IN A BLANK LEAF OF ROGERS'S PLEASURES OF MEMORY

« Pleasures of Memory ! oh supremely blest,

And justly proud beyond a Poet's praise !

If the pure confines of thy tranquil breast

Contain, indeed, the subject of thy lays,

By me how envied, for to me

The herald still t' would be of misery !

Ah ! Memory makes her influence known

By sighs and tears and grief alone :

I greet her as a fiend, to whom belong

The vulture's ravening beak, the raven's funeral song.

She tells of time mis-spent, of comfort lost.

Of fair occasions gone for ever by.

Of hopes too fondly loved, too rudely crossed,

Of many a cause to wish yet fear to die :

For what, except th' instinctive fear.

Lest she survive, detains me here,

When « all the life of life » is fled ?

What but the deep inherent dread

Lest she beyond the grave resume her reign

And realize the hell that priests and beldames feign ?