There liv’d a chief, well known to fame,
  A bold advent’rous knight;
Renown’d for victory; his name
  In glory’s annals bright.

What time in martial pomp he led
  His gallant, chosen train;
The foe, who oft had conquer’d, fled,
  Indignant fled, the plain.

Yet milder virtues he possest,
  And gentler passions felt;
For in his calm and yielding breast
  The soft affections dwelt.

No rugged toils the heart could steel,
  By nature form’d to prove
Whate’er the tender mind can feel,
  In friendship, or in love.

He lost the partner of his breast,
  Who sooth’d each rising care;
And ever charm’d the pains to rest
  She ever lov’d to share.

From solitude he hop’d relief. 
  And this lone mansion sought,
To cherish there his faithful grief,
  To nurse the tender thought.

There, to his bosom fondly dear,
  An infant daughter smil’d,
And oft the mourner’s falling tear
  Bedew’d his Emma’s child.

The tear, as o’er the babe he hung,
  Would tremble in his eye;
While blessings, falt’ring on his tongue,
  Were breath’d but in a sigh.

Tho’ time could never heal the wound,
  It sooth’d the hopeless pain;
And in his child he thought he found
  His Emma liv’d again.

Soft, as the dews of morn arise,
  And on the pale flower gleam;
So soft Eltruda’s melting eyes
  With love and pity beam.

As drest in charms, the lonely flower
  Smiles in the desert vale;
With beauty gilds the morning hour,
  And scents the evening gale;

So liv’d in solitude, unseen,
  This lovely, peerless maid;
So grac’d the wild, sequester’d scene,
  And blossom’d in the shade.

Yet love could pierce the lone recess,
  For there he likes to dwell;
To leave the noisy crowd, and bless
  With happiness the cell.

To wing his sure resistless dart,
  Where all its force is known;
And rule the undivided heart
  Despotic, and alone.

Young Edwin charm’d her gentle breast,
  Tho’ scanty all his store;
No hoarded treasures he possest,
  Yet he could boast of more.

For he could boast the lib’ral heart;
  And honour, sense, and truth,
Unwarp’d by vanity or art,
  Adorn’d the gen’rous youth.

The maxims of a servile age,
  The mean, the selfish care,
The sordid views, that now engage
  The mercenary pair;

Whom riches can unite, or part,
  To them were still unknown;
For then the sympathetic heart
  Was join’d by love alone.

They little knew, that wealth had power
  To make the constant rove;
They little knew the weighty dower
  Could add one bliss to love.

Her virtues every charm improv’d,
  Or made those charms more dear;
For surely virtue to be lov’d
  Has only to appear.