[eq] Where rise my native city's towers.—[MS.]
[er] I had, and though but one—a friend!—[MS.]
[es]
I have no heart to love him now
And 'tis but to declare my end.—[ms]
[et]
But now Remembrance murmurs o'er
Of all our early youth had been—
In pain, I now had turned aside
To bless his memory ere I died,
But Heaven would mark the vain essay,
If Guilt should for the guiltless fray—
I do not ask him not to blame—
Too gentle he to wound my name—
I do not ask him not to mourn,
For such request might sound like scorn—
And what like Friendship's manly tear
So well can grace a brother's bier?
But bear this ring he gave of old,
And tell him—what thou didst behold—
The withered frame—the ruined mind,
The wreck that Passion leaves behind—
The shrivelled and discoloured leaf
Seared by the Autumn blast of Grief.—[MS., First Copy.]
[eu] Nay—kneel not, father, rise—despair.—[MS.]