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| LIFE ne’er exulted in so rich a prize, | |
| As Burnet, lovely from her native skies; | |
| Nor envious death so triumph’d in a blow, | |
| As that which laid th’ accomplish’d Burnet low. | |
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| Thy form and mind, sweet maid, can I forget? | 5 |
| In richest ore the brightest jewel set! | |
| In thee, high Heaven above was truest shown, | |
| As by His noblest work the Godhead best is known. | |
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| In vain ye flaunt in summer’s pride, ye groves; | |
| Thou crystal streamlet with thy flowery shore, | 10 |
| Ye woodland choir that chaunt your idle loves, | |
| Ye cease to charm; Eliza is no more. | |
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| Ye healthy wastes, immix’d with reedy fens; | |
| Ye mossy streams, with sedge and rushes stor’d: | |
| Ye rugged cliffs, o’erhanging dreary glens, | 15 |
| To you I fly—ye with my soul accord. | |
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| Princes, whose cumb’rous pride was all their worth, | |
| Shall venal lays their pompous exit hail, | |
| And thou, sweet Excellence! forsake our earth, | |
| And not a Muse with honest grief bewail? | 20 |
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| We saw thee shine in youth and beauty’s pride, | |
| And Virtue’s light, that beams beyond the spheres; | |
| But, like the sun eclips’d at morning tide, | |
| Thou left us darkling in a world of tears. | |
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| The parent’s heart that nestled fond in thee, | 25 |
| That heart how sunk, a prey to grief and care; | |
| So deckt the woodbine sweet yon aged tree; | |
| So, from it ravish’d, leaves it bleak and bare. | |
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