Page:The Improvisatrice.pdf/125

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ROSALIE.
113


A galling chain, whose pressure will intrude,
Fettering Mirth's step, and Pleasure's lightest mood.
 
Where are her thoughts thus wandering?—A spot,
    Now distant far, is pictured on her mind,—
A chesnut shadowing a low white cot,
    With rose and jasmine round the casement twined,
    Mixed with the myrtle-tree's luxuriant blind.
Alone, (oh! should such solitude be here?)
    An aged form beneath the shade reclined,
Whose eye glanced round the scene;—and then a tear
    Told that she missed one in her heart enshrined!
Then came remembrances of other times,
    When eve oped her rich bowers for the pale day;
When the faint distant tones of convent chimes
    Were answered by the lute and vesper lay;—