LOVE AND MADNESS.

AN ELEGY.

Written in 1795.

Hark! from the battlements of yonder tower* The solemn bell has tolled the midnight hour! Roused from drear visions of distempered sleep, Poor B-k wakes-in solitude to weep!

Cease, Mem'ry cease (the friendless mourner cried) To probe the bosom too severely tried! Oh ever cease, my pensive thoughts, to stray Through the bright fields of Fortune's better day: When youthful hope, the music of the mind, Tuned all its charms, and E- -n was kind!

"Yet, can I cease, while glows this trembling frame, In sighs to speak thy melancholy name?

I hear thy spirit wail in every storm!

In midnight shades I view thy passing form!
Pale as in that sad hour, when doomed to feel,
Deep in thy perjured heart the bloody steel!

"Demons of Vengeance! ye at whose command I grasped the sword with more than woman's hand Say ye, did Pity's trembling voice control,

Or horror damp the purpose

of my

soul?

No! my wild heart sat smiling o'er the plan,
Till Hate fulfilled what baffled Love began!

* Warwick Castle.

Yes;
One tender pang to generous Nature true,

let the clay-cold breast, that never knew

Half mingling pity with the gall of scorn,
Condemn this heart that bled in love forlorn!

"And ye, proud fair, whose soul no gladness warms, Save Rapture's homage to your conscious charms! Delighted idols of a gaudy train !

Ill can your blunter feelings guess the pain,
When the fond faithful heart, inspired to prove
Friendship refined, the calm delight of love,
Feels all its tender strings with anguish torn,
And bleeds at perjured Pride's inhuman scorn!

Say, then, did pitying Heav'n condemn the deed,
When Vengeance bade thee, faithless lover! bleed?
Long had I watched thy dark foreboding brow,
What time thy bosom scorned its dearest vow!
Sad, though I wept the friend, the lover changed,
Still thy cold look was scornful and estranged,
Till from thy pity, love, and shelter thrown,
I wandered hopeless, friendless, and alone!

"Oh! righteous Heav'n! 'twas then my tortured soul First gave to wrath unlimited control!

Adieu the silent look! the streaming eye!

The murmured plaint! the deep heart-heaving sigh!
Long slumb'ring Vengeance wakes to better deeds;
He shrieks, he falls, the perjured Lover bleeds!
Now the last laugh of agony is o'er,

And pale in blood he sleeps, to wake no more!

""Tis done! the flame of hate no longer burns;
Nature relents, but ah! too late returns!
Why does my soul this gush of fondness feel?
Trembling and faint, I drop the guilty steel!

Cold on my heart the hand of terror lies,
And shades of horror close my languid eyes!—

"Oh! 'twas a deed of Murder's deepest grain! Could B -k's soul so true to wrath remain?

A friend long true, a once fond lover fell !—
Where Love was fostered, could not Pity dwell?

"Unhappy youth! while yon pale crescent glows, To watch on silent Nature's deep repose, Thy sleepless spirit, breathing from the tomb, Foretells my fate, and summons me to come! Once more I see thy sheeted spectre stand, Roll the dim eye, and wave the paly hand!

"Soon may this fluttering spark of vital flame Forsake its languid melancholy frame!

Soon may
these eyes their trembling lustre close,
Welcome the dreamless night of long repose!
Soon may this wo-worn spirit seek the bourne!
Where, lulled to slumber, Grief forgets to mourn!”

THE WOUNDED HUSSAR.

ALONE by the banks of the dark rolling Danube
Fair Adelaide hied when the battle was 'er:
Oh whither, she cried, hast thou wandered, my lover,
Or here dost thou welter, and bleed on the shore!
What voice did I hear? 'twas my Henry that sighed '
All mournful she hastened, nor wandered she far,
When bleeding, and low, on the heath she descried,
By the light of the moon, her poor wounded Hussar!

From his bosom that heaved, the last torrent was stream

ing,

And pale was his visage, deep marked with a scar; And dim was that eye, once expressively beaming, That melted in love, and that kindled in war!

How smit was poor Adelaide's heart at the sight!
How bitter she wept o'er the victim of war!
Hast thou come my fond Love, this last sorrowful night,
To cheer the lone heart of your wounded Hussar?
Thou shalt live, she replied, Heav'n's mercy relieving
Each anguishing wound, shall forbid me to mourn!
Ah, no! the last pang in my bosom is heaving!
No light of the morn shall to Henry return!

Thou charmer of life, ever tender and true :

Ye babes of my love that await me afar!— His faltering tongue scarce could murmur adieu, When he sunk in her arms-the poor wounded Hussar!

GILDEROY.

THE last, the fatal hour is come,
That bears my love from me;
I hear the dead note of the drum,
I mark the gallows tree!

The bell has tolled; it shakes my heart;
The trumpet speaks thy name;

And must my Gilderoy depart
To bear a death of shame?

No bosom trembles for thy doom;
No mourner wipes a tear;
The gallows' foot is all thy tomb,
The sledge is all thy bier!

Oh, Gilderoy! bethought we then
So soon, so sad, to part,
When first in Roslin's lovely glen
You triumphed o'er my heart?

Your locks they glittered to the sheen
Your hunter garb was trim;
And graceful was the ribbon green
That bound your manly limb!

Ah! little thought I to deplore
These limbs in fetters bound;
Or hear, upon thy scaffold floor,
The midnight hammer sound.
Ye cruel, cruel, that combined
The guiltless to pursue;
My Gilderoy was ever kind,
He could not injure you!

A long adieu! but where shall fly
Thy widow all forlorn,
When every mean and cruel eye
Regards my wo with scorn?

Yes! they will mock thy widow's tears,
And hate thine orphan boy;

Alas! his infant beauty wears
The form of Gilderoy!

Then will I seek the dreary mound

That wraps thy mouldering clay;

And

weep and linger on the ground, And sigh my heart away.