TO AMANDA.
From me, dear maid, one faithful verse receive,
The last sad offering that a wretch can give;
Warm from that heart, decreed by heaven to prove,
The sad experience of too great a love.
When first, Amanda, with your friendship blest,
Your form too lovely, all my soul possest;
Tho’ sweet the hours, how swift the minutes flew,
While pleas’d I sat and fondly gaz’d on you.
Ah! how I listen’d when your silence broke,
And kiss’d the air which trembled as you spoke;
Did you not, dearest, see my fond distress,
Beyond all power of language to express?
Did not my soul betray the young disease,
The soften’d look, the tender wish to please?
To sooth your cares, when all in vain I strove,
Did not each action speak increase of love?
’Tis done! but ah, how wretched must I be,
That lovely bosom heaves no sigh for me;
For me, that heart with no warm passion glows,
Nor my Amanda one soft word bestows:
But could she see the anguish of my heart,
And view the tumults that her charms impart;
Could she but read the sorrows of my mind,
She sure would pity, for she must be kind.
Ah! what avails, dear maid, to souls like mine,
That gen’rous friendship is your sweet design?
The pleasing thought with rapture I pursue,
It must be lovely, for it comes from you.
But oh! how vain is friendship to repress
The soul-felt pang of exquisite distress.
How small the balm, by friendship you impart,
To the sharp tortures of th’ impassion’d heart.
What tender wish, for you alone to live,
Could once each dear deluding moment give?
When every look, bewitching as ’twas fair,
Seiz’d all my heart, and play’d the tyrant there.
How did those eyes with soften’d lustre shine,
Thought unexpress’d, and sympathy divine?
While still the hope within my bosom grew;
Vain hope!——to live for happiness and you.
Some swain more blest has taught thy breast to glow,
But who can soothe the wretched Arouet’s woe?
Ah! think not absence can afford a cure,
To the sharp woes, the sorrows I endure:
Amanda, no! ’twill but augment distress
To such a height no mortal can express.
My soul, distracted, still is fix’d on you;
Was ever heart so wretched and so true!
Oh! say, shall selfish love my bosom fire?
Shall you reluctant meet my fond desire?
If that dear heart has vow’d eternal truth,
To some blest swain, some more engaging youth;
Forgive the thought, dear angel of my breast,
I must be wretched; O! may you be blest.
Yes, may the youth to whom you prove more kind,
Know the rich treasures of that lovely mind:
May he be fond, and may no cloud o’ercast
The virtuous passion, born to ever last.
But though his love in every act may shine,
Yet know, sweet maid, it cannot be like mine:
Your image never can from me depart;
Fixt in my soul, and written on my heart.
For the New-York Weekly Magazine.