What happy hours of home-felt bliss
Did love on both bestow!
But blifs too mighty long to last,
Where fortune proves a foe..
His fifter, who, like Envy form'd,
Like her in mischief joy'd,
To work them harm, with wicked skill,
Each darker art employ'd.
The father, too, a fordid man,
Who love nor pity knew,
Was all unfeeling as the clod
From whence his riches grew.
Long had he feen their fecret flame,
And faw it long unmov'd:
Then, with a father's frown, at last
He sternly disapprov'd.
In Edwin's gentle heart a war
Of diff'ring paffions ftrove:
His heart, that durft not disobey,
Yet could not ceafe to love.
Deny'd her fight, he oft behind
The fpreading hawthorn crept,
To fnatch a glance, to mark the spot
Where Emma walk'd and wept.
Oft too on Stanmore's wint'ry waste,
Beneath the moonlight shade,
In fighs to pour his foften'd foul;
The midnight mourner stray'd.
His cheek, where health with beauty glow'd,
A deadly pale o'ercast :
So fades the fresh rofe in its prime,
Before the northern blast.
The parents now, with late remorse,
Hung o'er his dying bed;
And weary'd Heav'n with fruitlefs vows,
And fruitlefs forrow fhed.
'Tis paft, he cry'd--but if your fouls
Sweet mercy yet can move,
Let thefe dim eyes once more behold
What they must ever love.
She came his cold hand foftly touch'd,
And bath'd with many a tear:
Faft-falling o'er the primrose pale,
So morning dews appear.
But oh! his fifter's jealous care,
A cruel fifter fhe!
Forbade what Emma came to say, "My Edwin live for me!"
Now homeward as the hopeless wept,
The church-yard path along,
The blast blew cold, the dark owl scream'd
Her lover's funeral fong.
Amid the falling gloom of night,
Her ftartling fancy found,
In every bush, his hovering fhade,
His groan in every found.
Alone, appall'd, thus had she pass'd
The vifionary vale
When, lo! the death-bell fmote her ear,
Sad founding in the gale!
Juft then the reach'd, with trembling step,
Her aged mother's door-
the cry'd! and I fhall fee
I feel, I feel this breaking heart
Beat high against my fide-
From her white arm down funk her head-
She, fiv'ring-figh'd and died.
A CONTEMPLATION ON NIGHT.
WHETHER amid the gloom of Night I stray,
Or my glad eyes enjoy revolving day,
Still Nature's various face informs my fenfe
Of an all-wife, all-powerful Providence.
When the gay fun first breaks the fhades of Night,
And strikes the diftant eaftern hills with light,
Colour returns, the plains their livery wear,
And a bright verdure clothes the smiling year;
The blooming flow'rs with opening beauties glow,
And grazing flocks their milky fleeces fhow;
The barren cliffs with chalky fronts arife, wei
And a pure azure arches o'er the skies.
But when the gloomy reign of Night returns,
Stript of her fading pride, all Nature mourns:
The trees no more their wonted verdure boast,
But weep, in dewy tears, their beauty loft:
No diftant landscapes draw our curious eyes,
Wrapt in Night's robe the whole creation lies:
Yet ftill, even now, while darkness clothes the land,
We view the traces of th' Almighty hand;
Millions of ftars in heaven's wide vault appear,
And with new glories hang the boundless sphere :
The filver moon her western couch forfakes,
And o'er the skies her nightly circle makes;
Her folid globe beats back the funny rays,
And to the world her borrow'd light repays.
Whether those stars that twinkling luftre fend
Are funs, and rolling worlds those funs attend,
Man may conjecture, and new schemes declare
Yet all his fyftems but conjectures are;
But this we know, that Heav'n's eternal King,
Who bid this universe from nothing spring,
Can, at his word, bid num'rous worlds appear,
And rifing worlds th' all-powerful word fhall hear.
When to the western main the fun defcends,
To other lands a rising day he lends :
The fpreading dawn another fhepherd spies,
The wakeful flocks from their warm folds arise;
Refresh'd, the peasant seeks his early toil,
And bids the plough correct the fallow foil.
While we in fleep's embraces wafte the night,
The climes oppos'd enjoy meridian light :
And when thofe lands the bufy fun forfakes,
With us again the rofy morning wakes ;
|