And well may Doubt, the mother of Dismay, Pause at her martyr’s tomb, and read the lay. Down by the wilds of yon deserted vale It darkly hints a melancholy tale! There, as the homeless madman sits alone, In hollow winds he hears a spirit moan! And there, they say, a wizard orgie crowds, When the Moon lights her watch-tower in the clouds. Poor lost Alonzo! Fate’s neglected child! Mild be the doom of Heaven—as thou wert mild! For oh! thy heart in holy mould was cast, And all thy deeds were blameless, but the last. Poor lost Alonzo! still I seem to hear The clod that struck thy hollow-sounding bier! When Friendship paid, in speechless sorrow drowned, Thy midnight rites, but not on hallowed ground! Cease, every joy, to glimmer on my mind, But leave—oh! leave the light of HOPE behind! What though my wingèd hours of bliss have been, Like angel-visits, few and far between, Her musing mood shall every pang appease, And charm—when pleasures lose the power to please! Yes; let each rapture, dear to Nature, flee: Close not the light of Fortune’s stormy sea— Mirth, Music, Friendship, Love’s propitious smile, Chase every care, and charm a little while, Ecstatic throbs the fluttering heart employ, And all her strings are harmonised to joy!— But why so short is Love’s delighted hour? Why fades the dew on Beauty’s sweetest flower? Why can no hymnèd charm of music heal The sleepless woes impassioned spirits feel? Can Fancy’s fairy hands no veil create, To hide the sad realities of fate?— No! not the quaint remark, the sapient rule, Nor all the pride of Wisdom’s worldly school, Have power to soothe, unaided and alone, The heart that vibrates to a feeling tone! When stepdame Nature every bliss recalls, Fleet as the meteor o’er the desert falls; When, ’reft of all, yon widowed sire appears A lonely hermit in the vale of years; Say, can the world one joyous thought bestow To Friendship, weeping at the couch of Woe? No! but a brighter soothes the last adieu,— Souls of impassioned mould, she speaks to you! Weep not, she says, at Nature’s transient pain, Congenial spirits part to meet again! What plaintive sobs thy filial spirit drew, What sorrow choked thy long and last adieu,— Daughter of Conrad! when he heard his knell, And bade his country and his child farewell! Doomed the long isles of Sydney-cove to see, The martyr of his crimes, but true to thee. Thrice the sad father tore thee from his heart, And thrice returned, to bless thee, and to part; Thrice from his trembling lips he murmured low The plaint that owned unutterable woe; Till Faith, prevailing o’er his sullen doom, As bursts the morn on night’s unfathomed gloom, Lured his dim eye to deathless hopes sublime, Beyond the realms of Nature and of Time!