Be mine, whilst journeying life's rough road along
O'er hill and dale the wandering bard shall go,
To hail the hour of pleasure with the song,
Or soothe with sorrowing strains the hour of woe;
The song each passing moment shall beguile,
Perchance too, partial friendship deigns to smile,
Let fame reject the lay, I sleep secure the while.
Be mine to taste the humbler joys of life,
Lull'd in oblivion's lap to wear away,
And flee from grandeur's scenes of vice and strife,
And flee from fickle fashion's empty sway:
Be mine, in age's drooping hour, to see
The lisping children climb their grandsire's knee,
And train the future race to live and act like me.
Then, when the inexorable hour shall come
To tell my death, let no deep requiem toll,
No hireling sexton dig the venal tomb,
Nor priest be paid to hymn my parted soul;
But let my children, near their little cot,
Lay my old bones beneath the turfy spot:
So let me live unknown, so let me die forgot.
BION.
ROSAMUND TO HENRY.
WRITTEN AFTER SHE HAD TAKEN THE VEIL.
Henry, 'tis past! each painful effort o'er,
Thy love, thy Rosamund, exists no more:
She lives, but lives no longer now for you;
She writes, but writes to bid the last adieu.
Why bursts the big tear from my guilty eye?
Why heaves my love-lorn breast the impious sigh?
Down, bosom! down, and learn to heave in prayer;
Flow, flow, my tears, and wash away despair:
Ah, no! still, still the lurking sin I see,
My heart will heave, my tears will fall for thee.
Yes, Henry! through the vestal's guilty veins,
With burning sway the furious passion reigns;
For thee, seducer, still the tear will fall,
And Love torment in Godstow's hallow'd wall.
Yet virtue from her deathlike sleep awakes,
Remorse comes on, and rears her whip of snakes.
Ah, Henry! fled are all those fatal charms
That led their victim to the monarch's arms;
No more responsive to the evening air
In wanton ringlets waves my golden hair;
No more amid the dance my footsteps move,
No more the languid eye dissolves with love;
Fades on the cheek of Rosamund the rose,
And penitence awakes from sin's repose.
Harlot! adultress! Henry! can I bear
Such aggravated guilt, such full despair!
By me the marriage-bed defil'd, by me
The laws of heaven forsook, defied for thee!
Dishonour fix'd on Clifford's ancient name,
A father sinking to the grave with shame;
These are the crimes that harrow up my heart,
These are the crimes that poison memory's dart;
For these each pang of penitence I prove,
Yet these, and more than these, are lost in love.