Laura Sophia Temple

The Exile

Uprais'd the Sun his golden head,
And calmly smil'd the summer sea,
Loose to the breeze the sails were spread,
And soon the bark was under weigh.

Then many a gallant youth was seen
To watch the land now fast receding,
And many a love-lorn heart, I ween,
In ev'ry vein was sorely bleeding.

The humid glance, the look of woe,
The lab'ring breath, the pent-up sigh,
All, all declar'd the fatal blow,
That doom'd the Lover's soul to die.

One pale dejected form appear'd
To rival all the rest in sadness ;
By with'ring grief his heart was scar'd,
His scatter'd senses verg'd on madness.

Others may meet again the ray,
The smiling ray of prosp'rous love,
But he had felt its pale decay,
And never more its joys must prove.

Yes ! he had seen the eyes of bliss
Close their seducing lids for ever ;
Fled, fled was beauty's nectar'd kiss,
Would it return ? Ah ! never, never.

O'er all his wounded Soul had crept ;
The freezing palsy of despair
And long the notes of Hope had slept,
Hush'd by the drowning voice of Care.

Oh ! he had seen his heart's first love
Forswear the vows she once had taken,
She fled, with rank and wealth to rove;
For rank and wealth was he forsaken.

He mutely gaz'd--he watch'd her flight--
Then hasten'd from his native shore ;
Since ev'ry beam of love and light
Had sunk away to rise no more.

O'er the wide World he went to roam.
Tost on the darkling breast of Ocean ;
Without a friend, without a home.
A prey to sorrows deep emotion.