Snatch me, juft mounting, from the bleft abode; Aflift the fiends, and tear me from my God!
No, fly me, fly me, far as Pole from Pole; Rife Alps between us! and whole oceans roll! Ah, come not, write not, think not once of me, Nor fhare one pang of all I felt for thee. Thy oaths I quit, thy memory refign; Forget, renounce me, hate whate'er was mine.
Fair eyes, and tempting looks (which yet I view !) 295 'Long lov'd, ador'd ideas, all adieu!
O Grace ferene! oh Virtue heav'nly fair! Divine oblivion of low-thoughted care! Fresh-blooming Hope, gay daughter of the sky! And Faith, our early immortality! Enter, each mild, each amicable gueft; Receive and wrap me in eternal rest!
300
See in her cell fad Elofa spread,
Propt on fome tomb, a neighbour of the dead. In each low wind methinks a Spirit calls, And more than Echoes talk along the walls. Here, as I watch'd the dying lamps around, From yonder ihrine I heard a hollow found. "Come, fifter, come !" (it faid, or feem'd to fay) Thy place is here, fad fifter, come away! Once like thy felf, I trembled, wept, and pray'd, "Love's victim then, tho' now a fainted maid: "But all is calm in this eternal fleep;
310
315
Here grief forgets to groan, and love to weep, Ev'n fuperftition lofes ev'ry fear; "For God, not man, abfolves our frailties here." I come, I come! prepare your rofeate bow'rs, Celestial palms, and ever-blooming flow'rs. Thither, where finners may have reft, I go, Where flames refin'd in breasts seraphic glow:
Thou, Abelard! the last fad office pay, And smooth my paffage to the realms of day; See my lips tremble, and my eye-balls roll, Suck my last breath, and catch my flying foul! Ah no - in facred vestments may'ft thou ftand, The hallow'd taper trembling in thy hand," Prefent the Crofs before my lifted eye, Teach me at once, and learn of me to die. Ah then, thy once-lov'd Eleïsa see! It will be then no crime to gaze on me. See from my cheek the tranfient roíes fly! See the laft fparkle languish in my eye! 'Till ev'ry motion, pulfe, and breath be o'er ; And ev❜n my Abelard be lov'd no more. O Death all eloquent! you only prove What duft we doat on, when 'tis man we love. Then too, when fate fhall thy fair frame destroy, (That cause of all my guilt, and all my joy) In trance extatic may thy pangs be drown'd, Bright clouds defcend, and Angels watch thee round, From op'ning skies may ftreaming glories fhine, And Saints embrace thee with a love like mine.
339
May one kind grave unite each hapless name, And graft my love immortal on thy fame! Then, ages hence, when all my woes are o'er, When this rebellious heart fhall beat no more; If ever chance two wand'ring lovers brings To Paraclete's white walls and filver fprings, O'er the pale marble fhall they join their heads, And drink the falling tears each other sheds;
NOTES.
VER. 343. May one kind grave, etc.] Abelard and Eloïfa were interred in the fame grave, or in monuments adjoining, in the Monaftery of the Paraclete: he died in the year 1142, the in 11631
Then fadly fay, with mutual pity mov'd, "O may we never love as these have loy'd !" From the full choir, when loud Hofannas rise, And fwell the pomp of dreadful facrifice, Amid that scene if fome relenting eye Glance on the ftone where our cold relicks lie, Devotion's felf shall steal a thought from heav'n, One human tear shall drop, and be forgiv❜n. And sure if fate some future bard shall join In fad fimilitude of griefs to mine, Condemn'd whole years in abfence to deplore, And image charms he must behold no more; Such if there be, who loves fo long, fo well; Let him our fad, our tender ftory tell!
The well-fung woes will footh my penfive ghoft; 368
He beft can paint 'em who shall feel 'em most,
Advertisement.
THE following Translations were felected from
many others done by the Author in his Youth; for the most part indeed but a fort of Exercises, while ́ he was improving himself in the Languages, and carried by his early Bent to Poetry to perform them rather in Verfe than Profe. Mr. Dryden's Fables came out about that time, which occafioned the Tranflations from Chaucer. They were firft feparately printed in Mifcellanies by J. Tonfon and B. Lintot, and afterwards collected in the Quarto Edition of 1717. The Imitations of English Authors, which follow, were done as early, fome of them at fourteen or fifteen years old.
« 上一頁繼續 » |