Than all the shadowy pomp of woe.

The shadowy pomp to thee denied.
While pity bade thy spirit rest:
While superstition scowl'd beside,
And vainly bade it not be blest.

Ah! could I with unerring truth,
Inspir'd by memory's magic power,
Pourtray thee, grac'd in ripening youth,
With new enchantment, every hour;

When fortune smil'd, and hope was young,
And hail'd thee like the bounteous May,
Renewing still thy steps among
The faded flowers of yesterday.

All plaintive, then my lute should sound,
While fancy sigh'd thy form to see;
The list'ning maids should weep around,
And swains lament thy fate with me.

And, Stranger, thou who hear'st the tale,
By soft infection taught to mourn,
Would'st wet with tears the primrose pale,
That blooms beside her sylvan urn.

For she was fair as forms of love,
Oft by the 'rapt enthusiast seen,
Who slumbers midst the myrtle grove,
With spring's unfolding blossoms green.

All eloquent, her eyes express'd
Her heart to each fine feeling true:
For in their orbs did pity rest,
Suffusing soft their beamy blue.

And silence, pleas'd, his reign resign'd.
Whene'er he heard her vocal tongue;
And grief in slumbers sweet reclin'd,
As on his ear its accents hung.

But vain the charms that grac'd the maid,
The eye where pity lov'd to reign,
The form where fascination play'd,
The voice that breath'd enchantment, vain!

Unequal, all their syren power,
To win from fate it's frown away:
When Bertram came in luckless hour
To sigh, to flatter, to betray!

He came, inform'd in every art,
That makes th'incautious virgin weep:
Beguiles the unsuspecting heart,
And lulls mistrust to silken sleep.

His tale she heard, nor thought the while,
That falshood such a tale could tell:
That dark deceit could e'er defile,
The tongue that talk'd of truth so well.

He woo'd, he wept, 'till all was won,
Then, as the spring-born zephyrs fly,
He fled, he left her, lost! undone!
In penitential tears to die.

Oh! could she live, condemn'd to feel,
The insults of exulting scorn?
Relentless as the three-edg'd steel!
Illicit pleasure's eldest-born!

Who 'mid despair's impervious gloom,
Should bid her soul's sad wand'rings cease:
Th'extinguish'd spark of hope relume,
And sooth the penitent to peace?

She saw her aged mother bow,
Subdued by exquisite distress:
For every hope was faded now,
And life a weary wilderness.

She saw