The fluctuating pangs of hope and fear, Joy distant still, and Sorrow ever near. Thus, while the pangs of thought severer grew, } The western breezes inauspicious blew, } Hastening the moment of our last adieu. } The vessel parted on the falling tide, Yet time one sacred hour to love supplied: The night was silent, and advancing fast, The moon o’er Thames her silver mantle cast; Impatient Hope the midnight path explored, And led me to the nymph my soul adored. Soon her quick footsteps struck my listening ear, She came confest! the lovely maid drew near! But, ah! what force of language can impart Th’ impetuous joy that glowed in either heart: O ye! whose melting hearts are formed to prove The trembling ecstasies of genuine love; When, with delicious agony, the thought Is to the verge of high delirium wrought; Your secret sympathy alone can tell What raptures then the throbbing bosom swell: O’er all the nerves what tender tumults roll, While love with sweet enchantment melts the soul. “In transport lost, by trembling hope imprest, The blushing virgin sunk upon my breast, While her’s congenial beat with fond alarms! Dissolving softness! Paradise of charms! Flashed from our eyes, in warm transfusion flew Our blending spirits that each other drew! O bliss supreme! where Virtue’s self can melt With joys that guilty pleasure never felt; Formed to refine the thought with chaste desire, And kindle sweet Affection’s purest fire. Ah! wherefore should my hopeless love, she cries, While sorrow bursts with interrupting sighs,— For ever destined to lament in vain, Such flattering, fond ideas entertain; My heart through scenes of fair illusion stray’d, To joys, decreed for some superior maid. ’Tis mine abandoned to severe distress Still to complain, and never hope redress— Go then, dear youth! thy father’s rage atone, And let this tortured bosom beat alone. The hovering anger yet thou may’st appease! Go then, dear youth! nor tempt the faithless seas. Find out some happier maid, whose equal charms With Fortune’s fairer joys, may bless thy arms: Where, smiling o’er thee with indulgent ray, Prosperity shall hail each new-born day: Too well thou know’st good Albert’s niggard fate, Ill fitted to sustain thy father’s hate. Go then, I charge thee by thy generous love, That fatal to my father thus may prove; On me alone let dark affliction fall, Whose heart for thee will gladly suffer all. Then haste thee hence, Palemon, ere too late, Nor rashly hope to brave opposing fate. “She ceased: while anguish in her angel-face O’er all her beauties showered celestial grace: Not Helen, in her bridal charms arrayed, Was half so lovely as this gentle maid.—