Yes! let each rapture, dear to Nature, flee;

Close not the light of Fortune's stormy sea

Mirth, Music, Friendship, Love's propitious smile,

Chase every care, and charm a little while,

Ecstatic throbs the fluttering heart employ,

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And all her strings are harmoniz'd to Joy!—

No! not the quaint remark, the sapient rule,

Nor all the pride of Wisdom's worldly school,

Have pow'r to soothe, unaided and alone,

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The heart that vibrates to a feeling tone!

When stepdame Nature every bliss recals,

Fleet as the meteor o'er the desert falls;

When, 'reft of all, yon widow'd sire appears

A lonely hermit in the vale of years;

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Say, can the world one joyous thought bestow
To Friendship, weeping at the couch of Woe?
No! but a brighter soothes the last adieu,—
Souls of impassion'd mould, she speaks to you!
Weep not, she says, at Nature's transient pain,
Congenial spirits part to meet again!-

What plaintive sobs thy filial spirit drew, What sorrow chok'd thy long and last adieu,

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Daughter of Conrad! when he heard his knell,

And bade his country and his child farewell!

Doom'd the long isles of Sydney Cove to see,
The martyr of his crimes, but true to thee?
Thrice the sad father tore thee from his heart,
And thrice return'd, to bless thee, and to part;
Thrice from his trembling lips he murmur'd low

The plaint that own'd unutterable woe;

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Till Faith, prevailing o'er his sullen doom,

As bursts the morn on night's unfathom'd gloom,

Lur'd his dim eye to deathless hopes sublime,

Beyond the realms of Nature and of Time!

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"And weep not thus, (he cried) young Ellenore

My bosom bleeds, but soon shall bleed no more!

Short shall this half-extinguish'd spirit burn,
And soon these limbs to kindred dust return!
But not, my child, with life's precarious fire,
The immortal ties of Nature shall expire;

These shall resist the triumph of decay,

When time is o'er, and worlds have pass'd away!
Cold in the dust this perish'd heart may lie,

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But that which warm'd it once shall never die!

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That spark unburied in its mortal frame,

With living light, eternal, and the same,

Shall beam on Joy's interminable years,

Unveil'd by darkness-unassuag'd by tears!

"Yet, on the barren shore and stormy deep, One tedious watch is Conrad doom'd to weep;

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But when I gain the home without a friend,
And press
th' uneasy couch where none attend,
This last embrace, still cherish'd in my heart,

Shall calm the struggling spirit ere it part!

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Thy darling form shall seem to hover nigh,

And hush the groan of life's last agony!

"Farewell! when strangers lift thy father's bier, And place my nameless stone without a tear;

When each returning pledge hath told my child

That Conrad's tomb is on the desert pil'd;

And when the dream of troubled fancy sees

Its lonely rank grass waving in the breeze;

Who then will soothe thy grief, when mine is o'er?

Who will protect thee, helpless Ellenore?

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