165
"Forgive!"--she ceas'd, and pour'd her hopeless tear.

Now night descends, and steeps each weary breast,
Save sad Aciloe's, in the balm of rest.
Her aged father's beauteous dwelling stood
Near the cool shelter of a waving wood: 170
But now the gales that bend its foliage die,
Soft on the silver turf its shadows lie;
While, slowly wand'ring o'er the scene below,
The gazing moon look'd pale as silent woe.
The sacred shade, amid whose fragrant bowers 175
Zamor oft sooth'd with song the evening hours,
Pour'd to the lunar orb, his magic lay,
More mild, more pensive than her musing ray,
That shade with trembling step, the mourner sought,
And thus she breath'd her tender, plaintive thought. 180
"Ah where, dear object of these piercing pains,
"Where rests thy murder'd form, thy lov'd remains?
"On what sad spot, my Zamor, flow'd the wound
"That purpled with thy streaming blood the ground?
"Oh had Aciloe in that hour been nigh, 185
"Had'st thou but fix'd on me thy closing eye;
"Told with faint voice, 'twas death's worst pang to part,
"And dropp'd thy last, cold tear upon my heart!
"A pang less bitter then would waste this breast,
"That in the grave alone shall seek its rest. 190
"Soon as some friendly hand, in mercy leads
"My aged father, safe to Chili's meads;
"Death shall for ever, seal the nuptial tie,
"The heart belov'd by thee is fix'd to die."
She ceas'd, when dimly thro' a flood of tears 195
She sees her Zamor's form, his voice she hears.--
"'Tis he, she cried, he moves upon the gale,
"My Zamor's sigh is deep--his look is pale--
"I faint"--his arms receive her sinking frame,
He calls his love by every tender name, 200
He stays her fleeting spirit--life anew
Warms her cold cheek--his tears her cheek bedew--
"Thy Zamor lives, he cried: as on the ground
"I senseless lay, some child of pity bound
"My bleeding wounds, and bore me from the plain-- 205
"But thou art lost, and I have liv'd in vain."
"Forgive, she cried, in accents of despair,
"Zamor forgive thy wrongs, and oh forbear
"The mild reproach that fills thy mournful eye,
"The tear that wets thy cheek--I mean to die! 210
"Could I behold my aged sire endure
"The pains his wretched child had power to cure?
"Still, stil