hours not yet effaced by pain:
Still on my soul they cast a distant light,
And gild with transitory gleams the night!

"Yet then, ev'n then, the powers of fate below
Prepared for me their gather'd stores of woe:
The tempest watch'd to blot my peaceful day,
And silent in their beds the thunders lay!

"Short was my date of joy: the yawning tomb
Snatch'd my loved parents to eternal gloom.
With fearful awe my shuddering soul survey'd
The untried path of misery display'd,
Gazed wild upon Misfortune's unknown form,
And watch'd the coming terrors of the storm.

"Soon burst the cloud, and far away was borne
The last faint gleam of Life's deceitful morn.
For fancied crimes expell'd my native shore,
And doom'd alone to measure ocean o'er,
I left those scenes where joy for ever reigns,
Secure to find her on no other plains.

"Dark rose the morn: the wind in every wood
Howl'd, and the meteors glancing o'er the flood
Flash'd a portentous light. Before the gale
With streaming eyes I spread my little sail:
Swift o'er the sounding waves the vessel flew,
Cliff after cliff receding from my view:
Chill ran my heart--the swelling sails I furl'd,
While yet emerging from the watery world
One headland rose--O'er all the boundless main. }
I cast my shuddering view--I wept in vain-- }
I wrung my hands in agonizing pain: }
O'er my dim eyes increasing darkness hung,
No low, faint murmurs, trembled on my tongue,
A deadly torpor every limb oppress'd,
Weak were my sinews, and unmann'd my breast:
When lo! a voice, that struck my inmost heart,
Seem'd, thro' the wavering storm, to cry, 'Depart!'
Trembling with awe, I turn'd my aching view,
And spread the flying sail, and o'er the billows flew.

"On foreign shores, to poverty resign'd,
An exile, friendless and alone, I pined.
Hope and Content inspired my toils no more;
Alas! I left them on my native shore!
Stern Want around me pour'd her chilling woes,
And no faint beam, to cheer my winter, rose.

"At length, when years, with slow-revolving round,
Had half assuaged my soul's eternal wound,
And rural peace my humble efforts bless'd
With one short calm of momentary rest;
Sudden, the demons of tyrannic war }
Whirl thro' our peaceful haunts his rapid car, }