Classic Poem

While sad I stray in solitary grief,
Where wild woods thicken, and where waters flow;
No hope prophetic ministers relief,
Nor thought presaging mitigates my woe.

The dismal prospect thick'ning ills deform,
Black, and more black, each coming day appears;
Remov'd from shelter, I expect the storm,
And wait the period of deceitful years.

Soon may it come:—and, O, may M IRA soon
Forget the pleasures she has left behind!
All that at first her virgin graces won,
And all that since engag'd her youthful mind.

What is A LEXIS ? what his boasted love,
The banks of Maiden , and the vales around?
But a fair blossom in the dreamer's grove,
That sudden sinks, and never more is found.

Yes, yes, dear maid! the happiness of youth
Is but the rev'ry of a real dream;
We catch delusions in the guise of truth;
A lover's raptures are not what they seem.

But yet a little, and the eye of age
Dissolves the phantoms to their native air;
A new creation opens on the sage,
Another passion, and another fair.

Forgive my weakness, for 'tis surely weak,
To teach, and yet despise the prudent part;
I feel, alas! I feel it as I speak;
This is a language foreign to my heart.

Her rigid lecture reason reads in vain,
Cold are her precepts, and her comforts cold;
I would not barter povërty and pain
For C LODIO 's wisdom, or for F LORIO 's gold.

One only boon is all I ask of thee;
When in the mansion of the peaceful plac'd,
O, do not shed one precious tear for me,
But let my sorrows in oblivion rest!

As in the bosom of unwater'd wilds
A lowly lily languishes unseen,
And soon to drought, unknown, unnoted, yields,
Leaving no traces that it once had been.