WHEN from the craggy mountain's pathless steep,
Mary Darby Robinson
[As a Tribute of Esteem and Admiration this Poem is inscribed to ROBERT MERRY, Esq. A. M. Member of the Royal Academy at Florence, and Author of the Laurel of Liberty, and the Della Crusca Poems.]
THE knell of death, that on the twilight gale,
DEAR SHADE OF HIM, who grac'd the mimick scene,
NEAR yon bleak mountain's dizzy height,
"With female Fairies will thy tomb be haunted
Pavement slipp'ry, people sneezing,
"What is this world?thy school, O misery!
BEAUTY, the attribute of Heaven!
"Fate snatch'd him early to the pitying sky."
FLOW soft RIVER, gently stray,
Chill penury repress'd his noble rage,
EXULTING BEAUTY,phantom of an hour,
TERRIFIC FIEND! thou Monster fell,
PALE GODDESS of the witching hour;
O, let me seize thy pen sublime
SWEET BIRD OF SORROW! why complain
So bends beneath the storm yon balmy flow'r,
Dang'rous to hear, is that melodious tongue,
Farewell, ye coral caves, ye pearly sands,
While from the dizzy precipice I gaze,
Here droops the muse! while from her glowing mind,
Now, round my favor'd grot let roses rise,
Delusive Hope! more transient than the ray
Love steals unheeded o'er the tranquil mind,
Why art thou chang'd? O Phaon! tell me why?
Wild is the foaming Sea! The surges roar!
To AEtna's scorching sands my Phaon flies!
Farewell, ye tow'ring Cedars, in whose shade,
Can'st thou forget, O! Idol of my Soul!
Where antique woods o'er-hang the mountains's crest,
Oh! ye bright Stars! that on the Ebon fields
Weak is the sophistry, and vain the art
O'er the tall cliff that bounds the billowy main
Blest as the Gods! Sicilian Maid is he,
I wake! delusive phantoms hence, away!
Venus! to thee, the Lesbian Muse shall sing,
Prepare your wreaths, Aonian maids divine,
What means the mist opaque that veils these eyes;
When, in the gloomy mansion of the dead,
Oh Sigh! thou steal'st, the herald of the breast,
'TIS NOT thy flowing hair of orient gold,
WHEN fragrant gales and summer show'rs
AH! think no more that Life's delusive joys,
SWEET PICTURE of Life's chequer'd hour!
"HERE POPE FIRST SUNG!" O, hallow'd Tree !
LOVE, I renounce thy tyrant sway,
UPON a garden's perfum'd bed
Who dwelt in yonder lonely Cot,
Upon a lonely desart Beach
A farmer's wife, both young and gay,
O TIME, forgive the mournful song
A Shepherd's Dog there was; and he
Close on the margin of a brawling brook