Elegy: What have I done, what crime in me is found

What have I done, what crime in me is found,
What secret evil lurking in my breast,
That while all Nature else is smiling round,
Heaven has on me it's heaviest stroke impress'd?

Have I e'er dropp'd a wish of other's harm?
Or done an ill tho ne'er to be reveal'd?
Have I not always breath'd th' emotion warm
On the chaste lip of Social Virtue seal'd?

Ah! is it not enough that far away
From my own native happy fields I rove,
Far from each friendly name condemn'd to stray,
And torn by cruel force from her I love.

But must thro her the barbed steel be sent,
Which piercing, with severest torture wounds?
Shall she I love convey the punishment
Which Justice must confess exceeds its bounds?

On me rain all your woes, ye righteous Powers!
Though hard, I'll strive the misery to bear;
View Sickness steal away my lingering hours
On tainted wing, nor drop a pining tear:

But, ah! the gentle Virgin's tender frame—
O Bright-hair'd Chastity! O Angel Truth!
If ye are aught beyond an empty name,
Save, save in pity Innocence and Youth.

Shield, shield me from the racking thought! I spy
From her cold cheeks the bland suffusion fled,
Dead is the piercing magick of her eye,
The lustre-darting beam of sense is dead.

She calls on me.—Oh, snatch the last embrace
Woods, rivers, mountains, countries intervene;
Oh curse of curses! ne'er that lovely face
Again shall I behold; e'en the last scene

Some dreary satisfaction might afford,
Some solace to the madness of Despair,
Gloating in secret on his gloomy hoard,
With eye intorted viewing what is there.