What hast thou done, thrice lovely maid?
What crimes can to thy charge be laid?
Didst thou contemn the suppliant poor,
Drive helpless orphans from thy door,
Unduteous to thy parents prove,
Or yield thy charms to lawless love?
No, Morvyth, no; thy gentle breast
Was form’d to pity the distress’d;
Has ne’er one thought, one feeling known,
That virtue could not call her own;
Nor hast thou caus’d a parent’s pain
Till quitting now thy native plain.
Yet, lovely nymph, thy way pursue,
And keep repentance full in view;
Yield not thy tongue to cold restraint,
But lay thy soul before the saint.
Oh! tell him that thy lover dies;
On death’s cold bed unpitied lies;
Murder’d by thee, relentless maid,
And to th’ untimely grave convey’d!
Yet ere he’s number’d with the dead,
Ere yet his latest breath is fled,
Confess, repent, thou cruel fair,
And hear, for once, a lover's pray’r:
So may the saint with ear benign,
Sweet penitent, attend to thine!
Thou soon must over Menai[1] go;
May ev’ry current softly flow,
Thy little bark securely glide
Swift o’er the calm pellucid tide.
- ↑ ‘Menai,’ the frith or channel dividing Anglesea from Carnarvonshire.
