CHAPTER LXXVIII.If Glenarvon’s letters had given joy to Calantha in more prosperous and happier days, when surrounded by friends, what must they have appeared to her now, when bereft of all? They were as the light of Heaven to one immersed in darkness: they were as health to the wretch who has pined in sickness: they were as riches to the poor, and joy to the suffering heart. What then must have been her feelings when they suddenly and entirely ceased! At first, she thought the wind was contrary, and the mails irregular. Of one thing she felt secure—Glenarvon could not mean to deceive her. His last letter, too, was kinder than any other; and the words with which he concluded it were such as toinspire her with confidence. “If, by any chance, however improbable,” he said, “my letters fail to reach you, impute the delay to any cause whatever: but do me enough justice not for one moment to doubt of me. I will comply with every request of yours; and from you I require in return nothing but remembrance—the remembrance of one who has forgotten himself, the world, fame, hope, ambition—all here, and all hereafter, but you.”Every one perhaps has felt the tortures of suspense: every one knows its lengthened pangs: it is not necessary here to paint them. Weeks now passed, instead of days, and still not one line, one word from Glenarvon. Then it was that Lady Avondale thus addressed him:“It is in vain, my dearest friend, that I attempt to deceive myself. It is now two weeks since I have watched, with incessant anxiety, for one of those dear,those kind letters, which had power to still the voice of conscience, and to make one, even as unworthy as I am, comparatively blest. You accused me of coldness; yet I have written since, I fear, with only too much warmth. Alas! I have forgotten all the modesty and dignity due to my sex and situation, to implore for one line, one little line, which might inform me you were well, and not offended. Lord Avondale’s return, I told you, had been delayed. His absence, his indifference, are now my only comfort in life. Were it otherwise, how could I support the unmeasured guilt I have heaped upon my soul? The friends of my youth are estranged by my repeated errors and long neglect. I am as lonely, as miserable in your absence as you can wish.“Glenarvon, I do not reproach you: I never will. But your sudden, your unexpected silence, has given me more anguish than I can express. I will notdoubt you: I will follow your last injunctions, and believe every thing sooner than that you will thus abandon me. If that time is indeed arrived—and I know how frail a possession guilty love must ever be—how much it is weakened by security—how much it is cooled by absence: do not give yourself the pain of deceiving me: there is no use in deceit. Say with kindness that another has gained your affections; but let them never incline you to treat me with cruelty. Oh, fear not, Glenarvon, that I shall intrude, or reproach you. I shall bear every affliction, if you but soften the pang to me by one soothing word.“Now, possibly, when you receive this, you will laugh at me for my fears: you will say I but echo back those which you indulged. But so sudden is the silence, so long the period of torturing suspense, that I must tremble till I receive one line from your dearest hand—one line to say that you are not offendedwith me. Remember that you are all on earth to me; and if I lose that for which I have paid so terrible a price, what then will be my fate!“I dread that you should have involved yourself seriously. Alas! I dread for you a thousand things that I dare not say. My friend, we have been very wicked. It is myself alone I blame. On me, on me be the crime; but if my life could save you, how gladly would I give it up! Oh, cannot we yet repent! Act well, Glenarvon: be not in love with crime: indeed, indeed, I tremble for you. It is not inconstancy that I fear. Whatever your errors may be, whatever fate be mine, my heart cannot be severed from you. I shall, as you have often said, never cease to love; but, were I to see your ruin, ah, believe me, it would grieve me more than my own. I am nothing, a mere cypher: you might be all that is great and superior. Act rightly, then, my friend; andhear this counsel, though it comes from one as fallen as I am. Think not that I wish to repine, or that I lament the past. You have rendered me happy: it is not you that I accuse. But, now that you are gone, I look with horror upon my situation; and my crimes by night and by day appear unvarnished before me.“I am frightened, Glenarvon: we have dared too much. I have followed you into a dark abyss; and now that you, my guide, my protector, have left my side, my former weakness returns, and all that one smile of yours could make me forget, oppresses and confounds me. The eye of God has marked me, and I sink at once. You will abandon me: that thought comprises all things in it. Therein lies the punishment of my crime; and God, they say, is just. The portrait which you have left with me has a stern look. Some have said that the likeness of a friend is preferable to himself, for that it ever smiles upon us; butwith me it is the reverse. I never saw Glenarvon’s eyes gaze coldly on me till now. Farewell.“Ever with respect and love,“Your grateful, but unhappy friend,“Calantha.”Lady Avondale was more calm when she had thus written. The next morning a letter was placed in her hand. Her heart beat high. It was from Mortanville Priory:—but it was from Lady Trelawney, in answer to one she had sent her, and not from Glenarvon.“Dearest cousin,” said Lady Trelawney, “I have not had time to write to you one word before. Of all the places I ever was at, this is the most perfectly delightful. Had I a spice in me of romance, I would attempt to describe it; but, in truth, I cannot. Tell Sophia we expect her for certain next week; and, if you wish to be diverted from all blackthoughts, join our party. I received your gloomy letter after dinner. I was sitting on a couch by ——, shall I tell you by whom?—by Lord Glenarvon himself. At the moment in which it was delivered, for the post comes in here at nine in the evening, he smiled a little as he recognized the hand; and, when I told him you were ill, that smile became an incredulous laugh; for he knows well enough people are never so ill as they say. Witness himself: he is wonderfully recovered: indeed, he is grown perfectly delightful. I thought him uncommonly stupid all this summer, which I attribute now to you; for you encouraged him in his whims and woes. Here, at least, he is all life and good humour. Lady Augusta says he is not the same man; but sentiment, she affirms, undermines any constitution; and you are rather too much in that style.“After all, my dear cousin, it is silly to make yourself unhappy about anyman. I dare say you thought Lord Glenarvon very amiable: so do I:—and you fancied he was in love with you, as they call it; and I could fancy the same: and there is one here, I am sure, may fancy it as well as any of us: but it is so absurd to take these things seriously. It is his manner; and he owns himself that agrande passionbores him to death; and that if you will but leave him alone, he finds a little absence has entirely restored his senses.“By the bye, did you give him ... but that is a secret. Only I much suspect that he has made over all that you have given him to another. Do the same by him, therefore; and have enough pride to shew him that you are not so weak and so much in his power as he imagines. I shall be quite provoked if you write any more to him. He shews all your letters: I tell you this as a friend: only, now, pray do not get me into a scrape, or repeat it.“Do tell me when Lord Avondale returns. They say there has been a real rising in the north: but Trelawney thinks people make a great deal of nothing at all: he says, for his part, he believes it is all talk and nonsense. We are going to London, where I hope you will meet us. Good bye to you, dear coz. Write merrily, and as you used. My motto, you know, is, laugh whilst you can, and be grave when you must. I have written a long letter to my mother and Sophia; but do not ask to see it. Indeed, I would tell you all, if I were not afraid you’d be so foolish as to vex yourself about what cannot be helped.”Lady Avondale did vex herself; and this letter from Frances made her mad. The punishment of crime was then at hand:—Glenarvon had betrayed, had abandoned her. Yet was it possible, or was it not the malice of Frances who wished to vex her? Calantha could notbelieve him false. He had not been to her as a common lover:—he was true: she felt assured he was; yet her agitation was very great. Perhaps he had been misled, and he feared to tell her. Could she be offended, because he had been weak? Oh, no! he knew she could not: he would never betray her secrets; he would never abandon her, because a newer favourite employed his momentary thoughts. She felt secure he would not, and she was calm.Lady Avondale walked to Belfont. She called upon many of her former friends; but they received her coldly. She returned to the castle; but every eye that met her’s appeared to view her with new marks of disapprobation. Guilt, when bereft of support, is ever reprobated; but see it decked in splendour and success, and where are they who shrink from its approach? Calantha’s name was the theme of just censure, but in Glenarvon’s presence, who haddiscovered that she was thus worthless and degraded? And did they think she did not feel their meanness. The proud heart is the first to sink before contempt—it feels the wound more keenly than any other can.O, there is nothing in language that can express the deep humiliation of being received with coldness, when kindness is expected—of seeing the look, but half concealed, of strong disapprobation from such as we have cause to feel beneath us, not alone in vigour of mind and spirit, but even in virtue and truth. The weak, the base, the hypocrite, are the first to turn with indignation from their fellow mortals in disgrace; and, whilst the really chaste and pure suspect with caution, and censure with mildness, these traffickers in petty sins, who plume themselves upon their immaculate conduct, sound the alarum bell at the approach of guilt, and clamour their anathemasupon their unwary and cowering prey.For once they felt justly; and in this instance their conduct was received without resentment. There was a darker shade on the brow, an assumed distance of manner, a certain studied civility, which seemed to say, that, by favour, Lady Avondale was excused much; that the laws of society would still admit her; that her youth, her rank and high connexions, were considerations which everted from her that stigmatising brand, her inexcusable behaviour otherwise had drawn down: but still the mark was set upon her, and she felt its bitterness the more, because she knew how much it had been deserved.Yet of what avail were the reproving looks of friends, the bitter taunts of companions, whom long habit had rendered familiar, the ill-timed menaces and rough reproaches of some, and the innuendoesand scornful jests of others? They only tended to harden a mind rendered fierce by strong passion, and strengthen the natural violence of a character which had set all opposition at defiance, and staked every thing upon one throw—which had been unused to refuse itself the smallest gratification, and knew not how to endure the first trial to which it ever had been exposed. Kindness had been the only remaining hope; and kindness, such as the human heart can scarce believe in, was shewn in vain. Yet the words which are so spoken seldom fail to sooth. Even when on the verge of ruin, the devoted wretch will turn and listen to the accents which pity and benevolence vouchsafe to utter; and though they may come too late, her last looks and words may bless the hand that was thus stretched out to save her.It was with such looks of grateful affection that Lady Avondale turned to Mrs. Seymour, when she marked thehaughty frowns of Lady Margaret, and the cold repulsive glance with which many others received her. Yet still she lived upon the morrow; and, with an anguish that destroyed her, watched, vainly watched, for every returning post. Daily she walked to that accustomed spot—that dear, that well-known spot, where often and often she had seen and heard the man who then would have given his very existence to please; and the remembrance of his love, of his promises, in some measure re-assured her.One evening, as she wandered there, she met St. Clara, who passed her in haste, whilst a smile of exulting triumph lighted her countenance. Lady Avondale sighed, and seated herself upon the fragment of a rock; but took no other notice of her. There was a blaze of glorious light diffused over the calm scene, and the gloomy battlements of Belfont Priory yet shone with the departing ray. When Calantha arose to depart, sheturned from the golden light which illuminated the west, and gazed in agony upon the spot where it was her custom to meet her lover. The vessels passed to and fro upon the dark blue sea; the sailors cheerfully followed their nightly work; and the peasants, returning from the mountains with their flocks, sung cheerfully as they approached their homes. Calantha had no home to return to; no approving eye to bid her welcome: her heart was desolate. She met with an aged man, whose white locks flowed, and whose air was that of deep distress. He looked upon her. He asked charity of her as he passed: he said that he was friendless, and alone in the world. His name she asked: he replied, “Camioli.” “If gold can give you peace, take this,” she said. He blessed her: he called her all goodness—all loveliness; and he prayed for her to his God. “Oh, God of mercy!”said Calantha, “hear the prayer of the petitioner: grant me the blessing he has asked for me. I never more can pray. He little knows the pang he gave. He calls me good: alas! that name and Calantha’s are parted for ever.”Poor wretch! who hast nothing to hope for in life,But the mercy of hearts long success has made hard.No parent hast thou, no fond children, no wife,Thine age from distress and misfortune to guard.Yet the trifle I gave, little worth thy possessing,Has call’d forth in thee, what I cannot repay:Thou hast ask’d of thy God for his favour and blessing;Thou hast pray’d for the sinner, who never must pray.Old man, if those locks, which are silver’d by time,Have ne’er been dishonor’d by guilt or excess;If when tempted to wrong, thou hast fled from the crime;By passion unmov’d, unappall’d by distress:If through life thou hast follow’d the course that is fair,And much hast perform’d, though of little possess’d;Then the God of thy fathers shall favour the prayer,And a blessing be sent to a heart now unblest.
If Glenarvon’s letters had given joy to Calantha in more prosperous and happier days, when surrounded by friends, what must they have appeared to her now, when bereft of all? They were as the light of Heaven to one immersed in darkness: they were as health to the wretch who has pined in sickness: they were as riches to the poor, and joy to the suffering heart. What then must have been her feelings when they suddenly and entirely ceased! At first, she thought the wind was contrary, and the mails irregular. Of one thing she felt secure—Glenarvon could not mean to deceive her. His last letter, too, was kinder than any other; and the words with which he concluded it were such as toinspire her with confidence. “If, by any chance, however improbable,” he said, “my letters fail to reach you, impute the delay to any cause whatever: but do me enough justice not for one moment to doubt of me. I will comply with every request of yours; and from you I require in return nothing but remembrance—the remembrance of one who has forgotten himself, the world, fame, hope, ambition—all here, and all hereafter, but you.”
Every one perhaps has felt the tortures of suspense: every one knows its lengthened pangs: it is not necessary here to paint them. Weeks now passed, instead of days, and still not one line, one word from Glenarvon. Then it was that Lady Avondale thus addressed him:
“It is in vain, my dearest friend, that I attempt to deceive myself. It is now two weeks since I have watched, with incessant anxiety, for one of those dear,those kind letters, which had power to still the voice of conscience, and to make one, even as unworthy as I am, comparatively blest. You accused me of coldness; yet I have written since, I fear, with only too much warmth. Alas! I have forgotten all the modesty and dignity due to my sex and situation, to implore for one line, one little line, which might inform me you were well, and not offended. Lord Avondale’s return, I told you, had been delayed. His absence, his indifference, are now my only comfort in life. Were it otherwise, how could I support the unmeasured guilt I have heaped upon my soul? The friends of my youth are estranged by my repeated errors and long neglect. I am as lonely, as miserable in your absence as you can wish.
“Glenarvon, I do not reproach you: I never will. But your sudden, your unexpected silence, has given me more anguish than I can express. I will notdoubt you: I will follow your last injunctions, and believe every thing sooner than that you will thus abandon me. If that time is indeed arrived—and I know how frail a possession guilty love must ever be—how much it is weakened by security—how much it is cooled by absence: do not give yourself the pain of deceiving me: there is no use in deceit. Say with kindness that another has gained your affections; but let them never incline you to treat me with cruelty. Oh, fear not, Glenarvon, that I shall intrude, or reproach you. I shall bear every affliction, if you but soften the pang to me by one soothing word.
“Now, possibly, when you receive this, you will laugh at me for my fears: you will say I but echo back those which you indulged. But so sudden is the silence, so long the period of torturing suspense, that I must tremble till I receive one line from your dearest hand—one line to say that you are not offendedwith me. Remember that you are all on earth to me; and if I lose that for which I have paid so terrible a price, what then will be my fate!
“I dread that you should have involved yourself seriously. Alas! I dread for you a thousand things that I dare not say. My friend, we have been very wicked. It is myself alone I blame. On me, on me be the crime; but if my life could save you, how gladly would I give it up! Oh, cannot we yet repent! Act well, Glenarvon: be not in love with crime: indeed, indeed, I tremble for you. It is not inconstancy that I fear. Whatever your errors may be, whatever fate be mine, my heart cannot be severed from you. I shall, as you have often said, never cease to love; but, were I to see your ruin, ah, believe me, it would grieve me more than my own. I am nothing, a mere cypher: you might be all that is great and superior. Act rightly, then, my friend; andhear this counsel, though it comes from one as fallen as I am. Think not that I wish to repine, or that I lament the past. You have rendered me happy: it is not you that I accuse. But, now that you are gone, I look with horror upon my situation; and my crimes by night and by day appear unvarnished before me.
“I am frightened, Glenarvon: we have dared too much. I have followed you into a dark abyss; and now that you, my guide, my protector, have left my side, my former weakness returns, and all that one smile of yours could make me forget, oppresses and confounds me. The eye of God has marked me, and I sink at once. You will abandon me: that thought comprises all things in it. Therein lies the punishment of my crime; and God, they say, is just. The portrait which you have left with me has a stern look. Some have said that the likeness of a friend is preferable to himself, for that it ever smiles upon us; butwith me it is the reverse. I never saw Glenarvon’s eyes gaze coldly on me till now. Farewell.
“Ever with respect and love,“Your grateful, but unhappy friend,“Calantha.”
Lady Avondale was more calm when she had thus written. The next morning a letter was placed in her hand. Her heart beat high. It was from Mortanville Priory:—but it was from Lady Trelawney, in answer to one she had sent her, and not from Glenarvon.
“Dearest cousin,” said Lady Trelawney, “I have not had time to write to you one word before. Of all the places I ever was at, this is the most perfectly delightful. Had I a spice in me of romance, I would attempt to describe it; but, in truth, I cannot. Tell Sophia we expect her for certain next week; and, if you wish to be diverted from all blackthoughts, join our party. I received your gloomy letter after dinner. I was sitting on a couch by ——, shall I tell you by whom?—by Lord Glenarvon himself. At the moment in which it was delivered, for the post comes in here at nine in the evening, he smiled a little as he recognized the hand; and, when I told him you were ill, that smile became an incredulous laugh; for he knows well enough people are never so ill as they say. Witness himself: he is wonderfully recovered: indeed, he is grown perfectly delightful. I thought him uncommonly stupid all this summer, which I attribute now to you; for you encouraged him in his whims and woes. Here, at least, he is all life and good humour. Lady Augusta says he is not the same man; but sentiment, she affirms, undermines any constitution; and you are rather too much in that style.
“After all, my dear cousin, it is silly to make yourself unhappy about anyman. I dare say you thought Lord Glenarvon very amiable: so do I:—and you fancied he was in love with you, as they call it; and I could fancy the same: and there is one here, I am sure, may fancy it as well as any of us: but it is so absurd to take these things seriously. It is his manner; and he owns himself that agrande passionbores him to death; and that if you will but leave him alone, he finds a little absence has entirely restored his senses.
“By the bye, did you give him ... but that is a secret. Only I much suspect that he has made over all that you have given him to another. Do the same by him, therefore; and have enough pride to shew him that you are not so weak and so much in his power as he imagines. I shall be quite provoked if you write any more to him. He shews all your letters: I tell you this as a friend: only, now, pray do not get me into a scrape, or repeat it.
“Do tell me when Lord Avondale returns. They say there has been a real rising in the north: but Trelawney thinks people make a great deal of nothing at all: he says, for his part, he believes it is all talk and nonsense. We are going to London, where I hope you will meet us. Good bye to you, dear coz. Write merrily, and as you used. My motto, you know, is, laugh whilst you can, and be grave when you must. I have written a long letter to my mother and Sophia; but do not ask to see it. Indeed, I would tell you all, if I were not afraid you’d be so foolish as to vex yourself about what cannot be helped.”
Lady Avondale did vex herself; and this letter from Frances made her mad. The punishment of crime was then at hand:—Glenarvon had betrayed, had abandoned her. Yet was it possible, or was it not the malice of Frances who wished to vex her? Calantha could notbelieve him false. He had not been to her as a common lover:—he was true: she felt assured he was; yet her agitation was very great. Perhaps he had been misled, and he feared to tell her. Could she be offended, because he had been weak? Oh, no! he knew she could not: he would never betray her secrets; he would never abandon her, because a newer favourite employed his momentary thoughts. She felt secure he would not, and she was calm.
Lady Avondale walked to Belfont. She called upon many of her former friends; but they received her coldly. She returned to the castle; but every eye that met her’s appeared to view her with new marks of disapprobation. Guilt, when bereft of support, is ever reprobated; but see it decked in splendour and success, and where are they who shrink from its approach? Calantha’s name was the theme of just censure, but in Glenarvon’s presence, who haddiscovered that she was thus worthless and degraded? And did they think she did not feel their meanness. The proud heart is the first to sink before contempt—it feels the wound more keenly than any other can.
O, there is nothing in language that can express the deep humiliation of being received with coldness, when kindness is expected—of seeing the look, but half concealed, of strong disapprobation from such as we have cause to feel beneath us, not alone in vigour of mind and spirit, but even in virtue and truth. The weak, the base, the hypocrite, are the first to turn with indignation from their fellow mortals in disgrace; and, whilst the really chaste and pure suspect with caution, and censure with mildness, these traffickers in petty sins, who plume themselves upon their immaculate conduct, sound the alarum bell at the approach of guilt, and clamour their anathemasupon their unwary and cowering prey.
For once they felt justly; and in this instance their conduct was received without resentment. There was a darker shade on the brow, an assumed distance of manner, a certain studied civility, which seemed to say, that, by favour, Lady Avondale was excused much; that the laws of society would still admit her; that her youth, her rank and high connexions, were considerations which everted from her that stigmatising brand, her inexcusable behaviour otherwise had drawn down: but still the mark was set upon her, and she felt its bitterness the more, because she knew how much it had been deserved.
Yet of what avail were the reproving looks of friends, the bitter taunts of companions, whom long habit had rendered familiar, the ill-timed menaces and rough reproaches of some, and the innuendoesand scornful jests of others? They only tended to harden a mind rendered fierce by strong passion, and strengthen the natural violence of a character which had set all opposition at defiance, and staked every thing upon one throw—which had been unused to refuse itself the smallest gratification, and knew not how to endure the first trial to which it ever had been exposed. Kindness had been the only remaining hope; and kindness, such as the human heart can scarce believe in, was shewn in vain. Yet the words which are so spoken seldom fail to sooth. Even when on the verge of ruin, the devoted wretch will turn and listen to the accents which pity and benevolence vouchsafe to utter; and though they may come too late, her last looks and words may bless the hand that was thus stretched out to save her.
It was with such looks of grateful affection that Lady Avondale turned to Mrs. Seymour, when she marked thehaughty frowns of Lady Margaret, and the cold repulsive glance with which many others received her. Yet still she lived upon the morrow; and, with an anguish that destroyed her, watched, vainly watched, for every returning post. Daily she walked to that accustomed spot—that dear, that well-known spot, where often and often she had seen and heard the man who then would have given his very existence to please; and the remembrance of his love, of his promises, in some measure re-assured her.
One evening, as she wandered there, she met St. Clara, who passed her in haste, whilst a smile of exulting triumph lighted her countenance. Lady Avondale sighed, and seated herself upon the fragment of a rock; but took no other notice of her. There was a blaze of glorious light diffused over the calm scene, and the gloomy battlements of Belfont Priory yet shone with the departing ray. When Calantha arose to depart, sheturned from the golden light which illuminated the west, and gazed in agony upon the spot where it was her custom to meet her lover. The vessels passed to and fro upon the dark blue sea; the sailors cheerfully followed their nightly work; and the peasants, returning from the mountains with their flocks, sung cheerfully as they approached their homes. Calantha had no home to return to; no approving eye to bid her welcome: her heart was desolate. She met with an aged man, whose white locks flowed, and whose air was that of deep distress. He looked upon her. He asked charity of her as he passed: he said that he was friendless, and alone in the world. His name she asked: he replied, “Camioli.” “If gold can give you peace, take this,” she said. He blessed her: he called her all goodness—all loveliness; and he prayed for her to his God. “Oh, God of mercy!”said Calantha, “hear the prayer of the petitioner: grant me the blessing he has asked for me. I never more can pray. He little knows the pang he gave. He calls me good: alas! that name and Calantha’s are parted for ever.”
Poor wretch! who hast nothing to hope for in life,But the mercy of hearts long success has made hard.No parent hast thou, no fond children, no wife,Thine age from distress and misfortune to guard.Yet the trifle I gave, little worth thy possessing,Has call’d forth in thee, what I cannot repay:Thou hast ask’d of thy God for his favour and blessing;Thou hast pray’d for the sinner, who never must pray.Old man, if those locks, which are silver’d by time,Have ne’er been dishonor’d by guilt or excess;If when tempted to wrong, thou hast fled from the crime;By passion unmov’d, unappall’d by distress:If through life thou hast follow’d the course that is fair,And much hast perform’d, though of little possess’d;Then the God of thy fathers shall favour the prayer,And a blessing be sent to a heart now unblest.
Poor wretch! who hast nothing to hope for in life,But the mercy of hearts long success has made hard.No parent hast thou, no fond children, no wife,Thine age from distress and misfortune to guard.Yet the trifle I gave, little worth thy possessing,Has call’d forth in thee, what I cannot repay:Thou hast ask’d of thy God for his favour and blessing;Thou hast pray’d for the sinner, who never must pray.Old man, if those locks, which are silver’d by time,Have ne’er been dishonor’d by guilt or excess;If when tempted to wrong, thou hast fled from the crime;By passion unmov’d, unappall’d by distress:If through life thou hast follow’d the course that is fair,And much hast perform’d, though of little possess’d;Then the God of thy fathers shall favour the prayer,And a blessing be sent to a heart now unblest.
Poor wretch! who hast nothing to hope for in life,But the mercy of hearts long success has made hard.No parent hast thou, no fond children, no wife,Thine age from distress and misfortune to guard.
Poor wretch! who hast nothing to hope for in life,
But the mercy of hearts long success has made hard.
No parent hast thou, no fond children, no wife,
Thine age from distress and misfortune to guard.
Yet the trifle I gave, little worth thy possessing,Has call’d forth in thee, what I cannot repay:Thou hast ask’d of thy God for his favour and blessing;Thou hast pray’d for the sinner, who never must pray.
Yet the trifle I gave, little worth thy possessing,
Has call’d forth in thee, what I cannot repay:
Thou hast ask’d of thy God for his favour and blessing;
Thou hast pray’d for the sinner, who never must pray.
Old man, if those locks, which are silver’d by time,Have ne’er been dishonor’d by guilt or excess;If when tempted to wrong, thou hast fled from the crime;By passion unmov’d, unappall’d by distress:
Old man, if those locks, which are silver’d by time,
Have ne’er been dishonor’d by guilt or excess;
If when tempted to wrong, thou hast fled from the crime;
By passion unmov’d, unappall’d by distress:
If through life thou hast follow’d the course that is fair,And much hast perform’d, though of little possess’d;Then the God of thy fathers shall favour the prayer,And a blessing be sent to a heart now unblest.
If through life thou hast follow’d the course that is fair,
And much hast perform’d, though of little possess’d;
Then the God of thy fathers shall favour the prayer,
And a blessing be sent to a heart now unblest.