LOVE AND MADNESS. AN ELEGY. Written in 1795. HARK! from the battlements of yonder tower * The solemn bell has toll'd the midnight hour! Poor B k wakes-in solitude to weep! "Cease, Mem'ry, cease (the friendless mourner cry'd) To probe the bosom too severely tried! Oh! ever cease, my pensive thoughts, to stray Through the bright fields of Fortune's better day: 6 Warwick castle. When youthful Hope, the music of the mind, Tun'd all its charms, and E -n was kind! 10 "Yet, can I cease, while glows this trembling frame, In sighs to speak thy melancholy name! I hear thy spirit wail in every storm? In midnight shades. I view thy passing form! Pale as in that sad hour, when doom'd to feel, "Demons of Vengeance! ye at whose command No! my wild heart sat smiling o'er the plan, Till Hate fulfill'd what baffled Love began! 20 "Yes; let the clay-cold breast, that never knew One tender pang to generous Nature true, Half-mingling pity with the gall of scorn, Condemn this heart that bled in love forlorn! "And ye, proud fair, whose soul no gladness warms, Save Rapture's homage to your conscious charms! Delighted idols of a gaudy train! Ill can your blunter feelings guess the pain, When the fond faithful heart, inspir'd to prove Friendship refin'd, the calm delight of love, Feels all its tender strings with anguish torn, And bleeds at perjur'd Pride's inhuman scorn! 25 30 "Say, then, did pitying Heav'n condemn the deed, 35 When Vengeance bade thee, faithless lover! bleed? Long had I watch'd thy dark foreboding brow, What time thy bosom scorn'd its dearest vow! Sad, though I wept the friend, the lover chang'd, Still thy cold look was scornful and estrang'd, Till from thy pity, love, and shelter thrown, I wander'd, hopeless, friendless, and alone! "Oh! righteous Heav'n! 'twas then my tortur'd soul First gave to wrath unlimited controul! Adieu the silent look! the streaming eye! The murmur'd plaint! the deep heart-heaving sigh! Long slumb'ring Vengeance wakes to better deeds; Now the last laugh of agony is o'er, 40 45 And pale in blood he sleeps, to wake no more! 50 |