OR MELANCHOLY FATE OF CAPT. PIERCE AND HIS TWO DAUGHTERS.
ETERNAL Power! who rul’st with sovereign will
Who bid’st the tempest cease, and all is still;
In mercy hear us; stretch thine arm to save;
Oh! snatch my children from the whelming wave.
So pray’d the parent; but the prayer was vain;
The struggling vessel sinks beneath the main.
His hapless offspring cling around their sire,
Implore his aid, and in his arms expire.
Fair, faded blossoms! ere your prime destroy’d;
To you life just was shown, and ne’er enjoy’d.
In vain bright suns and purer skies invite;
In vain is Hymen sued to bless his rite.
Dark is his torch, the lamp funereal burns;
His drooping garland scatter’d o’er your urns.
How oft, with beating hearts and eager eye,
Shall your devoted lords the vessel spy,
Its progress mark, and trust their bliss is nigh!
Bid love and wealth for you their powers employ,
And glowing fancy deck each scene of joy!
Tune the soft lyre with rapturous airs to move,
And INDIA’S fragrance weave the bower of love!
Ill-fated youths, your needless care refrain,
Nor spread the feast, nor raise the nuptial strain;
Ne’er shall your spicy groves their steps invite,
Nor death’s cold ear the melting strain delight.
Clos’d are those eyes, that dullest bosoms fir’d,
And mute the tongues, that harmony inspir’d.
Those polish’d forms, in softest silks array’d,
That on the downy couch were nightly laid,
Dash’d on the flinty rocks, distain’d with blood,
Are driven, impetuous o’er the boiling flood;
Or to the dreary Caves of ocean born,
Their mangled limbs by scaly monsters torn.
Was it for this, the fond maternal eye
Watch’d o’er the weakness of your infancy?
Train’d with a parent’s care your tender youth,
And taught the love of goodness and of truth?
With many a prayer indulgent heaven address’d,
To form you beautiful, and keep you bless’d?
Two lovely plants! together thus ye grew,
Sweet to the sense, and grateful to the view.
But, when the harvest promis’d to repay
The tender cares of many an anxious day,
Relentless fate inflicts the fatal blow,
And all your springing glories levels low.
Perchance, ere yet the tale had reach’d her ears,
The pensive matron, sway’d with hopes and fears,
Her youngest joy close to her bosom press’d,
And thus th’ unconscious innocent address’d:
Smile, my sweet babe; and cheer thy mother’s heart;
Alas! thine own cannot partake her smart.
For us thy venturous father dares to roam,
Far from his tender spouse and happy home;
O’er boundless oceans distant climes explores,
Nor dreads the raging storm, nor treacherous shores.
Thou, all unknowing, saw’st thy father’s face;
Nor sad, nor joyous at his last embrace.
But time will soon thy little powers display,
And dawning reason lend its feeble ray,
Then, when my dear-lov’d wanderer returns,
And all my soul with tender transport burns,
Wilt thou not catch the kindling joy from me,
And lisp his name, and hang around his knee?
Ah! gentle HAMMET , what a task was thine!
How could thy lips the fatal words combine!
How in one moment every hope destroy,
And banish all her flattering dreams of joy!
Sad, tender office! when the bursting heart
Must o’er its sorrows throw the veil of art;
Must talk of comfort, while it inly bleeds,
And give the soothing balm its anguish needs!
But here the stroke too deep an entrance found:
Down sinks the lifeless victim on the ground.
In mercy stop–your cruel cares refrain–
Is life, is reason worth the wish of pain?
In death’s deep slumber let her eye-lids close,
And her cold bosom feel no future woes.
Alas! how impotent is feeble man,
The darken’d maze of Providence to scan!
All, all are born to suffer and complain,
The sad associates doom’d of grief and pain;
And, ere the sympathetic tear is spent,
We are ourselves the wretches we lament.
(Elizabeth Scot)
More Poetry from Elizabeth Scot:
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