AN ELEGY. Anonymous Alexander Huber Editor Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford
Broad Street Oxford OX1 3BG UK
Eighteenth-Century Poetry Archive
Taylor Institution Library St Giles' Oxford OX1 3NA UK info@eighteenthcenturypoetry.org https://www.eighteenthcenturypoetry.org/
Oxford This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. T116245 1136 K093079.003 Pearch, G. A collection of poems in four volumes. By several hands. Vol. III. [The second edition]. London printed for G. Pearch 1770 pp. 167-169. 4v. ; 8⁰.

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AN ELEGY . BY SIR B— G— . In every varied posture , place , and hour , How widow'd every thought of every joy ! Thought , busy thought , too busy for my peace ! Strays , wretched rover ! o'er the pleasing past ; In quest of wretchedness perversly strays ; And finds all desart now . YOUNG . IN Burton's favourite groves , alas , how chang'd By Charlotte's death ! oft let me devious rove Indulging grief ; where gladsome once I rang'd , In sweet society with Peace and Love . Oft in the silent evening , all alone , When solemn twilight shades the face of day , The plaintive Muse shall hither waft her moan ; With tenderest passion here inspire my lay . These hours , allotted to that Muse's hand , To latest time thy memory shall endear ; While soft ideas rise at her command , And in luxurious sorrow prompt the tear . Recal , soft fame of gentleness and Love ! That calm , which triumph'd o'er thy parting breath ; That blooming texture by the Graces wove : — And are those eyes for ever set in Death ? One more — and then — farewel ! one lingering view Tore my fond soul from all it held so dear : Twas o'er ! — farewel — my joys : sweet hope , adieu ! — Adieu , my love ! — We part for ever here : No ! in the still of night , my restless thought Pursues thy image thro' its change unknown ; Steals oft unnotic'd to the dreary vault , And in that vale of Sorrow pours my own : Nor , since the hour that clos'd our blooming scene , Once has it wander'd from its darling trust : It sounds thy voice ; still animates thy mien ; And haunts thy slumbers in the sacred dust . Each conscious walk of Tenderness and Joy , Thy faithful partner oft alone shall tread ; Recount , while anguish heaves the frequent sigh , How bliss on bliss thy smiling influence shed ! Though mine be many — many rolling years ! Extatic thought shall linger still on thee ! Time rolls in vain — Remembrance , with her tears — — You that have lost an angel — pity me ! Thy smiles were mine — were oft ; and only mine ; Nor yet forsook me in the face of death ; E'en now they live — still o'er thy beauties shine : For Fancy's magic can restore thy breath . Painful reflection ! — can the active mind , Which penetrates the vast expanse of Day , Long languish in this palsied mass confin'd , Nor burst these fetters of obtruding clay ? Ah , no ! — she beckons me — for yet she lives ! Lives in yon regions of unfading joy ! She points the fair reward that Virtue gives ; — Which chance , nor change , nor ages can destroy . Let Folly animate this transient scene With every bloom that Fancy can supply ! Reflection bends not on a point so mean ; Nor courts this moment , since the next we die . The dearest objects hasten to decay : ( An aweful lesson to the pensive mind ! ) My Charlotte's beauties so soon pass'd away : Nor left , but in my heart , a wreck behind !