[sect. 9]
Despair
No foreign instance need of this be shown,
To draw it best, I must describe my own.
Though of this kind all ages can produce
Examples proper for the mourning muse;
Yet all to me must the first place resign,
None ever was so just, so deep as mine;
All day and night I sing, and all day long,
I love, and I despair, makes all my song.
Revolving days the same sad music hear,
Unchang'd those notes, I love, and I despair.
To me, as to the echo, fate affords
No power of speech but for those doleful words.
Some glimpse of sun, some cheerful beams appear
E'en through the gloomiest season of the year.
My clouded life admits no dawn of light,
No ray can pierce through my eternal night
All there is dismal as the shades beneath,
And all is dark as hell, as sad as death.
My anxious hours roll heavily away,
Depriv'd of sleep by night, and peace by day.
My soul no respite from her sufferings knows,
And sees no end of her eternal woes.
In a long line they run for ever on,
And still increase, and lengthen as they run.
By flight to lose my ills in vain I try,
From my despairing self I cannot fly.
Where'er I go, I bear about my flame,
In cities, countries, seas, 'tis still the same.
Scorch'd with my burning pains, I shun my house,
And strive in open air to seek repose.
My flames like torches shook in open air,
Grow with dilated heat more furious there.
Now to the most retir'd remotest place,
E'en to obscurity I fly to ease.
Retirement still foments the raging fire,
And trees, and fields, and floods, and verse conspire
To spread the flame and heighten the desire.
Wildly I range the woods and trace the groves,
To ev'ry oak I tell my hopeless loves.
Torn by my passion, to the earth I fall,
I kneel to all the gods, I pray to all;
Nothing but echo answers to my prayer,
And she speaks nothing but despair, despair.
From woods and wilds I no relief receive,
But wander on to try what seas can give
Deep thru' the tide, not knowing where I walk,
To the deaf winds, not knowing what, I talk.
Mad as the foaming main, aloud I rave,
While ev'ry tear keeps tine with ev'ry wave.
|
