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WHAT beckning ghost, along the moon-light shade | |
Invites my steps, and points to yonder glade? | |
Tis she;but why that bleeding bosom gord, | |
Why dimly gleams the visionary sword! | |
Oh, ever beauteous, ever friendly! tell, | 5 |
Is it, in heaven, a crime to love too well? | |
To bear too tender or too firm a heart, | |
To act a lovers or a Romans part? | |
Is there no bright reversion in the sky, | |
For those who greatly think, or bravely die? | 10 |
Why bade ye else, ye powrs! her soul aspire | |
Above the vulgar flight of low desire? | |
Ambition first sprung from your blest abodes; | |
The glorious fault of Angels and of Gods: | |
Thence to their images on earth it flows, | 15 |
And in the breasts of kings and heroes glows. | |
Most souls, tis true, but peep out once an age, | |
Dull sullen prisoners in the bodys cage: | |
Dim lights of life, that burn a length of years | |
Useless, unseen, as lamps in sepulchres; | 20 |
Like eastern kings a lazy state they keep, | |
And, close confind to their own palace, sleep. | |
From these perhaps (ere nature bade her die) | |
Fate snatchd her early to the pitying sky. | |
As into the air the purer spirits flow, | 25 |
And separate from their kindred dregs below; | |
So flew the soul to its congenial place, | |
Nor left one virtue to redeem her race. | |
But thou, false guardian of a charge too good, | |
Thou, mean deserter of thy brothers blood | 30 |
See on these ruby lips the trembling breath, | |
These cheeks now fading at the blast of death; | |
Cold is that breast which warmd the world before, | |
And those love-darting eyes must roll no more. | |
Thus, if eternal justice rules the ball, | 35 |
Thus shall your wives, and thus your children fall: | |
On all the line a sudden vengeance waits, | |
And frequent hearses shall besiege your gates; | |
There passengers shall stand, and pointing say | |
(While the long funrals blacken all the way), | 40 |
Lo! these were they, whose souls the Furies steeld, | |
And cursd with hearts unknowing how to yield. | |
Thus unlamented pass the proud away, | |
The gaze of fools, and pageant of a day! | |
So perish all, whose breast neer learnd to glow | 45 |
For others good, or melt at others woe. | |
What can atone (oh ever-injurd shade!) | |
Thy fate unpitied, and thy rites unpaid? | |
No friends complaint, no kind domestic tear | |
Pleasd thy pale ghost, or gracd thy mournful bier. | 50 |
By foreign hands thy dying eyes were closd, | |
By foreign hands thy decent limbs composd, | |
By foreign hands thy humble grave adornd, | |
By strangers honourd and by strangers mournd! | |
What tho no friends in sable weeds appear, | 55 |
Grieve for an hour, perhaps, then mourn a year, | |
And bear about the mockery of woe | |
To midnight dances, and the public show? | |
What tho no weeping loves thy ashes grace, | |
Nor polishd marble emulate thy face, | 60 |
What tho no sacred earth allow thee room, | |
Nor hallowd dirge be mutterd oer thy tomb, | |
Yet shall thy grave with rising flowers be drest, | |
And the green turf lie lightly on thy breast: | |
There shall the morn her earliest tears bestow, | 65 |
There the first roses of thy year shall blow; | |
While angels with their silver wings oershade | |
The ground, now sacred by thy relics made. | |
So peaceful rests, without a stone, a name, | |
What once had beauty, titles, wealth, and fame. | 70 |
How lovd, how honourd once, avails thee not, | |
To whom related, or by whom begot; | |
A heap of dust alone remains of thee, | |
Tis all thou art, and all the proud shall be! | |
Poets themselves must fall like those they sung, | 75 |
Deaf the praisd ear, and mute the tuneful tongue. | |
Evn he, whose soul now melts in mournful lays, | |
Shall shortly want the generous tear he pays; | |
Then from his closing eyes thy form shall part, | |
And the last pang shall tear thee from his heart, | 80 |
Lifes idle business at one gasp be oer, | |
The muse forgot, and thou belovd no more! | |
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