Imatges de pàgina
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"Ah! then remember well my last request "For her who reigns for ever in my breast; "Yet let him prove a Father and a Friend, “The helpless Maid to succour and defend"Say, I this Suit implored with parting breath, "SO HEAVEN befriend him at his hour of Death! "But, oh! to lovely ANNA shouldst thou tell "What dire untimely end thy Friend befel; "Draw o'er the dismal scene soft Pity's veil, "And lightly touch the lamentable Tale: "Say that my Love, inviolably true, "No change, no diminution ever knew; "Lo! her bright image pendent on my neck "Is all PALEMON rescued from the wreck; "Take it! and say, when panting in the wave. "I struggled life and this alone to save.

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My Soul, that fluttering hastens to be free, "Would yet a train of thoughts impart to thee,

"But strives in vain; the chilling ice of Death

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Congeals my blood, and choaks the stream of breath;

Resigned, she quits her comfortless abode

"To course that long, unknown, eternal road

"O sacred Source of ever-living Light!

"Conduct the weary wanderer in her flight; "Direct her onward to that peaceful Shore, "Where Peril, Pain, and Death prevail no more.

"When thou some Tale of hapless love shalt hear, "That steals from Pity's eye the melting tear; "Of two chaste Hearts, by mutual passion joined, "To Absence, Sorrow, and Despair consigned;

"Oh! then, to swell the tides of social woe "That heal th' afflicted bosom they o'erflow, "While MEMORY dictates, this sad SHIPWRECK tell, "And what distress thy wretched Friend befel: "Then, while in streams of soft Compassion drown'd, "The Swains lament, and Maidens weep around; "While lisping Children touched with infant fear "With wonder gaze, and drop th' unconscious tear; "Oh! then this Moral bid their Souls retain,

"ALL THOUGHTS OF HAPPINESS ON EARTH ARE VAIN!"

The last faint accents trembled on his tongue

That now inactive to the palate clung;

His bosom heaves a mortal groan-he dies!

And Shades eternal sink upon his eyes.

As thus defaced in death PALEMON lay,

ARION gazed upon the lifeless clay;

Transfixed he stood; with awful terror filled,

While down his cheek the silent drops distilled: "O ill-starred Votary of unspotted Truth!

Untimely perished in the bloom of youth; "Should e'er thy Friend arrive on ALBION's land, "He will obey, though painful, thy command; "His tongue the dreadful Story shall display, "And all the horrors of this dismal day: "Disastrous day! what ruin hast thou bred, "What anguish to the living and the dead! "How hast thou left the Widow all forlorn;

"And ever doomed the orphan Child to mourn,

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Through Life's sad journey hopeless to complain: "Can sacred Justice these events ordain?

"But, O my Soul! avoid that wondrous maze "Where Reason, lost in endless error, strays;

"As through this thorny Vale of life we run, "Great CAUSE of all Effects, THY WILL BE DONE!"

Now had the Grecians on the beach arrived,

To aid the helpless few who yet survived:

While passing, they behold the Waves o'erspread
With shattered rafts and corses of the dead;

Three still alive, benumbed and faint they find,
In mournful silence on a rock reclin'd:

The generous Natives, moved with social pain,
The feeble Strangers in their arms sustain;
With pitying sighs their hapless lot deplore,
And lead them trembling from the fatal Shore.

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OCCASIONAL ELEGY,

IN WHICH THE PRECEDING NARRATIVE IS CONCLUDED.

THE Scene of Death is closed! the mournful strains Dissolve in dying languor on the ear;

Yet PITY weeps, yet SYMPATHY complains,

And dumb SUSPENSE awaits o'erwhelmed with

fear:

But the sad MUSES with prophetic eye

At once the future and the past explore; Their harps Oblivion's influence can defy,

And waft the Spirit to th' eternal shore

Then, O PALEMON! if thy Shade can hear
The voice of Friendship still lament thy doom,

Yet to the sad Oblations bend thine ear

That rise in vocal incense o'er thy Tomb:

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