te with age,
A victim to th' offended monarch's rage.
How great the mercy, had she breath'd her last,
Ere the dire sentence on her father past!
A fonder parent nature never knew;
And as his age increas'd, his fondness grew.
A parent's love ne'er better was bestow'd;
The pious daughter in her heart o'erflow'd.
And can she from all weakness still refrain?
And still the firmness of her soul maintain?
Impossible! a sigh will force its way;
One patient tear her mortal birth betray;
She sighs and weeps! but so she weeps and sighs,
As silent dews descend, and vapours rise.
Celestial patience! how dost thou defeat
The foe's proud menace, and elude his hate!
While passion takes his part, betrays our peace;
To death and torture swells each slight disgrace;
By not opposing, thou dost ills destroy,
And wear thy conquer'd sorrows into joy.
Now she revolves within her anxious mind,
What woe still lingers in reserve behind.
Griefs rise on griefs, and she can see no bound,
While nature lasts, and can receive a wound.
The sword is drawn; the queen to rage inclin'd,
By mercy, nor by piety, confin'd.
What mercy can the zealot's heart assuage,
Whose piety itself converts to rage?
She thought, and sigh'd. And now the blood began
To leave her beauteous cheek all cold and wan.
New sorrow dimm'd the lustre of her eye,
And on her cheek the fading roses die.
Alas! should Guilford too--when now she's brought
To that dire view, that precipice of thought,
While there she trembling stands, nor dares look down,
Nor can recede, till heaven's decrees are known;
Cure of all ills, till now, her lord appears--
But not to cheer her heart, and dry her tears!
Not now, as usual, like the rising day,
To chase the shadows, and the damps away:
But, like a gloomy storm, at once to sweep
And plunge her to the bottom of the deep.
Black were his robes, dejected was his air,
His voice was frozen by his cold despair;
Slow, like a ghost, he mov'd with solemn pace;
A dying paleness sat upon his face.
Back she recoil'd, she smote her lovely breast,
Her eyes the anguish of her heart confess'd;
Struck to the soul, she stagger'd with the wound,
And sunk, a breathless image, to the ground.
Thus the fair lily, when the sky's o'ercast,
At first but shudders in the feeble blast;
But when the winds and weighty rains descend,
The fair and upright stem is