Ah! can’st thou say contemptuously I smiled
When thou, with flashing eye and vehemence wild,
Solemn did’st urge that I would bend no more
My steps to LYDIA’s interdicted door?—
Smile!—yes, I might, but no contemptuous air
Breath’d hated insult on my angry fair;
Well might I smile, that dread of LYDIA’s charms
Thy dear, tumultuous, jealous heart alarms!
LYDIA thy rival!—O resistless power
Of that momentous, consecrated hour,
When in thy soften’d eye’s seducing gaze
I read the transports of my future days,
Can its remembrance, all my soul that fires,
E’en in thy absence kindling fierce desires,
Permit a momentary wish to prove
The base apostacy of grov’ling love?
As soon my wandering steps should desperate roam
Far from these blooming shades, my youth’s loved home,
Where winding vallies wave in golden pride,
Thro’ tufted banks, where glassy rivers glide;
Where fleecy flocks the green hill’s side adorn,
Gay linnets warbling from the blossom’d thorn,
And each wide mead, and little sloping field
To numerous herds the silver’d herbage yield;
These would I leave, as soon, for some rude shore,
Vex’d by the stormy sea’s incessant roar;
Or seek the clime, whose frowning aspect shocks,
Where arid heaths stretch lonely o’er the rocks,
And but one narrow stream’s chill waters pour,
In straight blue line, along the russet moor,
Or, at the foot of mountains, bare and pale,
Obliquely huddles down the stony vale;
While all the phantoms, which the desert haunt,
Danger, and Dread, and Misery, and Want,
In blank sterility’s abhorr’d domain,
With houseless solitude and silence reign.
Yet be my home such scene of dire alarms,
If e’er I seek thy rival’s meaner charms;
Nor must thou dream that aught of insult dwelt
In that spontaneous smile’s imputed guilt.
Contempt of thee!—O! never could it rise,
E’en in contending Beauty’s jealous eyes!
Thy sex’s envy may produce their hate
Of those eclipsing charms that round thee wait;
Man’s selfish pride, for daring to reprove,
With undissembled scorn, presumptuous love;
But none were ever, for an instant, free
From insuppressive reverence of thee;
And could thy dear EVANDER’s lip reveal
What yet nor slighted love nor envy feel?—
The luckless smile, that did thy rage inspire,
Was anger, melting in enamour’d fire,
Beneath that childish frown upon thy brow,
And eager claim of a superfluous vow.
It was those ever-varying traits, combined,
Of face, of form, of temper, and of mind;
Those infant graces, with the ripen’d charms,
That full-blown youth in gay resplendence warms;
Yes, ’twas their fascinating union fired
My daring passion, which so high aspired;
Else had this heart, by calmer wishes sway’d,
To thy bright self a safer homage pay’d;
Awed by thy wit, thy birth, thy beauty’s rays,
Had view’d thy form with less tumultuous gaze.
But thou, infatuating foe of peace!
Thou dear, child-woman! by thy strange caprice,
Join’d to thy charms, thy talents proud controul,
And softness, stealing o’er my captive soul,
Hast left me no alternative to prove,
But death, or madness, if I lose thy love.
ELEGY.
EVANDER TO EMILLIA.
Thou say’st my love is reasonless, to spare
No glance, no smile, that ceremonies crave,
To Being masculine, ere yet he bear,
White on his brow, the blossoms of the grave.
I own the charge;—for ah! do I not know
The power of each bright glance, each lovely smile?
That dangerous transport, or that cureless woe,
Seizes the heart, their melting sweets beguile?
Thy early looks, thy early smiles on me
Shone unimpassion’d; no enamour’d ray
Shot thro’ my fever’d senses, to decree
Death, or possession, to the future day.
Yet so essential to my peace they grew,
All was delightless where they failed to flow,
Tho’ too serenely shining on my view
To bid one thought with rising passion glow.
Not then arisen the dazzling, magic light,
Which now for me the Summer’s sun adorns
With lustre, ah! so exquisitely bright,
That all the rays, gilding his splendid morns,
Robb’d of its effluence, seem to my sick soul,
Dim as the April dawn, with clouds begirt,
Clouds, that but catch, as thro’ the skies they roll,
One wat’ry gleam, to edge their dusky skirt.
“Unreasonable!”—alas! thou know’st not how,
How much unreasonable!—for O! ’tis more
Than yet rapacious passion durst avow,
Than love delirious ever knew before!—
Then, if thou would’st the balm of life should steal
Soft o’er my lids, when night’s dun sceptre sways;
That health’s warm beams disease’s mists repel
Through my or few, or many coming days,
Guard, towards all others, guard thy lips, thine eyes,
Cold be to them the hopes thy graces bring!
Thy glance,—the sun in winter’s icy skies,
Thy smile,—the first pale ray of tardy Spring! (j.)
EPISTLE.
EVANDER TO EMILLIA.
Yes, my EMILLIA, I can say with truth,
Had EMMA’s HENRY really stain’d his youth
With those dark crimes his jealousy assumed,
By murder branded, and to exile doom’d,
Passion sincere had forced him to dissuade
From sharing fate so dire, the noble maid;
Prompted each plea he urges to remove
The dread resolve of such disastrous love,
Short of the base reproach, the Cynic sneer,
And boasted fondness for a lovelier fair,
Closing the trial, needless and severe.
Too well I know thy heart, which fate inspires
With EMMA’s softness, ELOISA’s fires,
Has deem’d my rack’d affection’s guardian fear
To snatch thee, from thy calm, and sunny sphere,
Down to the clime, where clouds and whirlwinds spread,
A faithless scruple, and a coward dread;
That thou for me would’st every ill endure,
When, drear as Winter, as its tempests sure,
Reproach and penury, around us flow,
And quench our marriage torch in floods of woe.
Thou dar’st remind me, in a covert threat,
Of the proud scorn devoted HAMMOND met,
Who, when he own’d his terrors to involve
Her he adored in selfish love’s resolve,
Till the depriving frowns of Fate should cease,
And his walls glow with competence and peace,
Heard her impute to dull indifference’ power
The generous scruple of that ill-starr’d hour;
Saw her their long-twined bands of fondness tear,
Rush to another’s arms, and leave him to despair.
Me thou remindest of that cruel scorn,
Of female pride, and causeless vengeance born.
I feel the latent meaning most unkind,
And thee, injurious maid, in turn, remind,
That poor, forsaken, ruin’d HAMMOND died
The victim of his DELIA’s faithless pride.
And let thy rage, with fancied wrongs insane,
Steel every thought with DELIA’s proud disdain,
The instant thou shalt feel thy heart can bear
The doom congenial of my last despair;
Feel that remorse no pang’d regret shall raise,
To blast the quiet of thy future days. (j.)
ELEGY.
EVANDER TO EMILLIA.
Why dart those eyes their scornful fires on me?
What is my crime, unjust EMILLIA, say?—
Yes, I am guilty!—but no guilt towards thee
My conscious sighs, my starting tears betray.
This heart its thankless coldness should deplore,
Too beauteous despot, at an higher shrine,
Lost, as I seem, in life’s meridian hour,
To all created excellence but thine.
Yon gorgeous sun, no more my light by day,
For me the moon’s soft, shadowy shining vain;
Me, nor the rose delights, in bright array,
Me, nor the silver lily of the plain.
Before thy charms the blooming season fades,
A love delirious, with tyrannic sway,
Absorbs my every thought, my soul pervades,
Thy frown my darkness, and thy smile my day!
Then may injurious jealousy be driven
Far from thy heart, and all its peace return!
Instruct me to reform my crime to Heaven,
But love me dearer for the guilt I mourn! (j.)
EPISTLE.
EVANDER TO EMILLIA.
O! thou art absent, and resentment’s power
Forsakes EVANDER in this lonely hour;
His weak resolves dispersed, he sees not now
The angry knitting of thy scornful brow;
Forgets that its dear curves, by Nature made
Those beamy eyes to soften and to shade,
And graceful, in that kind assignment, look
As alders bending o’er the glassy brook,
To his afflicted sight so lately rose
Deform’d by fancied wrongs, and causeless woes.
Now present only to his mental sight
Those orbs, that roll in floods of dewy light,
Tempering beneath his gaze their dazzling ray,
Like bright stars waning at the dawn of day;
To his internal ear, from that sweet tongue,
No sounds less melting than the syren’s song,
Such, as in days long fled, resistless stole
Through every thrill’d perception of his soul;
Yes, only such, thy boundless power to prove,
Brings the recording spirit of his love.
ELEGY.
EVANDER TO EMILLIA.
I wish in vain!—too distant thou
To hear thy lover’s plaintive voice;
Enchantress, wert thou present now,
To urge his oft repeated vow,
Would’st thou his drooping soul rejoice?
Would’st thou extend thy snowy arms,
And clasp him to thy fragrant breast?
Sooth every dread that yet alarms
From cruel Fate’s impending harms,
And lull corroding cares to rest?
Blest recompense for years of pain!—
Come, Angel, come, with look benign,
Come to the heart, whose warm disdain
Would spurn a crown and regal train,
Opposed to one soft glance of thine!
But O! too oft Reflection arms
Against my peace, and sullen dwells
On my scant dole of all the charms,
Whose power eye-govern’d woman warms,
And her enamour’d wish impells.
I grudge thee then that auburn hair,
Which thy transparent brow adorns,
Thy thrilling smile, thy graceful air,
A voice, to soften stern despair,
A cheek, that shames the summer morns.
But O! much more than all, my heart
Breathes o’er those orbs its jealous sighs;
Those orbs, that rays of genius dart,
That love’s resistless powers impart,
Those smiling, chiding, fatal eyes.
EPISTLE.
EVANDER TO EMILLIA.
O! never did thy glowing pen bestow,
To sooth my soul’s inevitable woe,
So much by generous trusting faith inspired,
So much by ardent, banish’d love desired,
Free from the cold alloy of doubts and fears,
And all the sullying drops of jealous tears,
Since first our eyes those conscious glances cast,
That met dissolved and blended as they pass’d.
The precious tenderness these lines impart,
Falls on my sick, alarmed, and longing heart,
Like dews on flowers by sultry noon-beams dry,
Like balmy sleep on Labour’s closing eye.
But this long absence!—Countless are its pains,
Sprung from the thought, how fast our being wanes,
How scant its span!—that weeks and months must roll
Towards love, and life’s dark and avoidless goal,
Ere Time the ravish’d happiness restores
To pass together some of those few hours,
Forming the short, irrevocable day,
Which stays for none, and fleets so swift away.
ELEGY.
EVANDER TO EMILLIA.
EMILLIA’s, thou art far away,
And languid creep the vacant hours;
Yet, when the last mild evening chased,
With yellow light, the recent showers,
Their wonted path my slow steps found,
The green and shady lanes among,
That wind around the sylvan cot,
The cot with ivy curtains hung.
Soft setting sun-beams gently glanced
O’er the young leaves a sweet farewell;
But ah! to these delightless eyes
How vacant seem’d the bloomy cell
Tho’ gilded by that vernal light,
Tho’ linnets warbled in the gale,
A lone and wintry look it wore,
And silence seem’d to shroud the vale.
Thy little faithful dog I met,
Saw him the circling lanes explore,
Rush down the glades, then up the steps
Spring to thy closed and silent door;
With eager eye and plaintive whine,
Snuff thro’ each chink the passing air;
Ah! little wretch, I mournful cried,
Thy lovely mistress is not there!
Slowly he walk’d away, and hung
His sullen head,—and nothing cared
How oft I call’d to tempt his stay,
And sooth the peevish grief I shared.
He left me near the silent door,
No more half-open’d to thy friend
When dull the clouds of Evening lour,
And fast her heavy dews descend;
Or drizzling rains, that often weep,
When winds no longer bend the spray,
The moist and early vanish’d sun,
That shrinks from April’s wayward day.
Now, in that little hall’s dear grate,
No social embers glow the while,
To us so kindly to disclose
The mutual glance, the tender smile.
Protecting walls!—asylum blest,
From every influence unkind!
The rigour of inclement skies,
The rigour of th’ unfeeling mind;
From Pride and Avarice’ taunting sneer,
Authority’s yet dreaded frown,
Whose chidings loud the gentle voice
Of Love’s persuasive pleadings drown.
That sylvan cottage is thine own,
A tender mother’s kind bequest;
Far from thy haughty father’s power,
’Twill give us shelter, food, and rest.
Till that was thine, thou know’st full well
I pleaded ’gainst my self to thee,
Opposing thy too generous love,
Which dared the last distress for me.
But now, that shelter, food, and rest,
May meet us in this ivy bower,
Come to these faithful longing arms,
And scorn the curbs of Pride and Power!
The busy bustling haunts of men,
Thy lover shall for thee resign;
For us the Winter’s hearth shall glow,
For us the Summer sun will shine.
The great ones court thee for their bride;
With thee, in ceremonial glare,
They would the pomps of life divide,
For that the world proclaims thee fair.
Ah! it is vanity, not love,
That bids them prize thy matchless charms;
But love alone, and love like mine,
Deserves the heaven of those soft arms.
But can that tender yielding soul
Its generous warfare long maintain,
Defy constraint, and haste to seek
The shelter of these arms again?
O yes! while Memory’s power remains,
Her glowing images shall prove,
In thy dear breast, the constant guards,
When Force would disunite our love.
ELEGY.
EVANDER TO EMILLIA.
Wild florets tremble o’er the shadow’d stream,
Low in the winding, and irriguous vale,
While, blazing at high noon, the solar beam
Flames on the mountain top, and fires the gale.
Here, then, in silence, through the summer day,
Glide, bright with hope, enamour’d hours away.
For now my love-devoted soul at rest,
Hails all the lonely graces of the scene;
Hails them in soft, confiding fondness blest,
And leaves Ambition to her anxious spleen.
Her pomps, her triumphs, disregarded shine,
While fair EMILLIA’s melting heart is mine.
Would I this lock of my EMILLIA’s hair,
Floating in golden threads upon the breeze,
Resign for all Ambition’s votaries wear,
For all they pine to see a rival seize?
Ah, no! dear pledge of Love and Hope, that pour
Their precious essence on this rosy hour!
Fate will restore thee, angel, kind and bright
As Spring’s gay morning on the troubled sea,
That heaved and surged thro’ the long, stormy night,
Like my tumultuous soul when far from thee,
By thy vain doubts disturb’d and jealous throes,
Darkening our perils by superfluous woes.
The clouds disperse! our long-disastrous love,
Trembling beneath pale Ruin’s hovering wings,
Emerges from their shade!—O! may it prove
No meteor-fire, that now before us springs,
But a mild pole-star to the dear retreat,
Where Peace and Competence our steps shall greet.
O! to gaze on thee all the summer’s day,
Hear thy sweet accents charm the winter eve,
And through the hours of slumber’s stealing sway
Thy balmy breathings on my cheek perceive!
What full reward for every woe, that shed
Gloom on th’ impassion’d years, irrevocably fled! (j.)
EVANDER to EMILLIA.
’Tis o’er!—the bright star like a meteor fire,
An instant shone, then vanish’d from our sight!
Fierce, in unbaffled rule, paternal ire
Quenches its beams in everlasting night.
With guardian care a dying mother strove
To shield from penury resistless love;
But that kind care a father’s proud disdain
Meets with derision’s smile, and sternly proves it vain.
O! pitiless of spirit!—but away,
Ye weak complaints, ye unavailing groans!
Now, stung by Disappointment’s madd’ning sway,
Scruples, and fears, my desperate love disowns.
Oft did they wound thee;—I abjure their crimes!
Extinct all hope of more propitious times,
Long years of wasted youth elapsed I see,
And former terrors curse—e’en tho’ they throbb’d for thee.
Her hovering ghost, whose violated boon
Sought from the scourge of power our loves to save,
Shall see us meet,—now,—in this night’s pale noon,
And lock our hands across her sacred grave.
There thy decisive vows my soul shall claim;
By the last silence of her mouldering frame,
By Death’s dark shrines and unresisted power,
That only his dread stroke shall e’er divide us more.
Still can EMILLIA’s heart, like mine, desire?
Then Fate in vain may spread her direst loom;
Nor yet, if Persecution light her pyre,
Shall its fierce flames our destin’d joys consume.
A robe of pure asbestos we can wear,
And while the raging fires around us glare,
With arms entwined our solemn steps shall move,
Safe in the shielding garb, supplied by faithful love.
All that affrights the prosperous and the vain,
Reproach, with taunting lip, and scornful brow,
And shuddering penury, and fever’d pain,
To blast the powers of life, the spirit bow;
The bed of death, the dim funereal gloom,
A timeless pall, an unlamented doom,
Clasp’d in each other’s arms, be firmly scorn’d,
Nor ought of wealth and pride, for love renounced, be mourn’d!
Then shall I gaze on my EMILLIA’s form
Through the long summer’s day and winter’s night;
Her smile my sun, her frown my only storm,
Her health and love, my sources of delight;
Her grave, my quiet bed of lasting rest,
Where power, and hate, no longer shall molest,
Reproach and penury no more dismay,
While undivided sleeps our earthly-hapless clay.