without you; and my doom
I meet with joy, to share one common tomb.--
And are again your tears profusely spilt!
Oh! then, my kindness blackens to my guilt;
It foils itself, if it recall your pain;--
Life of my life, I beg you to refrain!
The load which fate imposes, you increase;
And help Maria to destroy my peace."
But, oh! against himself his labour turn'd;
The more he comforted, the more she mourn'd:
Compassion swells our grief; words soft and kind
But soothe our weakness, and dissolve the mind:
Her sorrow flow'd in streams; nor hers alone,
While that he blam'd, he yielded to his own.
Where are the smiles she wore, when she, so late,
Hail'd him great partner of the regal state;
When orient gems around her temples blaz'd,
And bending nations on the glory gaz'd?
'Tis now the queen's command, they both retreat,
To weep with dignity, and mourn in state:
She forms the decent misery with joy,
And loads with pomp the wretch she would destroy.
A spacious hall is hung with black; all light
Shut out, and noon-day darken'd into night.
From the mid-roof a lamp depends on high,
Like a dim crescent in a clouded sky:
It sheds a quiv'ring melancholy gloom,
Which only shows the darkness of the room.
A shining axe is on the table laid;
A dreadful sight! and glitters through the shade.
In this sad scene the lovers are confin'd;
A scene of terrors, to a guilty mind!
A scene, that would have damp'd with rising cares,
And quite extinguish'd every love but theirs.
What can they do? They fix their mournful eyes----
Then Guilford, thus abruptly; "I despise
An empire lost; I fling away the crown;
Numbers have laid that bright delusion down;
But where's the Charles, or Dioclesian where,
Could quit the blooming, wedded, weeping fair?
Oh! to dwell ever on thy lip! to stand
In full possession of thy snowy hand!
And, thro' th' unclouded crystal of thine eye,
The heavenly treasures of thy mind to spy!
Till rapture reason happily destroys,
And my soul wanders through immortal joys!
Give me the world, and ask me, where's my bliss?
I clasp thee to my breast, and answer, this.
And shall the grave"--He groans, and can no more;
But all her charms in silence traces o'er;
Her lip, her cheek, and eye, to wonder wrought;
And, wond'ring, sees, in sad presaging thought,
From that fair neck, that world of beauty fall,
And roll along th