy and to gain the heart;
Heaven ne'er above more innocence possessed,
Nor earth the form of a diviner guest:
A mind all virtue!—flames descended here
From some bright seraph of some nobler sphere;
Yet, not her virtues, opening into bloom,
Nor all her sweetness saved her from the tomb,
From prospects darkened, and the purpose crossed,
Misfortune's winter,—and a lover lost;
Nor such resemblance to the forms above,
The heart of goodness, and the soul of love!
Ye thoughtless fair!—her early death bemoan,
Sense, virtue, beauty, to oblivion gone.
Sense, virtue, beauty, to oblivion gone.
1788
| Poems of Freneau | |