Can Gayety the vanish'd years restore,
Or on the withering limbs fresh beauty shed,
Or soothe the sad inevitable hour,
Or cheer the dark, dark mansions of the dead?
Still sounds the solemn knell in fancy's ear,
That call'd Eliza to the silent tomb;
To her how jocund roll'd the sprightly year!
How shone the nymph in beauty's brightest bloom!
Ah! Beauty's bloom avails not in the grave,
Youth's lofty mien, nor age's awful grace;
Moulder alike unknown the prince and slave,
Whelm'd in th' enormous wreck of human race.
The thought-fix'd portraiture, the breathing bust,
The arch with proud memorials array'd,
The long-liv'd pyramid shall sink in dust
To dumb oblivion's ever-desert shade.
Fancy from joy still wanders far astray.
Ah, Melancholy! how I feel thy power!
Long have I labour'd to elude thy sway!
But 'tis enough, for I resist no more.
The traveller thus, that o'er the midnight-waste
Through many a lonesome path is doom'd to roam,
Wilder'd and weary sits him down at last;
For long the night, and distant far his home.
[1] Such, according to Plutarch, was the scene of Brutus's death.