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| O STRANGER, 1 whose repose profound | |
| These latter ages dare to break, | |
| And call thee from beneath the ground | |
| Ere nature did thy slumber shake! | |
| |
| What wonders of the secret earth | 5 |
| Thy lip, too silent, might reveal! | |
| Of tribes round whose mysterious birth | |
| A thousand envious ages wheel! | |
| |
| Thy race by savage war o’errun, | |
| Sunk down, their very name forgot; | 10 |
| But ere those fearful times begun, | |
| Perhaps, in this sequester’d spot, | |
| |
| By friendship’s hand thine eyelids closed, | |
| By friendship’s hand the turf was laid— | |
| And friendship here perhaps reposed, | 15 |
| With moonlight vigils in the shade. | |
| |
| The stars have run their nightly round, | |
| The sun look’d out and pass’d his way, | |
| And many a season o’er the ground | |
| Has trod where thou so softly lay. | 20 |
| |
| And wilt thou not one moment raise | |
| Thy weary head, awhile to see | |
| The later sports of earthly days, | |
| How like what once enchanted thee? | |
| |
| Thy name, thy date, thy life declare— | 25 |
| Perhaps a queen whose feathery band | |
| A thousand maids have sigh’d to wear, | |
| The brightest in thy beauteous band. | |
| |
| Perhaps a Helen, from whose eye | |
| Love kindled up the flame of war— | 30 |
| Ah me! do thus thy graces lie | |
| A faded phantom and no more! | |
| |
| O! not like thee would I remain, | |
| But o’er the earth my ashes strew, | |
| And in some rising bud regain | 35 |
| The freshness that my childhood knew. | |
| |
| But has thy soul, O maid! so long | |
| Around this mournful relict dwelt? | |
| Or burst away with pinion strong, | |
| And at the foot of mercy knelt? | 40 |
| |
| Or has it in some distant clime | |
| With curious eye unsated stray’d, | |
| And down the winding stream of time | |
| On every changeful current play’d? | |
| |
| Or lock’d in everlasting sleep | 45 |
| Must we thy heart extinct deplore? | |
| Thy fancy lost in darkness, weep, | |
| And sigh for her who feels no more? | |
| |
| Or exiled to some humbler sphere, | |
| In yonder wood-dove dost thou dwell. | 50 |
| And murmuring in the stranger’s ear, | |
| Thy tender melancholy tell? | |
| |
| Whoe’er thou be, thy sad remains | |
| Shall from the muse a tear demand, | |
| Who, wandering on these distant plains. | 55 |
| Looks fondly to a distant land. | |
