The Rose or Thorn my numbers crown'd, But Love, and Joy, and all their train are flow'n, And I will sing of thee alone; Unless perchance the attributes of grief, The Cypress bud and Willow leaf, Their pale funereal foliage blend with thine. Hail, lovely blossom! thou cans't ease The wretched victims of disease; Can'st close those weary eyes in gentle sleep Which never open but to weep; For, Oh! thy potent charm Can agonizing pain disarm; Expel imperious Memory from her seat, And bid the throbbing heart forget to beat. By thee the mourner bears to live, By thee the wretched die! Oh! ever friendly to despair, Might Sorrow's pallid votary dare, Without a crime that remedy implore I'd court thy palliative aid no more! No more I'd sue that thou should'st spread D But would conjure thee to impart And by thy soft Lethean pow'r (Inestimable flow'r) Burst these terrestrial bonds, and other regions try. ROUSSEAU'S TOMB AT ERMENONVILLE. In yon isle, where the wings of silence seem To hover o'er the circling stream, The relics of departed genius sleep! Assembled there, the maids Who love the favourite shades, Pale as the Poplar, shall in anguish weep. Fled are the visions of romance! No more to wake the dance, Float airy warblings from the lute of Love, While viewless pow'rs around, Charm'd by the sylvan sound, Scatter with many a simple sweet the grove. Ye Poplars that delight to wave Your boughs o'er yonder grave, Such as of ancient days your amber shed, Come wafted on the gale, So, fragrant sorrows shall embalm the dead. But, lo! with blushing field-flowers strung On Rousseau's tomb reclin'd, a female form, Behold the lucid tear Thro' her green veil appear, That shook by sighs betrays the wild alarm. 'Tis Fancy-thus near Avon's tide Her rude wreaths scatter'd wide, Such artless charms arrest the pensive eye; There oft her strains of woe For her own poet flow, And sweetly on the trembling zephyr die. Amid' these fairy scenes awhile, Elysium's lovely isle, O Fancy! shall thy wand'ring steps delay. And Wit, whose various gems, That share each other's beams, In cold collision glance a fainter ray. But would conjure thee to impart And by thy soft Lethean pow'r (Inestimable flow'r) Burst these terrestrial bonds, and other regions try. ROUSSEAU'S TOMB AT ERMENONVILLE. IN yon isle, where the wings of silence seem To hover o'er the circling stream, The relics of departed genius sleep! Assembled there, the maids Who love the favourite shades, Pale as the Poplar, shall in anguish weep. Fled are the visions of romance! No more to wake the dance, Float airy warblings from the lute of Love, While viewless pow'rs around, Charm'd by the sylvan sound, Scatter with many a simple sweet the grove. |