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To recollect her scatter'd thought,

And shun the noontide hour, The lovely bride in secret sought The coolness of her bower.

Long she remain'd — th' enamour'd knight,
Impatient at her stay,

And all unfit to taste delight
When BIRTHA was away,

Betakes him to the secret bower;
His footsteps softly move;
Impell❜d by ev'ry tender power,
He steals upon his love.

O, horror! horror! blasting sight!
He sees his BIRTHA'S charms
Reclin❜d with melting, fond delight,
Within a stranger's arms.

Wild frenzy fires his frantic hand,
Distracted at the sight,

He flies to where the lovers stand,
And stabs the stranger knight.

"Die, traitor, die! thy guilty flames
"Demand th' avenging steel!" -
"It is my brother!" she exclaims,
Oh, farewell!"

" 'Tis EDWY

An aged peasant, Edwy's guide,

The good old ARDOLPH sought; He told him that his bosom's pride, His Edwy, he had brought.

O how the father's feelings melt;
How faint, and how revive!
Just so the Hebrew Patriarch felt,
To find his son alive.

"Let me behold my darling's face,
"And bless him ere I die !"
Then with a swift and vigorous pace,
He to the bower did hie:

O sad reverse! - Sunk on the ground
His slaughter'd son he view'd;
And dying BIRTHA, close he found,
In brother's blood imbru'd.

Cold, speechless, senseless, ELDRED near,
Gaz'd on the deed he had done;

Like the blank statue of Despair,
Or Madness grav'd in stone.

The father saw - so Jephtha stood,
So turn'd his woe-fraught eye,
When the dear, destin'd child he view'd,
His zeal had doom'd to die.

He look'd the woe he could not speak,
And on the pale corse press'd

His wan, discolour'd, dying cheek,
And silent, sunk to rest.

Then BIRTHA faintly rais'd her eye,

Which long had ceas'd to stream, On ELDRED fix'd, with many a sigh, Its dim departing beam.

The cold, cold dews of hastening death
Upon her pale face stand;

And quick and short her failing breath,
And tremulous her hand.

The cold, cold dews of hastening death,
The dim departing eye,

The quiv'ring hand, the short quick breath,
He view'd- and did not die.

He saw her spirit mount in air,
Its kindred skies to seek!
His heart its anguish could not bear,
And yet it would not break.

The mournful Muse forbears to tell
How wretched ELDRED died:
She draws the Grecian Painter's veil,
The vast distress to hide.

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Yet Heaven's decrees are just and wise,

And man is born to bear:
Joy is the portion of the skies,
Beneath them, all is care.

Yet blame not Heav'n; 'tis erring man,
Who mars his own best joys;
Whose passions uncontroll'd, the plan
Of promis'd bliss destroys.

* In the celebrated Picture of the Sacrifice of IPHIGENIA, TIMANTHES having exhausted every image of grief in the bystanders, threw a veil over the face of the father, whose sorrow he was utterly unable to express. PLIN. Book xxxv.

Had ELDRED pas'd before the blow,
His hand had never err'd;
What guilt, what complicated woe,
His soul had then been spar'd!

The deadliest wounds with which we bleed,
Our crimes inflict alone;

Man's mercies from God's hand proceed,
His miseries from his own.

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From reverence to the living heir
Lov'd pleasure; but, to speak the truth,
Not much refinement grac'd the youth.
The path of pleasure which he trod
Was somewhat new, and rather odd;
For, that he haunted park or play,
His house's archives do not say;
Or that more modish joys he felt,
And would in opera transports melt;
Or that he spent his morning's prime
In Bond-street bliss till dinner-time :
No treasur'd anecdotes record
Such pastimes pleas'd the youthful Lord.
One single taste historians mention,
A fact, unmingled with invention;
It was a taste you'll think, I fear,
Somewhat peculiar for a Peer,
Though the rude democratic pen
Pretends that Peers are only men.
Whatever town or country fair
Was advertis'd, my Lord was there.
'Twas not to purchase or to sell —
Why went he then? the Muse shall tell.

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