When oft Sir Eldred press'd the day
Which was to crown his truth,
The thoughtful sire would sigh and say,
"O happy state of youth!

"It little recks the woes which wait
"To scare its dreams of joy;
"Nor thinks to-morrow's alter'd fate
"May all those dreams destroy.

"And though the flatterer Hope deceives,
"And painted prospects shows;
"Yet man, still cheated, still believes
"Till death the bright scene close.

"So look'd my bride, so sweetly mild, "On me her beauty's slave;

"But whilst she look'd, and whilst she smiled, "She sunk into the grave.

"Yet, O forgive an old man's care, "Forgive a father's zeal;

"Who fondly loves must greatly fear, "Who fears must greatly feel.

"Once more in soft and sacred bands
"Shall love and hymen meet;
"To-morrow shall unite your hands,
"And-be your bless complete!"

The rising sun inflam'd the sky,
The golden orient blush'd;
But Birtha's cheeks a sweeter dye,
A brighter crimson flush'd.

The priest, in milk-white vestments clad,
Perform'd the mystic rite;

Love lit the hallow'd torch that led

To Hymen's chaste delight.

How feeble language were to speak

Th' immeasurable joy,

That fir'd Sir Eldred's ardent cheek,

And triumph'd in his eye!

Sir Ardolph's pleasure stood confest,
A pleasure all his own;
The guarded pleasure of a breast
Which many a grief had known.

'Twas such a sober sense of joy As angels well might keep; A joy chastis'd by piety,

A joy prepar'd to weep.

To recollect her scatter'd thought,
And shun the noon-tide hour,
The lovely bride in secret sought
The coolness of her bower.

Long she remain'd-th' enamour'd knight Impatient at her stay;

And all unfit to taste delight

When Birtha was away;

Betakes him to the secret bower;
His footsteps softly move;
Impell'd by ev'ry tender power,
He steals upon his love.

O, horror! horror! blasting sight!
He sees his Birtha's charms,
Reclin'd with melting, fond delight,
Within a stranger's arms.

Wild frenzy fires his frantic hand,
Distracted at the sight,

He flies to where the lovers stand,
And stabs the stranger knight.

"Die, traitor, die! thy guilty flames
"Demand th' avenging steel!"—
"It is my brother," she exclaims,
""Tis Edwy-O farewell!"

An aged peasant, Edwy's guide,
The good old Ardolph sought;
He told him that his bosom's pride,
His Edwy, he had brought.

O how the father's feelings melt!
How faint, and how revive!
Just so the Hebrew patriarch felt,
To find his son alive.

Let me behold my darling's face,
"And bless him ere I die!"
Then with a swift and vigorous pace
He to the bower did hie.

Osad reverse !-sunk on the ground,
His slaughtered son he view'd;
And dying Birtha, close he found,
In brother's blood imbrued.

Cold, speechless, senseless, Eldred near
Gaz'd on the deed he'd done;
Like the blank statue of Despair,
Or Madness graved in stone.

The father saw-so Jephthan stood,
So turn'd his wo-fraught eye,
When the dear, destin'd child he view'd,
His zeal had doom'd to die.

He look'd the wo he could not speak,
And on the pale corse prest
His wan, discolour'd dying cheek,
And, silent, sunk to rest.

Then Birtha faintly rais'd her eye,
Which long had ceas'd to stream,
On Eldred fixed, with many a sigh,
Its dim departing beam.

The cold, cold dews of hastening death,
Upon her pale face stand;

And quick and short her failing breath,
And tremulous her hand.

The cold, cold dews of hastening death,
The dim departing eye,

The quivering hand, the short quick breath,
He view'd-and did not die.

He saw her spirit mount in air,

Its kindred skies to seek!

His heart its anguish could not bear,
And yet it would not break.

The mournful muse forbears to tell
How wretched Eldred died:

She draws the Grecian painter's veil
The vast distress to hide.

Yet Heaven's decrees are just and wise,
And man is born to bear:

Joy is the portion of the skies;

Beneath them, all is care.

Yet blame not Heaven; 'tis erring man,
Who mars his own best joys;
Whose passions uncontrolled, the plan
Of promised bliss destroys.

Had Eldred paused, before the blow,
His hand had never err'd;
What guilt, what complicated wo,

His soul had then been spar'd!

The deadliest wounds with which we bleed,

Our crimes inflict alone;

Man's mercies from God's hand proceed,

His miseries from his own.

* In the celebrated picture of the sacrifice of Iphigenia, Timanthes having exhausted every image of grief in the bystanders, threw a veil over the face of the father, whose sorrow he was utterly unable to express.-PLIN. book xxxv.

Ω

THE

BLEEDING ROCK:

OR,

THE METAMORPHOSIS OF A NYMPH

INTO STONE.

The annual wound allur'd

The Syrian damsels to lament his fate,
lu amorous ditties all a summer's day;
While smooth Adonis from his native Rock
Ran purple to the sea, suppos'd with blood
Of Thammuz yearly wounded.-

Milton.

WHERE beauteous Belmont* rears her modest brow
To view Sabrina's silver waves below,

Liv'd young IANTHE, fair as beauty's queen;
She reign'd unrivall'd in the sylvan scene;
Hers ev'ry charm of symmetry and grace,
Which aids the triumph of the fairest face;
With all that softer elegance of mind,
By genius heighten'd, and by taste refin'd.
Yet early was she doom'd the child of care,
For hapless love subdued th' ill-fated fair.
Ah! what avails each captivating grace,
The form enchanting, or the fairest face?
Or what each beauty of the heav'n-born mind,
The soul superior, or the taste refin'd?
Beauty but serves destruction to ensure;
And sense, to feel the pang it cannot cure.

Each neighb'ring youth aspir'd to gain her hand,

And many a suitor came from many a land :

* Belmont, the beautiful seat of the late Mr Tamer, in Somersetshire, overlooking the Bristol channel, opposite the conjunction of the Severn and Avon rivers. - ED.