| |
| WHAT beck’ning ghost, along the moon-light shade | |
| Invites my steps, and points to yonder glade? | |
| ’Tis she;—but why that bleeding bosom gor’d, | |
| 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 lover’s or a Roman’s part? | |
| Is there no bright reversion in the sky, | |
| For those who greatly think, or bravely die? | 10 |
| Why bade ye else, ye pow’rs! 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 body’s 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 confin’d to their own palace, sleep. | |
| From these perhaps (ere nature bade her die) | |
| Fate snatch’d 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 brother’s blood | 30 |
| See on these ruby lips the trembling breath, | |
| These cheeks now fading at the blast of death; | |
| Cold is that breast which warm’d 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 fun’rals blacken all the way), | 40 |
| Lo! these were they, whose souls the Furies steel’d, | |
| And curs’d 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 ne’er learn’d to glow | 45 |
| For others good, or melt at others woe. | |
| What can atone (oh ever-injur’d shade!) | |
| Thy fate unpitied, and thy rites unpaid? | |
| No friend’s complaint, no kind domestic tear | |
| Pleas’d thy pale ghost, or grac’d thy mournful bier. | 50 |
| By foreign hands thy dying eyes were clos’d, | |
| By foreign hands thy decent limbs compos’d, | |
| By foreign hands thy humble grave adorn’d, | |
| By strangers honour’d and by strangers mourn’d! | |
| 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 polish’d marble emulate thy face, | 60 |
| What tho’ no sacred earth allow thee room, | |
| Nor hallow’d dirge be mutter’d o’er 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 o’ershade | |
| 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 lov’d, how honour’d 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 prais’d ear, and mute the tuneful tongue. | |
| Ev’n 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 |
| Life’s idle business at one gasp be o’er, | |
| The muse forgot, and thou belov’d no more! | |
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