DACRE.
The eyes, the
arms, the hands, the feet, the face,
Which made my thoughts and
words so warm and wild,
That I was almost from myself
exiled,
And render’d strange
to all the human race;
The lucid locks that curl’d
in golden grace,
The lightening beam that,
when my angel smiled,
Diffused o’er earth
an Eden heavenly mild;
What are they now? Dust,
lifeless dust, alas!
And I live on, a melancholy
slave,
Toss’d by the tempest
in a shatter’d bark,
Reft of the lovely light that
cheer’d the wave.
The flame of genius, too,
extinct and dark,
Here let my lays of love conclusion
have;
Mute be the lyre: tears
best my sorrows mark.
MOREHEAD.
Those eyes whose
living lustre shed the heat
Of bright meridian day; the
heavenly mould
Of that angelic form; the
hands, the feet,
The taper arms, the crisped
locks of gold;
Charms that the sweets of
paradise enfold;
The radiant lightning of her
angel-smile,
And every grace that could
the sense beguile
Are now a pile of ashes, deadly
cold!
And yet I bear to drag this
cumbrous chain,
That weighs my soul to earth—to
bliss or pain
Alike insensible:—her
anchor lost,
The frail dismantled bark,
all tempest-toss’d,
Surveys no port of comfort—closed
the scene
Of life’s delusive joys;—and
dry the Muse’s vein.
WOODHOUSELEE.
Those eyes, sweet
subject of my rapturous strain!
The arms, the hands, the feet,
that lovely face,
By which I from myself divided
was,
And parted from the vulgar
and the vain;
Those crisped locks, pure
gold unknown to stain!
Of that angelic smile the
lightening grace,
Which wont to make this earth
a heavenly place!
Dissolved to senseless ashes
now remain!
And yet I live, to endless
grief a prey,
’Reft of that star,
my loved, my certain guide,
Disarm’d my bark, while
tempests round me blow!
Stop, then, my verse—dry
is the fountain’s tide.
That fed my genius! Cease,
my amorous lay!
Changed is my lyre, attuned
to endless woe!
CHARLEMONT.
SONNET XXV.
S’ io avessi pensato che si care.
HIS POEMS WERE WRITTEN ONLY TO SOOTHE HIS OWN GRIEF: OTHERWISE HE WOULD HAVE LABOURED TO MAKE THEM MORE DESERVING OF THE FAME THEY HAVE ACQUIRED.
Had I e’er
thought that to the world so dear
The echo of my sighs would
be in rhyme,
I would have made them in
my sorrow’s prime
Rarer in style, in number
more appear.
Since she is dead my muse
who prompted here,
First in my thoughts and feelings
at all time,
All power is lost of tender
or sublime
My rough dark verse to render