Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, ELEGY ON A YOUNG LADY, by ANNE BATTEN CRISTALL


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

ELEGY ON A YOUNG LADY, by                    
First Line: Transcendent beauty moulders 'midst the earth!
Last Line: For pierced by guilt the breathless culprit lies.
Subject(s): Death; Mourning; Dead, The; Bereavement


TRANSCENDENT beauty moulders 'midst the earth!
Exquisite tints fleet with the morning dews!
All nature teems with life, while blasting death
Dissolves each form; but time again renews,
From the earth's fullness, fresh perpetual stores:
But O! the individual soul to us is lost!
And unresigned we weep, by passions tost,
While 'mid the tuneful spheres in bliss it soars!


If there is harmony below; --
If ever melancholy,
Touched by melody,
Her blackened veil withdrew;
I'll strike the chords whence solemn numbers flow,
And showers of softening tears shall ease my woe,
Weeping the fairest flower that ever blew!


A flower, whose bloom,
By grief untimely nipped,
Was hurried to the tomb:
The spirit, of mortal lustre stripped,
Flew from its blighted frame below;
Her virgin virtues were exhaled above,
While o'er the corpse sad streams of bitter woe
Deluged the relick of our former love.


My breast, a while your potent sighs restrain,
And as I sing,
Ye scattered notes of harmony
Waft here on heavenly wing
The spiritual maid again.
O! let me catch a glimpse by fancy's ray
And mentally behold the virgin fair,
Who was from our embraces snatched away,
A martyr to despair!
Seraphic, young, and free! --
She smiled like morning op'ning on the heaven!


Blessed
And possessed
Of earth's felicity,
To her 'twas given
To solace human cares:
Her eyes, like shooting stars,
Glanced swift as vivid lightning through the frame;
Possessed of virtuous passion, and beloved,
Pure, unalloyed, strong burnt the scared flame.
O bliss!
To what excess
Dost thou delude the heart!
The ties most holy and most pure
Cannot endure --
We all must part! --
When, bitter tears, will your sad source be dry?
When through the mental world will concord shine?
Man is the wreck of man; -- the soul divine
Passion uproots! --
For frail mortality I heave the potent sigh!


Lo! unzoned passions, brooking no controul,
Transgressing Nature's laws, rush madly on,
Wounding the sacred mansion of the soul,
And unresigned, in wild excess grow strong.
With love's distracting smart,
Which disappointments rash and desperate make,
Lo! JASPAR wild assails the virgin's heart,
Whose constancy no energy can shake;
Though sweet his lays, as if the Muses sung,
And Love's warm passion harmonized his tongue.


Repulsed, his maddened spirit knew no bounds,
Fierce in despair, to vengeance swift he flies,
And oft his rival's heart in fancy wounds,
While unreined passion flashes from his eyes;
Wilder and wilder still resound his cries,
By furies driven on
To lengths before to him unknown,
Till on his murd'rous sword his rival dies!


Ill-fated son of earth!
At thy dire birth
Heaven filled thee as a horn with sad calamity,
To scatter with thy breath
Contagious sorrow round;
Till the dire fiend internal, fraught with death,
Threw thy young glories down!


Sudden despair rushed on the virgin's heart,
All that was mortal yielded to the stroke;
Forth the pure spirit broke,
Divided from its grosser earthly part,
And winged with love seraphic mounts on high --
O! flattering hope! in immortality
TO enjoy affections Nature tears away.
All here on earth is subject to decay,
And every day our lessening comforts fly.


Mysterious Power!
To whose dread will I bend,
And tremblingly adore!
Forgive the tears which suffering mortals shed:
Awed by our loss, and sacred virtue's pangs,
Stronger on future blessings we depend,
And learn how weak the thread
On which all human comfort hangs.
Humbled by sorrow, low in earth I bend,
And yield the spotless virgin to the skies;
Nor need revenge provoke the direful steel,
For pierced by guilt the breathless culprit lies.







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