BUT absent, what fantastick pangs arrous'd,
Rage in each thought, by restless musing fed,
Chill the warm cheek, and blast the bloom of life?
Neglected fortune flies; and sliding swift,
Prone into ruin, fall his scorn'd affairs.
'Tis nought but gloom around. The darken'd sun
Loses his light. The rosy-bosom'd SPRING
To weeping fancy pines; and yon bright arch
Of heaven, low-bends into a dusky vault.
All nature fades extinct; and she alone
Heard, felt, and seen, possesses every thought,
Fills every sense, and pants in every vein.
Books are but formal dulness, tedious Friends,
And sad amid the social band he sits,
Lonely and inattentive. From the tongue
Th' unfinish'd period falls: while, borne away
On swelling thought, his wafted spirit flies
To the vain bosom of his distant fair;
And leaves the semblance of a lover, fix'd
In melancholy site, with head declin'd,
And love-dejected eyes. Sudden he starts,
Shook from his tender trance, and restless runs
To glimmering shades, and sympathetick glooms,
Where the dun umbrage o'er the falling stream
Romantic hangs; there thro' the pensive dusk
Strays, in heart-thrilling meditation lost,
Indulging all to love: or on the bank
Thrown, amid drooping lillies, swells the breeze
With sighs unceasing, and the brook with tears.
Thus in soft anguish he consumes the day,
Nor quits his deep retirement, till the moon
Peeps thro' the chambers of the fleecy east,
Enlighten'd by degrees, and in her train
Leads on the gentle hours; then forth he walks,
Beneath the trembling languish of her beams,
With soften'd soul, and wooes the bird of eve
To mingle woes with his: or while the world,
And all the sons of care, lie hush'd in sleep,
Associates with the midnight shadows drear;
And, sighing to the lonely taper, pours
His idly-tortur'd heart into the page,
Meant for the moving messenger of love;
Where rapture burns on rapture, every line
With rising frenzy fir'd. But if on bed
Delirious flung, sleep from his pillow flies.
All night he tosses, nor the balmy power
In any posture finds; till the grey morn
Lifts her pale lustre on the paler wretch,
Exanimate by love: and then perhaps
Exhausted nature sinks a while to rest,
Still interrupted by distracted dreams,
That o'er the sick imagination rise,
And in black colours paint the mimick scene.
Oft with th' enchantress of his soul he talks;
Sometimes in crouds distress'd; or if retir'd
To secret-winding, flower-enwoven bowers,
Far from the dull impertinence of man,
Just as he, credulous, his thousand cares
Begins to lose in blind oblivious love,
Snatch'd from her yielded hand, he knows not how,
Thro' forests huge, and long untravel'd heaths
With desolation brown, he wanders waste,
In night and tempest wrapt; or shrinks aghast,
Back, from the bending precipice; or wades
The turbid stream below, and strives to reach
The farther shore; where succourless, and sad,
Wild as a Bacchanal she spreads her arms,
But strives in vain, borne by th' outragious flood
To distance down, he rides the ridgy wave,
Or whelm'd beneath the boiling eddy sinks.
Then a weak, wailing lamentable cry
Is heard, and all in tears he wakes, again
To tread the circle of revolving woe.
These are the charming agonies of love,
Whose misery delights. But thro' the heart
Should jealousy its venom once diffuse,
'Tis then delightful misery no more,
But agony unmix'd, incessant rage,
Corroding every thought, and blasting all
Love's paradise. Ye fairy prospects then
Ye beds of roses, and ye bowers of joy,
Farewell! Ye gleamings of departing peace,
Shine out your last! the yellow tinging plague
Internal vision taints, and in a night
Of livid gloom imagination wraps.
Ay then instead of love-enliven'd cheeks,
Of funny features, and of ardent eyes
With flowing raptures bright, dark looks succeed,
Suffus'd, and glaring with untender fire,
A clouded aspect, and a burning cheek,
Where the whole poison'd soul, malignant, sits,
And frightens love away. Ten thousand fears
Invented wild, ten thousand frantick views
Of horrid rivals, hanging on the charms
For which he melts in fondness, eat him up
With fervent anguish, and consuming pine.
In vain reproaches lend their idle aid,
Deceitful pride, and resolution frail,
Giving a moment's ease. Reflection pours,
Afresh, her beauties on his busy thought,
Her first endearments, twining round the soul,
With all the witchcraft of ensnaring love.