And the sigh that arose from her bosom that heaved,
Made its beauty still fairer
appear;
For she sighed not because she of peace was bereaved,
But that one she had trusted should e'er have deceived,
Or e'er been forgiven in a tear.
Tho' broken that heart, and tho' closed is that eye
Which beamed with affection sincere ;
From my heart, from my memory, it never shall fly, How when wronged and deceived, still her bosom's last sigh
Could attend on Forgiveness's tear.
WRITTEN FOR COLONEL ROBERT BROOKE, 1811.
STRANGER! if burning 'neath an eastern sky,
Thy lot were Hyder's myriads to defy;
If fame and glory thine, complacent turn,
And boast thy kindred to a soldier's urn!
But if the friend, by sympathy, be led,
Thro' these instructive mansions of the dead,
For private, as for public worth, to look-
Behold her rays illume the grave of BROOKE!
FROM Mary's eyes, with lustre beaming,
Though liquid tenderness distil,
'Tis but a softer lustre streaming
From orbs that pity's dew drops fill.
'Tis like some modest star, that gleaming
Through heaven's blue veil, at eve appears;
More lovely rob'd with halo seeming,
More sweetly radiant dress'd in tears.
And as the sympathetic sorrow
Flies, like the nightly clouds that stray Through ether, lovelier tints to borrow From sunshine, the sweet smile of day; So Mary's eyes a jocund morning,
A sunny dawn of smiles, will prove ; Each artless look with joy adorning, And all the cloudless light of love.
WHEN first young Flora met my eye,
Unconscious of a gazer nigh,
Her hand sustain'd her pensive head;
A lock had down her bosom stray'd;
And fain a sister tress would break
Its band, to kiss her glowing cheek!
I look'd, and with enamour'd glance
Priz'd more than rubies, more than pearl,
Graces that seem'd as if by chance
To mark an artless girl.
But when my eye she caught, and rose
Fluttering, her beauties to compose,
And in a glass her form survey'd,
And, studious of relieving shade,
Each curl adjusted to a hair,
And then assum'd a wincing air,
And then to blush confusion strove
Crossing the room with measur'd step;"Such tricks (I cried) but frighten love!" And left the demirep.
Written at the Devil's Bridge, Cardiganshire; on the Story of the Robber who formerly lived in a Cave under the principal Fall of the Mynach.
INVOLVED in clouds of whitening spray
Which glistens 'mid the smiling morn,
Impetuous Mynach roars;
And as he makes his furious way,
Earth's fairest gifts and flowers adorn
His steep tremendous shores.
What shriek was that, what piteous yell,
That faintly stole along the glen,
And died upon the gale?
"Twere shame the dreadful deeds to tell,
Which, far from busy haunt of men,
Pollute this guilty vale!
that by the torrent's side,
(They say, for who himself could dare
Such horrors to survey?)
A loathsome cavern opens wide,
Where ruthless sons of murder tear
Daily their bleeding prey!
The suffering shriek, a moment heard,
Soon as the thundering torrents swell,
Sinks in the angry din;
Fell kites with eager wing upreared,
While screams their savage raptures tell,
The bloody feast begin.
EPIGRAM
ON A PAINTED WOMAN *.
FROM THE FRENCH OF BREBEUF.
THOUGH, Laura, to your charms divine
All hearts their liberty resign,
Yet to be vain of this beware,-
What thanks to you that you are fair?
Not from yourself your graces came,
'Twas Nature gave them to your frame.
But Iris justly may require
That we should wonder and admire:
By science singular and new
She's her own work and artist too:
The beauty on her face that glows,
To her own skilful hand she owes.
Conquering her destiny, the hate
She mocks of unrelenting fate;
For in a moment she repairs
The ravages of sixty years!
*This is one of a hundred and fifty-one epigrams, written by Brebeuf, on the same subject.
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