SPIRIT. Yet pause: being here, our will would do thee service; Bethink thee, is there then no other gift Which we can make not worthless in thine eyes. MANFRED, No, none: yet stay-one moment ere we part I would behold ye face to face. I hear The steady aspect of a clear large star; But nothing more. Approach me as ye are, SPIRIT. We have no forms beyond the elements But choose a form-in that we will appear. MANFRED. I have no choice; there is no form on earth Hideous or beautiful to me. Let him, Who is most powerful of ye, take such aspect MANFRED. Oh God! if it be thus, and thou Art not a madness and a mockery, I yet might be most happy.-I will clasp thee, And we again will be My heart is crushed! (The figure vanishes.) (MANFRED falls senseless.) Act I. Scene 1. TO THE SHADE OF *** REPROACH me not, beloved shade, With heart to every feeling vain: I wept with all, yet felt no pain. Although my tears in secret flow- DEAD! nay, Eliza is but gone Gone far above yon dazzling glorious sun- A boundless inconceivable felicity. In that bright mansion blest, Supremely happy there, Thou shalt enjoy a never-ending rest, Far from each earthly hope, each earthly fear, And smile while mortals struggle with our evils here. Now fell disease, now heat and cold, Must take their leave of thee, For ever, though reluctant, loose their hold Whilst thou, sweet child, enraptured, there shalt see The dread Eternal, clothed in all his majesty! PETER. SONG. LET Love's enthusiasts wake the lyre, With one sweet, sad, romantic throe! Where roses blush adown the vale, And gleams like "molten looking glass." Like zephyr's sighs on nature's robe. August 10, 1818. C* ** SYMPATHY. THE wretch, whom some proud tyrant's doom Has buried in a dungeon's gloom, Where a few glimmering rays of light Scarcely distinguish day from night, If, through his grate, a brighter beam Should for a moment chance to gleam, Will raise his drooping head and smile, And half forget his woes the while; So sorrow lifts her languid eye, To meet the look of sympathy. Bristol. JACOB PLAYER. TO ELIZA. ELIZA pluck'd a budding rose, On which this happy sylph reposes. On fair Eliza's beauteous face: The wanton then, with strange alarms, To shield him from her matchless charms! Her ruby lips approached his bed, Ambrosial sweets distilling, Upon a sweet more sweets she shed, Eliza thought the breeze that past Yes, many a pearly tear she cast, As from her heaving breast she swept The blushing leaves, whose deepened die Their sense of such a joy betrayed! Oh! let me for a moment lie In Heaven-upon thy breast, sweet maid! Plymouth, August 13, 1818. ROBERT. |