Page:Poems, Consisting Chiefly of Translations from the Asiatick Languages.djvu/47

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
OF FORTUNE.
25

She sat deserted on the naked shore,
Saw the curl'd waves, and heard the tempest roar;
Whilst on her finger shone the fatal ring,
A weak defence from hunger's pointed sting,
From sad remorse, from comsortless despair,
And all the painful family of care!
Frantick with grief her rosy cheek she tore,
And rent her locks, her darling charge no more:
But when the night his raven wing had spread,
And hung with sable every mountain's head,
And round her feet the curling billows roll'd;
With trembling arms a rifted crag she grasp'd,
And the rough rock with hard embraces clasp'd.

While thus she stood, and made a piercing moan,
By chance her emerald touch'd the rugged stone;
And taught the gloom to counterfeit the day:
A winged youth, for mortal eyes too fair,
Shot like a meteor through the dusky air;
His heavenly charms o'ercame her dazled fight,
And drown'd her senses in a flood of light;