OR THE DESERTED LOVER.
ONCE rosy pleasure bless’d my smiling hours,
And all her scatter’d joys around me shed:
For me of balmy sweets she robb’d the flow’rs,
And with her myrtle-wreath adorn’d my head.
Beneath my feet I saw the violet spring;
I caught the fragrance of the morning-gale;
Each passing breeze bore sweetness on its wing,
And scatter’d odours thro’ the smiling vale.
Mine ear, still listening, heard the warbling notes,
That from the wood the feather’d choir prolong;
Wild as themselves the tuneful cadence floats
Of nature’s sweetest, unassisted song.
Mine eye the opening dawn with joy survey’d,
That streaks the eastern sky with crimson-hue,
When night’s dark curtain thrown aside display’d
All nature’s beauties to my raptur’d view.
Then glittering dew-drops every stalk adorn,
And tho’ depending seem to fall away;
The pearly moisture hangs from every thorn,
And gives new freshness to the trembling spray.
Cheering the sun, in beamy radiance bright,
When on the earth his fervid ray descends:
Pleasant the slow approach of sober night,
Whose mantle grey its cooling shade extends.
The silvery moon how lovely! and the train
Of lucid orbs, that round her throne revolve,
And gild with vivid gems th’ etherial plain!
Who, save their Maker, can their path resolve?
O ye fair objects, once ye knew to please;
Why to my sense delightful now no more?
Say, charm ye only in the days of ease;
Nor for the wretched have one bliss in store?
Ill can the tearful eye your charms survey;
Grief’s thickest fog o’erclouds whate’er I see;
By me unheard is PHILOMELA’S lay;
The lily’s snowy hue delights not me.
For thou, with whom these objects charm’d, art gone:
Pleasing with thee bright suns and evenings fair;
Thy beamy eyes, which bright as PHOEBUS shone,
Dispell’d the frigid damps of gloomy care.
Pleasing with thee the music of the grove,
Or tinkling streams, that o’er the pebbles stray;
More pleasing far thy voice, inspiring love,
Whose soothing strains beguil’d the tedious day.
The flowers you cull’d were fairer to my sight;
The fruit you gather’d richer to the taste;
From you each object pleas’d with new delight;
All came from you with double beauty grac’d.
Ah! cruel fate, could nothing less atone
Thy savage rage, or glut thy dreadful pow’r?
Wilt thou unpitying hear the heart-felt groan,
Nor smile propitious on the passing hour?
Sure less than this had been sufficient woe:
Hadst thou on every limb inflicted pain;
Or wasted down my strength with pining slow;
Or stung me with the taunts of cold disdain:
Ev’n poverty, and all the dreaded tribe
That on the meagre sons of want attend;
The biting jest, the sullen brow of pride;
The dear-bought favours of a selfish friend;
These ills I could have born, one treasure left;
Fate’s darts had only reach’d th’ ignobler part;
Of every outward bliss of life bereft,
Joy still had triumphed in my faithful heart.
(Elizabeth Scot)
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Based on Topics: Love Poems, Life Poems, Night Poems, Nature Poems, Joy & Excitement Poems, Fairness Poems, Sense & Perception Poems, Friendship Poems, Flowers Poems, Pain Poems, Smiling PoemsBased on Keywords: dispell, dear-bought, beamy, inflicted, etherial, heart-felt, philomela, unassisted, ignobler, myrtle-wreath, erclouds