NOTE: 4.—St. Irvyne’s Tower: Song, 1810.
5.—BEREAVEMENT.
1.
How stern are the woes of the desolate mourner,
As he bends in still grief o’er the hallowed bier,
As enanguished he turns from the laugh of the scorner,
And drops, to Perfection’s remembrance, a tear;
When floods of despair down his pale cheek are streaming, _5
When no blissful hope on his bosom is beaming,
Or, if lulled for awhile, soon he starts from his dreaming,
And finds torn the soft ties to affection so dear.
2.
Ah! when shall day dawn on the night of the grave,
Or summer succeed to the winter of death? _10
Rest awhile, hapless victim, and Heaven will save
The spirit, that faded away with the breath.
Eternity points in its amaranth bower,
Where no clouds of fate o’er the sweet prospect lower,
Unspeakable pleasure, of goodness the dower, _15
When woe fades away like the mist of the heath.
NOTE: 5.—Bereavement: Song, 1811.
6.—THE DROWNED LOVER.
1.
Ah! faint are her limbs, and her footstep is weary,
Yet far must the desolate wanderer roam;
Though the tempest is stern, and the mountain is dreary,
She must quit at deep midnight her pitiless home.
I see her swift foot dash the dew from the whortle, _5
As she rapidly hastes to the green grove of myrtle;
And I hear, as she wraps round her figure the kirtle,
‘Stay thy boat on the lake,—dearest Henry, I come.’
2.
High swelled in her bosom the throb of affection,
As lightly her form bounded over the lea, _10
And arose in her mind every dear recollection;
‘I come, dearest Henry, and wait but for thee.’
How sad, when dear hope every sorrow is soothing,
When sympathy’s swell the soft bosom is moving,
And the mind the mild joys of affection is proving, _15
Is the stern voice of fate that bids happiness flee!
3.
Oh! dark lowered the clouds on that horrible eve,
And the moon dimly gleamed through the tempested air;
Oh! how could fond visions such softness deceive?
Oh! how could false hope rend, a bosom so fair? _20
Thy love’s pallid corse the wild surges are laving,
O’er his form the fierce swell of the tempest is raving;
But, fear not, parting spirit; thy goodness is saving,
In eternity’s bowers, a seat for thee there.
6.—The Drowned Lover: Song. 1811; The Lake-Storm, Rossetti, 1870.