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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=539279" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>Elegy XXVI. Describing the Sorrow of An Ingeneous Mind</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">Why mourns my friend? why weeps his downcast eye,<br>That eye where mirth, where fancy, used to shine?<br>Thy cheerful meads reprove that swelling sigh;<br>Spring ne'er enamell'd fairer meads than thine.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Art thou not lodged in Fortune's warm embrace?<br>Wert thou not form'd by Nature's partial care?<br>Bless'd in thy song, and bless'd in every grace<br>That wins the friend, or that enchants the fair?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Damon,' said he, 'thy partial praise restrain;<br>Not Damon's friendship can my peace restore:<br>Alas! his very praise awakes my pain,<br>And my poor wounded bosom bleeds the more.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'For, O that Nature on my birth had frown'd,<br>Or Fortune fix'd me to some lowly cell!<br>Then had my bosom 'scaped this fatal wound,<br>Nor had I bid these vernal sweets farewell.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'But, led by Fortune's hand, her darling child,<br>My youth her vain licentious bliss admired;<br>In Fortune's train the syren Flattery smiled,<br>And rashly hallow'd all her queen inspired.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Of folly studious, even of vices vain,<br>Ah, vices gilded by the rich and gay!<br>I chased the guileless daughters of the plain,<br>Nor dropp'd the chase till Jessy was my prey.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Poor artless maid! to stain thy spotless name,<br>Expense, and Art, and Toil united strove;<br>To lure a breast that felt the purest flame,<br>Sustain'd by Virtue, but betray'd by Love.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'School'd in the science of Love's mazy wiles,<br>I clothed each feature with affected scorn;<br>I spoke of jealous doubts, and fickle smiles,<br>And, feigning, left her anxious and forlorn.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Then while the fancied rage alarm'd her care,<br>Warm to deny, and zealous to disprove,<br>I bade my words the wonted softness wear,<br>And seized the minute of returning love.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'To thee, my Damon, dare I paint the rest?<br>Will yet thy love a candid ear incline?<br>Assured that virtue, by misfortune press'd,<br>Feels not the sharpness of a pang like mine.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Nine envious moons matured her growing shame,<br>Erewhile to flaunt it in the face of day,<br>When scorn'd of Virtue, stigmatized by Fame,<br>Low at my feet desponding Jessy lay.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">''Henry,' she said, 'by thy dear form subdued,<br>See the sad relics of a nymph undone!<br>I find, I find this rising sob renew'd;<br>I sigh in shades, and sicken at the sun.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">''Amid the dreary gloom of night, I cry,<br>When will the morn's once pleasing scenes return?<br>Yet what can morn's returning ray supply,<br>But foes that triumph, or but friends that mourn?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">''Alas! no more that joyous morn appears<br>That led the tranquil hours of spotless fame,<br>For I have steep'd a father's couch in tears,<br>And tinged a mother's glowing cheek with shame.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">''The vocal birds that raise their matin strain,<br>The sportive lambs, increase my pensive moan;<br>All seem to chase me from the cheerful plain,<br>And talk of truth and innocence alone.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">''If through the garden's flowery tribes I stray,<br>Where bloom the jasmines that could once allure,<br>'Hope not to find delight in us,' they say,<br>'For we are spotless, Jessy; we are pure.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">''Ye flowers! that well reproach a nymph so frail,<br>Say, could you with my virgin fame compare?<br>The brightest bud that scents the vernal gale<br>Was not so fragrant; and was not so fair.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">''Now the grave old alarm the gentler young,<br>And all my fame's abhorr'd contagion flee;<br>Trembles each lip, and falters every tongue,<br>That bids the morn propitious smile on me.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">''Thus for your sake I shun each human eye,<br>I bid the sweets of blooming youth adieu:<br>To die I languish, but I dread to die,<br>Lest my sad fate should nourish pangs for you.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">''Raise me from earth; the pains of want remove,<br>And let me, silent, seek some friendly shore;<br>There only, banish'd from the form I love,<br>My weeping virtue shall relapse no more.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">''Be but my friend; I ask no dearer name;<br>Be such the meed of some more artful fair;<br>Nor could it heal my peace, or chase my shame,<br>That Pity gave what Love refused to share.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">''Force not my tongue to ask its scanty bread,<br>Nor hurl thy Jessy to the vulgar crew;<br>Not such the parent's board at which I fed!<br>Not such the precepts from his lips I drew!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">''Haply, when age has silver'd o'er my hair,<br>Malice may learn to scorn so mean a spoil;<br>Envy may slight a face no longer fair,<br>And Pity welcome to my native soil.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'She spoke-nor was I born of savage race,<br>Nor could these hands a niggard boon assign;<br>Grateful she clasp'd me in a last embrace,<br>And vow'd to waste her life in prayers for mine.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'I saw her foot the lofty bark ascend,<br>I saw her breast with every passion heave;<br>I left her-torn from every earthly friend;<br>Oh, my hard bosom! which could bear to leave!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Brief let me be: the fatal storm arose;<br>The billows raged, the pilot's art was vain;<br>O'er the tall mast the circling surges close;<br>My Jessy-floats upon the watery plain!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'And-see my youth's impetuous fires decay:<br>Seek not to stop Reflection's bitter tear;<br>But warn the frolic, and instruct the gay,<br>From Jessy floating on her watery bier.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=William+Shenstone">William Shenstone</a><div class=q>
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<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=539279" data-title="Elegy XXVI. Describing the Sorrow of An Ingeneous Mind de William Shenstone" data-description="Why mourns my friend? why weeps his downcast eye,
That eye where mirth, where fancy, used to shine?
Thy cheerful meads reprove that swelling sigh;
Spring ne'er enamell'd fairer meads than thine.

Art thou not lodged in Fortune's warm embrace?
Wert..."></div>
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