Classic Poem

The pale-ey'd moon serenes the silent hour,
And many a star adorns the clear blue sky;
While pleas'd I view this desolated tow'r
That rears it's time-struck tott'ring top so high.

Here was the garden, there the festive hall,
This the broad entry, that the crowded street;
The task how pleasant to repair it's fall,
And ev'ry stone arrange in order meet!

The scheme is finish'd; — ages backward roll'd
And all it's former majesty restor'd: —
Imagination hastens to unfold
The pomp, the pleasures of it's long-lost lord.

The voice of music echoes thro' the dome,
The jocund rev'llers beat the bending floor;
In golden goblets generous liquors foam,
And mirth, loud-laughing, wings the rapid hour.

As fancy brightens, other scenes are seen;
No privacy can 'scape her eagle eye;
She follows lovers to the midnight green,
And throws a glory round them as they ly.

But mark the change! — the music swells no more,
And all the dome another prospect wears;
It's master's blood distains the festive floor,
And mirth, loud-laughing, faddens into tears.

O, how unlike that gentle swain, who prest
His yielding mistress on the midnight green!
The lover now, in weeds of warriors drest,
Destruction threat'ning in his furious mien.

Unmov'd, he fees him murder'd in his prime,
And wipes the blood red-reeking on his sword;
His savage mistress hails the horrid crime,
And spurns the carcase of her late lov'd lord.

But not unpunish'd is the guilty pair,
Imagination hurries on their end;
Behold the lifted faulchion's deadly glare!
Now purple vengeance hastens to descend.

That stroke became thee! — pious was the deed;
So much an hapless brother's blood requir'd;
In vain let youth, in vain let beauty plead;
They pled for him, but pled, alas! unheard.

Still, still unweary'd, restless fancy roams,
On swelling waves of wild vagary tost,
Calls sheeted spectres from the op'ning tombs,
And fills the tow'r with many a grisly ghost.

Pensive they stalk in melancholy state,
And to pale C YNTHIA bare their gaping wounds;
While many a heapy ruin's moss-clad height,
In hollow murmurs all their woes resounds.

But whence that mournfully melodious song,
That voice of elegy so sadly slow?
The certain symptom of a mortal moan;
The dismal utt'rance of an earthly woe.

Haply, some plaintive solitary wretch,
The thread-bare mourner of a thread bare tale;
Who nightly does the lunar radiance watch,
And join the howlet in his weary wail.

Grieving he sees the ravages of time,
The fleeting nature of terrestrial things. —
— In vain the stately palace tow'rs sublime,
— Low lie the labour'd monuments of kings.

— Where is the darling seat of scepter'd pride,
— Proud B ABYLON , with all her brazen gates;
— No pensile gardens grace the dreary void;
— There dens the dragon, with his scaly mates.

— Where the magnificence of G RECIAN fanes?
— No more the story'd pyramids we see:
— An heap of stones is all that now remains;
— 'Tis all they are, and all V ERSAILLES shall be!

— Where the fam'd structures of imperial R OME ?
— C Ã?SAREAN theatres to contain a world?
— All, all are buried in one mighty tomb,
— All in one gulf of desolation hurl'd! —

Happy, if this should prove his only woe!
The death of theatres scarce could break my rest;
From other causes all my sorrows flow,
Far other troubles tear my bleeding breast.

From love, from love, my nightly wand'ring springs!
No slumber settles on my grief-worn eye;
Else, not the ruin'd monuments of kings
Could tempt my steps below the midnight sky.