Elegy, addressed to Cornet V----

Ere yet thou seek’st Ierne’s jocund shore,
Pensive I wave this tributary lay;
Confess thy Julia must the fate deplore,
That soon shall lead thee o’er the wat’ry way.

Tinged with no blush, she boasts herself thy friend,
That gentle name, from dangerous wishes free!
Yet will no merit from the boast pretend,
For who, who would not be the friend of thee?

While youth and bloom, and dignity combine,
All that can interest, all that can adorn,
To manly grace attempering softness join,
Life’s noon-tide lustres in her orient morn.

The lights of intellect around thee thrown,
Thy modest virtues every where the theme!--
Strange, if the coldest maid should blush to own
Desert so high awakes her owed esteem.

Love’s fairy visions for a while are gay,
A little, little while, when they are new,
But soon the sweet enchantment fades away,
Transient as summer morn’s exhaling dew.

Ah, then approach a throng of secret woes,
To faithless hope the varied pang succeeds;
The thorny pillow banishes repose;
The wounded heart inevitably bleeds.

Yes, bleed it must, and bleed at every vein,
When the pale brood, of Disappointment born,
Attendants oft on Love’s tyrannic reign,
Teach the lost maid her living death to mourn.

If my presaging soul aright divine,
Such the sad lot I am ordain’d to prove,
Should I, rash votary at that dangerous shrine,
Receive the rose-deck’d chains of guileful love!

No wreaths of amaranth he weaves for me,
Then guarded rise my gay, my youthful hours!
Calm be my thoughts, my artless bosom free
From the sharp thorns of transitory flowers!

But, happier amity, pervade my breast,
With tranquil empire, thro’ these vernal years,
While, in Horatio’s trusting friendship blest,
Mine his prosperity, and mine his cares.

This sympathizing heart implores the task
To sooth thee, drooping in thy native clime;
Give then the precious confidence I ask,
The tender records of the vanish’d time!

My pitying spirit shall partake thy pains,
And griefs divided lose their power to blight;
Watch the lone sigh, that steals to Gallia’s plains,
Where Beauty mourns thy much unwilling flight.

Ah! pale no more thy star of love should gleam,
Could my soul’s wishes its soft orb command,
But point in purest light each languid beam,
And on the azure zenith shining stand.

O! may unblemish’d Honour guard thy fame,
And plumy Conquest triumph on thy sword;
Thine be each meed the milder virtues claim,
Health, Peace, and Plenty, hand-maids of thy board!

When ardent Youth, and rosy Love are flown,
O! e’en thy graces cannot bribe their stay!
As Joy had brighten’d in thy radiant noon,
May soft Contentment gild thy closing day!
And when thou soarest from these veering spheres,
From busy Life, and from its silent bourne,
Thine be the bliss, that change nor period fears,
In the blest regions of the nightless morn.