Virg. Ae. I-466. The conflict's o'er--ah! lovely maid, adieu! Before these sad, these parting lines, you view; Before the fields with early dawn shall bloom, Your Werter rests beneath the silent tomb: No more to view the beauties of the day, No more to listen to thy heavenly lay, To sit, in transport, and to hear thee talk, Or with thee wander, in an ev'ning walk, Along the margin of the winding flood, Thro' the green fields, or in the shady wood. O! Charlotte! when you see the floods arise, And wintry storms descending from the skies, The wat'ry gloom that fills the plain below, And all around one dreary waste of snow; Will you not then, a sigh in sorrow heave, For the lost pleasures of a summer's eve, Recall the time when you so oft have seen Thy hapless lover on the verdant green, Or thro' the vale approaching from the grove, To view thy charms and pine in hopeless love, Gaze on thy angel form, for without she, The world appear'd a boundless blank to me. As when to seamen, from the midnight skies The moon's bright beams in brilliant glory rise, To guide them wand'ring thro' the wat'ry plain, Or land them on their native shores again; Thus, Charlotte, I no other joy could see, Than pass the vacant day, and gaze on thee, Live in thy joys, or in thy sorrows die, "And drink delicious poison from thine eye," As the lost insect round the taper flies, And courts the fatal flame by which it dies. But, Charlotte, now those fleeting joys are fled, And Werter sinks among the silent dead From the bright hopes of life forever gone, His mem'ry lost, and e'en his name unknown, The time shall come, when in the vacant mind, The fondest friend no trace of me shall find; When e'en my kindred my sad fate shall hear, And view my mould'ring grave without a tear, Think on the light impressions of the mind, Which flee as midnight dreams, and leave no trace behind. This eve I wander'd thro' each beauteous scene, Each fertile valley, and each level green, Pensive and sad I view'd the foaming flood; And the wild winds disturb the silent wood. Beheld the sun's great orb, in glory bright, Descend behind the western surge in night; While on the hill to see its beams, I stood, And view'd it sinking in the briny flood, I felt my heart with double sorrows prest, And life's last hope desert my throbbing breast; The world's vast scene forever clos'd from sight, And all involv'd in one eternal night. Ah! shall I ne'er again thy image know, In these sad realms of misery and woe, Or is there yet a place in heaven design'd, For hapless mortals by th' eternal mind, Some winding valley, or some shady grove, Some blissful mansions in the realms above,