In vain I look around
O'er all the well-known ground,
My Lucy's wonted footsteps to descry;
Where oft we used to walk,
Where oft in tender talk
We saw the summer sun go down the sky;
Nor by yon fountain's side,
Nor where its waters glide
Along the valley, can she now be found:
In all the wide-stretched prospect's ample bound
No more my mournful eye
Can aught of her espy,
But the sad sacred earth where her dear relics lie.
* * * * *
Sweet babes, who, like the little playful fawns,
Were wont to trip along these verdant lawns
By your delighted mother's side:
Who now your infant steps shall guide?
Ah! where is now the hand whose tender care
To every virtue would have formed your youth,
And strewed with flowers the thorny ways of truth?
O loss beyond repair!
O wretched father! left alone,
To weep their dire misfortune and thy own:
How shall thy weakened mind, oppressed with woe,
And drooping o'er thy Lucy's grave,
Perform the duties that you doubly owe!
Now she, alas! is gone,
From folly and from vice their helpless age to save?
* * * * *
O best of wives! O dearer far to me
Than when thy virgin charms
Were yielded to my arms:
How can my soul endure the loss of thee?
How in the world, to me a desert grown,
Abandoned and alone,
Without my sweet companion can I live?
Without thy lovely smile,
The dear reward of every virtuous toil,
What pleasures now can palled ambition give?
Even the delightful sense of well-earned praise,
Unshared by thee, no more my lifeless thoughts could raise.
For my distracted mind
What succour can I find?
On whom for consolation shall I call?
Support me, every friend;
Your kind assistance lend,
To bear the weight of this oppressive woe.
Alas! each friend of mine,
My dear departed love, so much was thine,
That none has any comfort to bestow.
My books, the best relief
In every other grief,
Are now with your idea saddened all:
Each favourite author we together read
My tortured memory wounds, and speaks of Lucy dead.
We were the happiest pair of human kind;
The rolling year its varying course performed,
And back returned again;
Another and another smiling came,
And saw our happiness unchanged remain:
Still in her golden chain
Harmonious concord did our wishes bind:
Our studies, pleasures, taste, the same.
O fatal, fatal stroke,
That all this pleasing fabric love had raised
Of rare felicity,
On which even wanton vice with envy gazed,
And every scheme of bliss our hearts had formed,
With soothing hope, for many a future day,
In one sad moment broke!—
Yet, O my soul, thy rising murmurs stay;
Nor dare the all-wise Disposer to arraign,
Or against his supreme decree
With impious grief complain;
That all thy full-blown joys at once should fade,
Was his most righteous will—and be that will obeyed.
JOHN CUNNINGHAM.
We know very little of the history of this pleasing poet. He was born in 1729, the son of a wine-cooper in Dublin. At the age of seventeen he wrote a farce; entitled 'Love in a Mist,' and shortly after came to Britain as an actor. He was for a long time a performer in Digges' company in Edinburgh, and subsequently resided in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Here he seems to have fallen into distressed circumstances, and was supported by a benevolent printer, at whose house he died in 1773. His poetry is distinguished by a charming simplicity. This characterises 'Kate of Aberdeen,' given below, and also his 'Content: a Pastoral,' in which he says allegorically—
'Her air was so modest, her aspect so meek,
So simple yet sweet were her charms!
I kissed the ripe roses that glowed on her cheek,
And locked the dear maid in my arms.