Poem by Laura Sophia Temple

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When lately I mus'd on the days that are fled,
And dwelt on the friendships that now are no more,
When I thought of that form whose bright tints are now dead,
And wept o'er the charms I had worship'd before:

'Twas then that a voice seem'd to swell on my soul,
I listen'd--and Fancy the cadence renew'd;
Through the silence of Nature its melody stole,
And thus the rich descant its warbling pursu'd.

Why lingers the tear on thy care-furrow'd cheek,
Why bursts from thy bosom the languishing sigh?
Oh! what does thy wandering memory seek,
Or what does she shew to thy sorrowing eye?

How wild is the theme that remembrance pours,
How worthless the visions she spreads to thy view;
Thou fool! to still linger o'er time-faded hours,
And turn from the joys that are glitt'ring and new.

Why dwell on the smile now its lustre is flown?
Why muse on those friendships that mellow'd the past!
Ah! both should be valued and cherish'd alone,
So long as their gloss and their newness shall last.

Then blot from the tablet of fancy, oh! blot
The relics of all that has flatter'd or sooth'd;
Be the accents of kindness and sweetness forgot,
Be the page that they dwell in no longer perused.

1. The Murderer
2. Sonnet 1. To the Evening Gale
3. Lines Written on Reading Young's Night Thoughts--
4. The Exile
5. Recollection

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