LXXX. Such the ungentle sport that oft invites The Spanish maid, and cheers the Spanish swain. Enough, alas! in humble homes remain, To meditate 'gainst friends the secret blow, For some slight cause of wrath, whence life's warm stream must flow. LXXXI. But Jealousy has fled: his bars, his bolts, And all whereat the generous soul revolts, With braided tresses bounding o'er the green, While on the gay dance shone Night's lover-loving Queen? LXXXII. Oh! many a time, and oft, had Harold loved, Or dreamed he loved, since Rapture is a dream; But now his wayward bosom was unmoved, For not yet had he drunk of Lethe's stream; Ant lately had he learned with truth to deem Love has no gift so grateful as his wings: How fair, how young, how soft soe'er he seem, Full from the fount of Joy's delicious springs Some bitter o'er the flowers its bubbling venom flings, 16 LXXXIII. Yet to the beauteous form he was not blind, Though now it moved him as it moves the wise; Not that Philosophy on such a mind E'er deigned to bend her chastely-awful eyes: But Passion raves herself to rest, or flics; And Vice, that digs her own voluptuous tomb, Had buried long his hopes, no more to rise: Pleasure's palled victim! life-abhorring gloom Wrote on his faded brow curst Cain's unresting doom. LXXXIV. Still he beheld, nor mingled with the throng; But who may smile that sinks beneath his fate? To charms as fair as those that soothed his happier day. TO INEZ. 1. NAY, smile not at my sullen brow, Yet heaven avert that ever thou Shouldst weep, and haply weep in vain. 2. And dost thou ask, what secret woe 3. It is not love, it is not hate, Nor low Ambition's honours lost, That bids me loathe my present state, And fly from all I prized the most: 4. It is that weariness which springs 5. It is that settled, ceaseless gloom The fabled Hebrew wanderer bore; That will not look beyond the tomb, But cannot hope for rest before. What Exile from himself can flee? To Zones, though more and more remote, Still, still pursues, where- e'er I be, The blight of life-the demon, Thought. 7. Yet others rapt in pleasure scem, And taste of all that I forsake; Oh! may they still of transport dream, And ne'er, at least like me, awake! |