ON A LATE CONNUBIAL RUPTURE.
I sigh, fair injur’d stranger! for thy fate;
But what shall sighs avail thee? thy poor heart,
’Mid all the “pomp and circumstance” of state,
Shivers in nakedness. Unbidden, start
Sad recollections of Hope’s garish dream,
That shap’d a seraph form, and nam’d it Love,
Its hues gay-varying, as the orient beam
Varies the neck of Cytherea’s dove.
To one soft accent of domestic joy,
Poor are the shouts that shake the high-arch’d dome;
Those plaudits, that thy public path annoy,
Alas! they tell thee---Thou’rt a wretch at home!
O then retire, and weep! Their very woes
Solace the guiltless. Drop the pearly flood
On thy sweet infant, as the FULL-BLOWN rose,
Surcharg’d with dew, bends o’er its neighb’ring BUD.
And ah! that Truth some holy spell might lend
To lure thy wanderer from the syren’s power;
Then bid your souls inseparably blend,
Like two bright dew-drops meeting in a flower.