This gifted maid, in prayer to waste her hours,
And weep a fancied crime in cloister’d bowers?”
Oh, blind to fate! perhaps that fancied crime
Which bade her quit the world in youthful prime,
Snatch’d her from paths, where beauty, wealth, and fame
Had proved but snares to load her soul with shame,
And spared her pangs from wilful guilt which flow,
The only serious ills that man can know!
Ah! what avails it, since they ne’er can last,
If gay or sad our span of days be past?