I mourned the linnet-lover's fate,
Or turtle from her murdered mate,
Condemned the widowed hours to wail:
Or while the mournful vision rose,
I sought to weep for imaged woes,
Nor real life believed a tragic tale!
6 Alas! misfortune's cloud unkind
May summer soon o'ercast!
And cruel fate's untimely wind
All human beauty blast!
The wrath of nature smites our bowers,
And promised fruits and cherished flowers,
The hopes of life in embryo sweeps;
Pale o'er the ruins of his prime,
And desolate before his time,
In silence sad the mourner walks and weeps!
7 Relentless power! whose fated stroke
O'er wretched man prevails!
Ha! love's eternal chain is broke,
And friendship's covenant fails!
Upbraiding forms! a moment's ease--
O memory! how shall I appease
The bleeding shade, the unlaid ghost?
What charm can bind the gushing eye,
What voice console the incessant sigh,
And everlasting longings for the lost?
8 Yet not unwelcome waves the wood
That hides me in its gloom,
While lost in melancholy mood
I muse upon the tomb.
Their chequered leaves the branches shed;
Whirling in eddies o'er my head,
They sadly sigh that Winter's near:
The warning voice I hear behind,
That shakes the wood without a wind,
And solemn sounds the death-bell of the year.
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