Beneath this stack  dwelling rose,
Here the fair Maniac bore three Winters snows.
Here long she shiver'd, stiffening in the blast,
The lightnings round their livid horrors cast;
The thunders roar, while rushing torrents pour,
And add new woes to bleak affliction's hour;
The heavens lour dismal while the storm descends,
No Mother's bosom the soft maid befriends;
But, frighten'd, o'er the wilds she swiftly flies,
And drench'd with rains, the roofless hay-stack tries.
The morn was fair, and gentle — sought
These lonely woodlands, friends to sober Thought;
With Solitude, the slow-pac'd maid is seen
Tread the dark grove, and unfrequented green,
Well — knew their lurkings;  shone,
While, musing, she pursued the track alone.
O, thou kind friend! whom here I dare not name,
Who to  shed of misery came,
Lur'd by the tale, sigh'd o'er her beauteous form,
And gently drew her from the beating storm,
Stand forth — defend, for well thou canst, the cause
Of Heaven, and justify its rigid laws;
Yet own that human laws are harshly given,
When they extend beyond the will of Heaven.
Say, can thy pen for that hard duty plead,
By which the meek and helpless maid's decreed
To dire seclusion? Snatch'd from guiltless joys,
To where corroding grief the frame destroys;
Monastic glooms, which active virtue cramp,
Where horrid silence chills the vital lamp;
Slowly and faint the languid pulses beat,
And the chill'd heart forgets its genial heat;
The dim sunk eye, with hopeless glance, explores
The solemn aisles, and death-denouncing doors,
Ne'er to be past again. — Now heaves the sigh,
Now unavailing sorrows fill the eye:
Fancy once more brings back the long-lost youth
To the fond soul, in all the charms of Truth;
She welcomes the lov'd image; busy Thought
Pourtrays the past, with guiltless pleasures fraught;
'Tis momentary bliss, 'tis rapture high,
The heart o'erflows, and all is extacy.
I charge thee yet preserve the shade,
Ah! let not yet the glittering colours fade!
Forbear the cruel future yet to view,
When the sad soul must bid a long adieu,
E'en to its fancied bliss — Ah! turn not yet
Thou wretched bankrupt, that must soon forget
This farewel draught of joy: lo! Fancy dies,
E'en the thin phantom of past pleasure flies.
Thought sinks in real woe; too poor to give
Her present bliss, she bids the future live;
The spirit soon quits that fond clasp, for see,
The future offers finish'd misery.
Hope quite extinct, lo! frantic thro' the aisles
She raves, while  grimly smiles.
Th'exhausted mourner mopes, then wildly stalks
Round the drear dome, and seeks the darkest walks.
The glance distracted each sad sister meets,
The sorrow-speaking eye in silence greets
Each death-devoted maid;  here
Runs thro' each various shape of sad despair;
Now swells with gusts of hope, now sick'ning dies;
Alternate thoughts of death and life arise
Within her panting soul; the firm resolve,
The new desire, in stronger fears dissolve.
She starts — then seiz'd the moment of her fate,
Quits the lone cloyster and the horrid grate,
Whilst wilder horrors to receive her wait;
Muffled, on Freedom's happy plains they stand,
And eager seize her not reluctant hand;
Too late to these mild shores the mourner came,
For now the guilt of flight o'erwhelms her frame:
Her broken vows in wild disorder roll,
And stick like serpents in her trembling soul;
, what art thou? of thee she boasts no more,
O'erwhelm'd, thou dy'st amid the wilder roar
Of lawless anarchy, which sweeps the soul,
Whilst her drown'd faculties like pebbles roll,
Unloos'd, uptorn, by whirlwinds of despair,
Each well-taught moral now dissolves in air;
Dishevel'd, lo! her beauteous tresses fly,
And the wild glance now fills the staring eye;
The balls, fierce glaring in their orbits move,
Bright spheres, where beam'd the sparkling fires of Love,
Now roam for objects which once fill'd her mind,
Ah! long-lost objects the must never find.
Ill starr'd Memory, 'tis a strain,
Which fills my soul with sympathetic pain.
Remembrance, hence, give thy vain struggles o'er,
Nor swell the line with forms that live no more.