Oh! what can sanctify the joys of home, Like Hope's gay glance from Ocean's troubled foam? XIX. The lights are high on beacon and from bower, mark, Amid so many, hers alone is dark. 'Tis strange of -- yore 1740 its welcome never failed, Nor now, perchance, extinguished, only veiled. Strifes through the surge, bestrides the beach, and high Ascends the path familiar to his eye. 1750 He reached his turret door-he paused-no sound Broke from within; and all was night around. He knocked, and loudly footstep nor reply Announced that any heard or deemed him nigh; He knocked- but faintly - for his trembling hand Refused to aid his heavy heart's demand. The portal opens 'tis a well known face But not the form he panted to embrace. Its lips are silent -- twice his own essayed, 1760 And failed to frame the question they delayed; He snatched the lamp - its light will answer allIt quits his grasp, expiring in the fall. He would not wait for that reviving ray As soon could he have lingered there for day; All that his heart believed not his eyes behold yet foretold! And set the anxious frame that lately shook: In that last grasp as tenderly were strained The long dark lashes fringed her lids of snow, 1780 And veiled thought shrinks from all that lurked below Oh! o'er the eye death most exerts his might, These fair By the first glance on that still marble brow. It was enough she died what recked it how? The love of youth, the hope of better years, The source of softest wishes, tenderest fears, Was reft at once and he deserved his fate, 1800 But did not feel it less; the good explore, For peace, those realms where guilt can never soar: XXII. By those, that deepest feel, is ill exprest So feeble now his mother's softness crept To those wild eyes, which like an infant's wept: 1820 VOL. III. Ꮐ It was the very weakness of his brain, Which thus confessed without relieving pain. None saw his trickling tears - perchance, if seen, That useless flood of grief had never been: Nor long they flowed he dried them to depart, brokenness of heart: but Conrad's day is dim; ne'er to pass from him. There is no darkness like the cloud of mind, On Grief's vain eye- the blindest of the blind! 1830 Which may not dare not see To blackest shade - nor will endure a guide! XXIII. His heart was formed for softness wrong; warped to Betrayed too early, and beguiled too long; Each feeling pure as falls the dropping dew rock; If such his heart, so shattered it the shock. 1840 There grew one flower beneath its rugged brow, |