To The Departing Spirit Of An Alienated Friend

[ZaunköniG]

O, EVER DEAR! thy precious, vital powers
Sink rapidly!--the long and dreary Night
Brings scarce an hope that Morn's returning light
Shall dawn for THEE!--In such terrific hours,
When yearning Fondness eagerly devours
Each moment of protracted life, his flight
The Rashly-Chosen of thy heart has ta'en
Where dances, songs, and theatres invite.
EXPIRING SWEETNESS! with indignant pain
I see him in the scenes where laughing glide
Pleasure's light Forms;--see his eyes gaily glow,
Regardless of thy life's fast ebbing tide;
I hear him, who shou'd droop in silent woe,
Declaim on Actors, and on Taste decide!

[ZaunköniG]

SUBJECT OF THE PRECEDING SONNET CONTINUED.


Behold him now his genuine colours wear,
That specious False-One, by whose cruel wiles
I lost thy amity; saw thy dear smiles
Eclips'd; those smiles, that us'd my heart to cheer,
Wak'd by thy grateful sense of many a year
When rose thy youth, by Friendship's pleasing toils
Cultur'd;--but DYING!--O! for ever fade
The angry fires.--Each thought, that might upbraid
Thy broken faith, which yet my soul deplores,
Now as eternally is past and gone
As are the interesting, the happy hours,
Days, years, we shar'd together. They are flown!
Yet long must I lament thy hapless doom,
Thy lavish'd life and early-hasten'd tomb.