And as a stag, sore struck by hunter's dart,
Whose poisoned iron rankles in his breast,

Flies, and more grieves the more the chase is pressed,
So I, with Love's keen arrow in my heart,

Endure at once my death and my delight,

Racked with long grief, and weary with vain flight.

MACGREGOR.

HEARING NO TIDINGS OF HER, HE BEGINS TO DESPAIR.

Still do I wait to hear, in vain still wait,

Of that sweet enemy I love so well:
What now to think or say I cannot tell,
'Twixt hope and fear my feelings fluctuate.
The beautiful are still the marks of fate;
And sure her worth and beauty most excel:
What if her God have called her hence, to dwell
Where virtue finds a more congenial state?

If so, she will illuminate that sphere.
Even as a sun: but I-'tis done with me!
I then am nothing, have no business here!
O cruel absence! why not let me see
The worst? My little tale is told, I fear;
My scene is closed ere it accomplished be.

MOREHEAD.

TO LAURA IN DEATH.

HE DESIRES TO DIE, THAT HIS SOUL MAY BE WITH HER, AS HIS THOUGHTS ALREADY ARE.

E'en in youth's fairest flower, when Love's dear sway
Is wont with strongest power our hearts to bind,

Leaving on earth her fleshly veil behind,
My life, my Laura, passed from me away;
Living, and fair, and free from our vile clay,

From heaven she rules supreme my willing mind:
Alas! why left me in this mortal rind

That first of peace, of sin that latest day?

As my fond thoughts her heavenward path pursue,
So may my soul, glad, light, and ready be
To follow her, and thus from troubles flee.
Whate'er delays me as worst loss I rue:
Time makes me to myself but heavier grow:
Death had been sweet to-day three years ago!

MACGREGOR.

HE PRAYS THAT SHE WILL BE NEAR HIM AT HIS DEATH, WHICH HE FEELS

APPROACHING.

Go, plaintive verse, to the cold marble go,
Which hides in earth my treasure from these eyes,
There call on her who answers from yon skies,
Although the mortal part dwells dark and low.

Of life how I am wearied make her know,

Of stemming these dread waves that round me rise:

But, copying all her virtues I so prize,

Her track I follow, yet my steps are slow.

I sing of her, living or dead, alone,

(Dead, did I say? She is immortal made!)

That by the world she should be loved, and known.

O in my passage hence may she be near,

To greet my coming that's not long delayed;

And may I hold in heaven the rank herself holds there!

NOTT.

HE WOULD DIE OF GRIEF, WERE SHE NOT SOMETIMES TO CONSOLE HIM

WITH HER PRESENCE.

To that soft look which now adorns the skies,

The graceful bending of the radiant head,

The face, the sweet angelic accents fled,

That soothed me once, but now awake my sighs:
O when to these imagination flies,

I wonder that I am not long since dead!
'Tis she supports me, for her heavenly tread
Is round my couch when morning visions rise!
In every attitude how holy, chaste!

How tenderly she seems to hear the tale
Of my long woes, and their relief to seek!
But when day breaks she then appears in haste
The well-known heavenward path again to scale,
With moistened eye and soft expressive cheek!

MOREHEAD.

SINCE HER DEATH HE HAS CEASED TO LIVE.

Death cannot make that beauteous face less fair, But that sweet face may lend to death a grace; My spirit's guide, from her each good I trace ; Who learns to die, may seek his lesson there. That Holy One, who not his blood would spare, But did the dark Tartarean bolts unbrace; He, too, doth from my soul death's terrors chase: Then welcome, death, thy impress I would wear. And linger not, 'tis time that I had fled; Alas! my stay hath little here availed,

Since she, my Laura blest, resigned her breath: Life's spring in me hath since that hour lain dead, In I her lived, my life in hers exhaled,

The hour she died I felt within me death!

WOLLASTON.