Romance

Gather’d yon dark forest o’er
Lo! the gloomy clouds are spread:
Bending toward the desert shore,
See the melancholy maid;
Her eyes and her bosom are wet with tears;
All heaven is black, and the storm appears;
And the wild winds lift the billows high,
And her breast is heaving with many a sigh.

“O my very soul is faded,
Joy and sympathy are fled;
Nature is in darkness shaded,
Love and friendship both are dead.
The hope that brightened my days is gone!
O whither, my angel! art thou flown?
Too blest was I, too wild with bliss,
For I lived and loved, and loved for this!

“Swell then, burning tears! the deep,
Flow, with yonder billows flow:
And ye lonely forests! weep,
Meet companions of my woe.
My days of pleasure, though short and few,
Are fled for ever--O earth! adieu!
He sleeps--will death restore him? Never!
For the joy that’s lost is lost for ever.

“Nature’s sad and wintery day
Is of momentary gloom:
Soon in Spring’s reviving ray
All her loveliness shall bloom.
But joy has never a second spring:
And time no ray of light can bring
But from tearful eyes:--there’s no relief
From dark despair’s corroding grief!”