Poor melancholy bird—-that all night long
Tell'st to the Moon, thy tale of tender woe;
From what sad cause can such sweet sorrow flow,
And whence this mournful melody of song?
Thy poet's musing fancy would translate
What mean the sounds that swell thy little breast,
When still at dewy eve thou leav'st thy nest,
Thus to the listening night to sing thy fate!
Pale Sorrow's victims wert thou once among,
Tho' now releas'd in woodlands wild to rove?
Say—-hast thou felt from friends some cruel wrong,
Or diedst thou—-martyr of disastrous love?
Ah! songstress sad! that such my lot might be,
To sigh and sing at liberty—-like thee!
LOVE, who now deals to human hearts,
Such ill thrown, yet resistless darts,
That hapless mortals can't withstand them,
Was once less cruel and perverse,
Nor did he then his shafts disperse,
So much at random.
It happened, that the thoughtless child
Is there a solitary wretch who hies
To the tall cliff, with starting pace or slow,
And, measuring, views with wild and hollow eyes
Its distance from the waves that chide below;
Who, as the sea-born gale with frequent sighs
Chills his cold bed upon the mountain turf,
With hoarse, half-utter'd lamentation, lies
Murmuring responses to the dashing surf?
To the Cistus or Rock Rose, a beautiful plant, whose flowers
expand, and fall off twice in twenty-four hours.
THE Florists, who have fondly watch'd,
Some curious bulb from hour to hour,
And, to ideal charms attach'd,
Derive their glory from a flower;
Or they, who lose in crouded rooms,
Spring's tepid suns and balmy air,
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