Perfumes, and oils, and wine, and wanton hours;
Amid the roses fierce Repentance rears
Her snaky crest a quick-returning pang
Shoots through the conscious heart; where honour still,
And great design, against th' oppressive load
Of luxury, by fits, impatient heave.
But absent, what fantastic woes arous'd,
Rage in each thought, by restless musing fed,
Chill the warm cheek, and blast the bloom of life!
Neglected fortune flies; and sliding swift,
Prone into ruin, fall his scorn'd affairs.
'Tis nought but gloom around: the darkened sun
Loses his light: the rosy-bosom'd Spring
To weeping fancy pines; and yon bright arch,
Contracted, bends into a dusky vault.
All Nature fades extinct; and she alone
Heard, felt, and seen, possesses every thought,
Fills every sense, and pants in every vein.
Books are but formal dulness, tedious friends;
And sad amid the social band he sits,
Lonely, and unattentive. From his tongue
Th' unfinish'd period falls: while borne away
On swelling thought, his wafted spirit flies
To the vain bosom of his distant fair;
And leaves the semblance of a lover, fix'd
In melancholy site, with head declin'd,
And love-dejected eyes. Sudden he starts,
Shook from his tender trance, and restless runs
To glimmering shades, and sympathetic glooms;
Where the dun umbrage o'er the falling stream,
Romantic, hangs; there through the pensive dusk 1025
Strays, in heart-thrilling meditation lost,
Indulging all to love: or on the bank
Thrown, amid drooping lilies, swells the breeze
With sighs unceasing, and the brook with tears.
Thus in soft anguish he consumes the day,
Nor quits his deep retirement, till the Moon
Peeps through the chambers of the fleecy East,
Enlightened by degrees, and in her train
Leads on the gentle hours; then forth he walks,
Beneath the trembling languish of her beam, 1035
With softened soul, and wooes the bird of eve
To mingle woes with his: or, while the world
And all the sons of Care lie hush'd in sleep,
Associates with the midnight shadows drear;
And, sighing to the lonely taper, pours
His idly-tortur'd heart into the page,
Meant for the moving messenger of love;
Where rapture burns on rapture, every line
With rising frenzy fir'd. But if on bed
Delirious flung, sleep from his pillow flies.
All night he tosses, nor the balmy power
In any posture finds; till the grey morn
Lifts her pale lustre on the paler wretch,
Exanimate by love: and then perhaps
Exhausted Nature sinks awhile to rest,
Still interrupted by distracted dreams,
That o'er the sick imagination rise,
And in black colours paint the mimic scene.
Oft with th' enchantress of his soul he talks;
Sometimes in crowds distress'd; or if retir'd
To secret winding flower-enwoven bowers,
Far from the dull impertinence of Man;
Just as he, credulous, his endless cares
Begins to lose in blind oblivious love,
Snatch'd from her yielded hand, he knows not how, Through forests huge, and long untravel'd heaths With desolation brown, he wanders waste,
In night and tempest wrapt; or shrinks aghast,
Effects of Jealousy in Youth.
Back, from the bending precipice; or wades
The turbid stream below, and strives to reach
The farther shore; where succourless and sad,
She with extended arms his aid implores ;
But strives in vain; borne by th' outrageous flood
To distance down, he rides the ridgy wave,
Or whelm❜d beneath the boiling eddy sinks.
These are the charming agonies of love, Whose misery delights. But through the heart
Should jealousy its venom once diffuse,
"Tis then delightful misery no more;
But agony unmix'd, incessant gall,
Corroding every thought, and blasting all
Love's paradise. Ye fairy prospects, then,
Ye beds of roses, and ye bowers of joy,
Farewell! Ye gleanings of departed peace,
Shine out your last! the yellow-tinging plague 1080 Internal vision taints, and in a night
Of livid gloom imagination wraps.
Ah then, instead of love-enlivened cheeks,
Of sunny features, and of ardent eyes
With flowing rapture bright, dark looks succeed, 1085
Suffus'd and glaring with untender fire;
Effects of Jealousy in Youth.
A clouded aspect, and a burning cheek,
Where the whole poison'd soul, malignant, sits,
And frightens love away.. Ten thousand fears
Invented wild, ten thousand frantic views
Of horrid rivals, hanging on the charms
For which he melts in fondness, eat him up
With fervent anguish, and consuming rage.
In vain reproaches lend their idle aid,
Deceitful pride, and resolution frail,
Giving false peace a moment. Fancy pours,
Afresh, her beauties on his busy thought,
Her first endearments twining round the soul,
With all the witchcraft of ensnaring love.
Straight the fierce storm involves his mind anew, 1100
Flames through the nerves, and boils along the veins;
While anxious doubt distracts the tortur'd heart:
For ev'n the sad assurance of his fears
Were ease to what he feels. Thus the warm youth,
Whom love deludes into his thorny wilds,
Through flowery-tempting paths, or leads a life
Of fevered rapture, or of cruel care;
His brightest flames extinguish'd all, and all
His lively moments running down to waste.
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