While at my window late I stood alone,
    So new and many things there cross’d my sight,
    To view them I had almost weary grown. 
    A dappled hind appear’d upon the right,
    In aspect gentle, yet of stately stride,
    By two swift greyhounds chased, a black and white,
    Who tore in the poor side
    Of that fair creature wounds so deep and wide,
    That soon they forced her where ravine and rock
    The onward passage block: 
    Then triumph’d Death her matchless beauties o’er,
    And left me lonely there her sad fate to deplore.

    Upon the summer wave a gay ship danced,
    Her cordage was of silk, of gold her sails,
    Her sides with ivory and ebon glanced,
    The sea was tranquil, favouring were the gales,
    And heaven as when no cloud its azure veils. 
    A rich and goodly merchandise is hers;
    But soon the tempest wakes,
    And wind and wave to such mad fury stirs,
    That, driven on the rocks, in twain she breaks;
    My heart with pity aches,
    That a short hour should whelm, a small space hide,
    Riches for which the world no equal had beside.

    In a fair grove a bright young laurel made
    —­Surely to Paradise the plant belongs!—­
    Of sacred boughs a pleasant summer shade,
    From whose green depths there issued so sweet songs
    Of various birds, and many a rare delight
    Of eye and ear, what marvel from the world
    They stole my senses quite! 
    While still I gazed, the heavens grew black around,
    The fatal lightning flash’d, and sudden hurl’d,
    Uprooted to the ground,
    That blessed birth.  Alas! for it laid low,
    And its dear shade whose like we ne’er again shall know.

    A crystal fountain in that very grove
    Gush’d from a rock, whose waters fresh and clear
    Shed coolness round and softly murmur’d love;
    Never that leafy screen and mossy seat
    Drew browsing flock or whistling rustic near
    But nymphs and muses danced to music sweet. 
    There as I sat and drank
    With infinite delight their carols gay,
    And mark’d their sport, the earth before me sank
    And bore with it away
    The fountain and the scene, to my great grief,
    Who now in memory find a sole and scant relief.

    A lovely and rare bird within the wood,
    Whose crest with gold, whose wings with purple gleam’d,
    Alone, but proudly soaring, next I view’d,
    Of heavenly and immortal birth which seem’d,
    Flitting now here, now there, until it stood
    Where buried fount and broken laurel lay,
    And sadly seeing there
    The fallen trunk, the boughs all stripp’d and bare,
    The channel dried—­for all things to decay
    So tend—­it turn’d away
    As if in angry scorn, and instant fled,
    While through me for her loss new love and pity spread.