Argument. To leap from the promontory of LEUCADIA was believed by the Greeks to be a remedy for hopeless love, if the self-devoted victim escaped with life. Artemisia lost her life in the dangerous experiment: and Sappho is said thus to have perished, in attempting to cure her passion for Phaon. SAPPHO (Scene the promontory […]

Where a sight shall shuddering Sorrow find.Sad as the ruins of the human mind! BOWLES. ELINOR. (Time, Morning. Scene, the Shore.[1]) Once more to daily toil–once more to wearThe weeds of infamy–from every joyThe heart can feel excluded, I ariseWorn out and faint with unremitting woe;And once again with wearied steps I traceThe hollow-sounding shore. […]

How darkly o’er yon far-off mountain frownsThe gather’d tempest! from that lurid cloudThe deep-voiced thunders roll, aweful and loudTho’ distant; while upon the misty downsFast falls in shadowy streaks the pelting rain.I never saw so terrible a storm!Perhaps some way-worn traveller in vainWraps his torn raiment round his shivering formCold even as Hope within him! […]

Fair is the rising morn when o’er the skyThe orient sun expands his roseate ray,And lovely to the Bard’s enthusiast eyeFades the meek radiance of departing day;But fairer is the smile of one we love,Than all the scenes in Nature’s ample sway.And sweeter than the music of the grove,The voice that bids us welcome. Such […]

With many a weary step, at length I gainThy summit, Lansdown; and the cool breeze plays,Gratefully round my brow, as hence the gazeReturns to dwell upon the journeyed plain.‘Twas a long way and tedious! to the eyeTho fair the extended vale, and fair to viewThe falling leaves of many a faded hue,That eddy in the […]

Mild arch of promise! on the evening skyThou shinest fair with many a lovely rayEach in the other melting. Much mine eyeDelights to linger on thee; for the day,Changeful and many-weather’d, seem’d to smileFlashing brief splendor thro’ its clouds awhile,That deepen’d dark anon and fell in rain:But pleasant is it now to pause, and viewThy […]

As thus I bend me o’er thy babbling streamAnd watch thy current, Memory’s hand pourtraysThe faint form’d scenes of the departed days,Like the far forest by the moon’s pale beamDimly descried yet lovely. I have wornUpon thy banks the live-long hour away,When sportive Childhood wantoned thro’ the day,Joy’d at the opening splendour of the morn,Or […]

Hard by the road, where on that little moundThe high grass rustles to the passing breeze,The child of Misery rests her head in peace.Pause there in sadness. That unhallowed groundInshrines what once was Isabel. Sleep onSleep on, poor Outcast! lovely was thy cheek,And thy mild eye was eloquent to speakThe soul of Pity. Pale and […]

A wrinkled, crabbed man they picture thee, Old winter, with a rugged beard as gray As the long moss upon the apple-tree; Blue-lipt, an ice-drop at thy sharp blue nose, Close muffled up, and on thy dreary way Plodding alone through sleet and drifting snows. They should have drawn thee by the high-heapt hearth, Old […]