Elegy III.
Should’st thou detect a smother’d sigh,1
Or some faint drooping of the eye,2
Or stronger pressure of the hand,3
Lady, or ere thou leav’st the land ;4
Or should my failing accents tell5
How ill my tongue can bid “farewell,”6
Still let no thought approach thy mind,7
Thou leav’st a burning heart behind.8
May they experience never prove9
That they may grieve who cannot love ;10
—That he may sigh thy loss the while11
Who, should’st thou stay, could never smile.12
That face, that form, howe’er divine,13
Beam not the day that once was mine,14
Yet leave, when they are seen no more,15
My night as rayless as before.16
Mistake me not ;— though in mine eyes17
Thou see’st unusual light arise,18
’Tis not the feeling that should shine19
Reflected from such charms as thine20
’Tis but a light that gleams above21
Th’ untimely grave of early love,—22
Such ghastly meteors still infest23
The tombs whose tenants cannot rest.24
Yes, though the canker’d hand of hate,25
Or rivals’ breath, or glance of fate,26
May from the struggling bosom tear27
The treasure that is coffer’d there,—28
Although the crushing weight of ill29
The bleeding heart may seem to kill,30
The love that in the soul doth lie,31
Like it, can never wholly die,—32
But ever o’er the ’nighted mind33
Roams, like a spirit unconfined,34
Haunting some unfrequented shade,35
Where all its buried wealth is laid ;36
And at the spell of witching eyes37
The melancholy sprite will rise,38
As fond to hover near a scene,39
Like those where it in life hath been.40