Poems on Several Occasions, Elegy

What have I done, what crime in me is found, What secret evil lurking in my breast, That while all Nature else is smiling round, Heaven has on me its heaviest stroke impress'd?

Have I e'er dropp'd a wish of other's harm? Or done an ill though ne'er to be reveal'd? Have I not always breath'd th' emotion warm On the chaste lip of Social Virtue seal'd?

Ah! is it not enough that far away From my own native happy fields I rove, Far from each friendly name condemn'd to stray, And torn by cruel force from her I love?

But must through her the barbed steel be sent, Which piercing, with severest torture wounds? Must she I love convey the punishment Which Justice' self must own exceeds its bounds?

On me rain all your woes, ye righteous Powers! Though hard, I'll strive the misery to bear; View Sickness steal away my lingering hours On tainted wing, nor drop a pining tear:

But, ah! the gentle Virgin's tender frame— O Bright-hair'd Chastity! O Angel Truth! If ye are aught beyond an empty name, Save, save in pity Innocence and Youth.

Shield, shield me from the racking thought! I spy From her cold cheeks the bland suffusion fled, Dead is the piercing magick of her eye, The lustre-darting beam of sense is dead.

She calls on me.—Oh, snatch the last embrace! Woods, rivers, mountains, countries intervene; Oh curse of curses! ne'er that lovely face Again shall I behold; e'en the last scene.

Some dreary satisfaction might afford, Some solace to the madness of Despair, Gloating in secret on his gloomy hoard, With eye intorted viewing what is there.