Classic Poem

ELEGY IV.

O H ! yet, ye dear, deluding visions stay!
Fond hopes, of Innocence and Fancy born!
For you I'll cast these waking thoughts away,
For one wild dream of life's romantic morn

Ah! no: the sunshine o'er each object spread
By flattering Hope, the flowers that blew so fair,
Like the gay gardens of Armida fled,
And vanish'd from the powerful rod of Care.

So the poor pilgrim, who in rapturous thought
Plans his dear journey to Loretto's shrine,
Seems on his way by guardian seraphs brought,
Sees aiding angels favour his design:

Ambrosial blossoms, such of old as blew
By those fresh founts on Eden's happy plain,
And Sharon's roses all his passage strew:
So Fancy dreams; but Fancy's dreams are vain.

Wasted and weary on the mountain's side,
His way unknown, the hapless pilgrim lies,
Or takes some ruthless robber for his guide,
And prone beneath his cruel sabre dies.

Life's morning landscape gilt with orient light,
Where Hope and Joy and Fancy hold their reign;
The grove's green wave, the blue stream sparkling bright,
The blithe hours dancing round Hyperion's wain,

In radiant colours Youth's free hand portrays,
Then holds the flattering tablet to his eye;
Nor thinks how soon the vernal grove decays,
Nor sees the dark cloud gathering o'er the sky.

Hence Fancy, conquer'd by the dart of Pain,
And wandering far from her Platonic shade,
Mourns o'er the ruins of her transient reign,
Nor unrepining sees her visions fade.

Their parent banish'd, hence her children fly,
The fairy race that fill'd her festive train;
Joy tears his wreath, and Hope inverts her eye,
And Folly wonders that her dream was vain.