Classic Poem

BY THE SAME .

'T WAS when pale Cynthia, empress of the night,
Shot through the trees her beams of silver light,
The mournful Thyrsis o'er Eliza's tomb,
With heartfelt sighs, mourn'd her untimely doom.
Dear, sacred, dust, he cry'd, this grave contains,
The cause of all my pleasures, all my pains;
Ne'er did my soul from fond Eliza rove,
My thoughts were all possess'd by her and love;
Oh! could my tears the lovely charmer save,
How would these briny torrents wash her grave!
But, ah! what tears, what sorrows, can restore
The beauteous form we must behold no more;
For, now the streams in mournful murmurs creep,
The fading blossoms all appear to weep;
The feather'd warblers, on the leafy spray,
Forget the sonnet, and the love-tun'd lay;
Within these shades, for ever could I rove,
Or dwell in silence in this gloomy grove;
For, ah! what earthly treasure half so dear
As she that sleeps in mournful silence here!
But midnight now assum'd her sable veil,
And love-lorn Thyrsis ceas'd his tender tale;
Dull Morpheus softens all his anxious woes,
And sinks his sorrows into soft repose.