To Fortune

Promptress of unnumber'd sighs,

O snatch that circling bandage from thine eyes!

O look, and smile! No common prayer

Solicits, Fortune! thy propitious care!

For, not a silken son of dress,

I clink the gilded chains of politesse,

Nor ask thy boon what time I scheme

Unholy Pleasure's frail and feverish dream;

Nor yet my view life's dazzle blinds—

Pomp!—Grandeur! Power!—I give you to the winds!

Let the little bosom cold

Melt only at the sunbeam ray of gold—

My pale cheeks glow—the big drops start—

The rebel Feeling riots at my heart!

And if in lonely durance pent,

Thy poor mite mourn a brief imprisonment—

That mite at Sorrow's faintest sound

Leaps from its scrip with an elastic bound!

But oh! if ever song thine ear

Might soothe, O haste with fost'ring hand to rear

One Flower of Hope! At Love's behest,

Trembling, I plac'd it in my secret breast:

And thrice I've view'd the vernal gleam,

Since oft mine eye, with Joy's electric beam,

Illum'd it—and its sadder hue

Oft moisten'd with the Tear's ambrosial dew!

Poor wither'd floweret! on its head

Has dark Despair his sickly mildew shed!

But thou, O Fortune! canst relume

Its deaden'd tints—and thou with hardier bloom

May'st haply tinge its beauties pale,

And yield the unsunn'd stranger to the western gale!