* * * * * Pardon, O God! the worldly thought, Nor mark it midst my prayer; Grant it to pass, with evil fraught, As die the river’s murmurings brought Upon the breezy air. Why does a worldly image rise As if my prayer to stain? Perchance in evil shadow’s guise, Which may when by the morrow flies Sign of a curse remain. Why has my mind been doom’d to dream A phantom loveliness? To see those charms transparent gleam, That brow in tranquil light supreme, And neck’s peculiar grace? Not heighten’d its enchantments shine By pomp or worldly glow; I only see that form recline In tears, before some sacred shrine, Or castle walls below. Like a forgotten offering lone, In ruin’d temple laid; Upon the carved and time-worn stone, Where fell it by the rough wind thrown, So bent beneath the shade. With such a picture in my mind, Such name upon my ear, Before my God the place to find, Where the forgotten are consign’d, I come, and bow down here. With eyes all vaguely motionless, Perhaps my wanderings view The dead, with horror and distress, As, roused up in their resting-place, They look their dark walls through. ’Twas not to muse I hither came Of nothingness my part; Nor of my God, but of a name, That deep in characters of flame Is written on my heart. Pardon, O God! the worldly thought, Nor mark it midst my prayer; Grant it to pass, with evil fraught, As die the river’s murmurings brought Upon the breezy air. NOTES. 1. Page 3. “Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos.” This name (pronounced Hovellianos) was formerly written as two distinct names, Jove Llanos, as it is still by several members of the family, one, an Advocate, at present at Madrid, and another the Spanish Consul at Jamaica. 2. Page 3. “An able and distinguished writer,” &c.