University of Virginia Library

A FRAGMENT.

Free from the toiling cares of busy life,
Onesummer's eve I fled the noisy town
To taste the sweets of rural solitude.
Alone I wander'd through the silent fields,
Sometimes, stooping to cull a flow'ret sweet
That shew'd its head amid the waving grass,
Now rich and plenteous for the mower's scythe;
Sometimes, climbing the gentle sloping bank,
I pluck'd from the hedge a blushing dog-rose,
Whose thin form'd leaves then scented fresh and mild,
Fill'd with fragrance from its beauteous parent.
The hay-harvest season had now begun;
Around in distant fields, were seen employ
The sweating labourers with circling swoop,
Cutting the flexile stalks of shady green,
From smiling Nature's annual produce.
With pleasing interruptions, such as these,
In calm and peaceful thought, I sought my way
Close by the side of a meand'ring brook
That purl'd its limpid stream in gentle course
Beneath the gloom of thick o'erhanging boughs.
Tracing the current through each cool retreat,
I came at last, beside a woody copse:
And there, neath the spread of a tow'ring tree
I pensive listen'd to the buz of eve.
But suddenly, the soft melodious thrill
Of some plaintive voice, my attention seiz'd.
Oh! 'twas Music by Melancholy sooth'd;
Oft did the mimic Echo sweet rebound
In heighten'd tones, and shake the liquid air;
Again, the deep notes of sorrowing woe
Came on the ear to still Compassion's tear;
Like the mellow notes of Æolic lyre,
Each rapturous strain was fraught with mildness;
Stealing the soul's soft sense of sympathy,
As steals the breeze of gentle Zephyrus
The pleasing scent of circumjacent herbs.
She sang of love—of disappointed love;
How that when young, in modesty adorn'd,
Blooming in all the charms of guileless youth,
She had been allur'd from her native home
By the seductive arts of treach'rous man:
Who, by fair promises replete with guile,
Snar'd her impassion'd heart, and then forsook;
And villain-like, unprotected left her,
To bear alone the pangs of sinful love,
The bitter taunts of reputation lost!
Since that time, what phrenzies of anguish dread,
What torturing thoughts had rack'd her bosom!
To think, that she most pitiless had left
Her father's humble roof, where mild coutent
Had e'er beam'd through each fleet infantine year
On her lonely fortune. Oh! she had been
The cherish'd child of his affection pure,
The sole remaining prop of with'ring age;
Who should have eas'd with kind and lenient hand,
The cumb'ring cares that droop'd his feeble soul,
And smooth'd the bed for weary limbs to rest.
But, alas! how merciless she had prov'd,
How ill requited was a father's love!
Stung to the heart to see his daughter lost,
Her honour blasted, and his comforts gone,
He pin'd in silence, and unpitied died.
And this, of all her woes, did grieve her most,
That ingratitude for paternal care
Had caus'd tears to flow o'er his wrinkl'd face,
And steep'd in sorrow locks then snow'd by age.
Her happy hours were now for ever fled;
Sorrow alone her restless thoughts could calm;
And oft she would go at still evening hour
To moisten with repentant tears his grave:
This was her solace, even there to weep,
And sigh in anguish o'er his troubles past.
I could no longer list; and softly went
To soothe the fair mourner—but she was gone!