Poem by Charlotte Dacre

Love and Madness

OVER the moor a lady fair
Took her way so sadly;
Her face was pale, her bosom bare,
Sweet she sung, though madly:

"I had a lover once, believe me,
His blue eyes shone so mildly;
He's gone, and can I choose but grieve me?
He's lost, and I wander wildly.

"Stranger, do not look on me!
What would you discover?
I had a serpent sister—she
It was who stole my lover.

"Stranger, do not weep for me!
I am past complaining;
The struggle that you think you see
Is pride my love disdaining.

"But this struggle will not last,
Not beyond tomorrow;
Life's idle hour I pass so fast,
I leave behind my sorrow.

"Farewell, stranger—now farewell!
Here I cannot ponder—
Hark, I hear the warning bell!
Death is waiting yonder.

"In dim perspective, see, oh! see
His shadowy figure bending
O'er a small spot meant for me—
Round pale ghosts attending."

Sudden she turn'd, her wounded mind
With wilder frenzy firing—
"Farewell!" linger'd on the wind,
My soul with grief inspiring.
   
Maniac sweet! I do not know,
Though sad thy lot and dreary,
If happier still thou art not, so,
Than of reas'ning sorrows weary.

1. The Orphan's Curse
2. The Skeleton Priest; Or, The Marriage of Death
3. The Folly of Life
4. Passion Uninspired by Sentiment
5. The Answer

Thomas Campbell Love and Madness ("Hark ! from the battlements of yonder tower")

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