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Literary Gazette, 5th October, 1822, Pages 633-634

ORIGINAL POETRY.

POETICAL SKETCHES.

Third Series — Sketch the Fifth. THE LOVER'S ROCK.

"Oh why should Fate such pleasure have,      Life's dearest bonds untwining;        Or why so sweet a flower as love        Depend on Fortune's shining.        This world's wealth, when I think upon't,        Is pride and a' the lave on't;        Fie, fie on silly coward man,        That he should be the slave on't." - Burns.

Most beautiful, most happy! must there be Clouds on thy sky, and thorns upon thy path? Love, why art thou so wretched? thou, so formed To be the blessedness of life, the last Sweet relic left of Eden! Yet on thee, Even on thee, the curse is laid! Thy cup Has its full share of bitterness. The heart Is chilled, crushed, and constrained by the cold world, Outraged and undervalued; the fine throbs Of feeling turn to ministers of grief; All is so false around, affection's self Becomes suspected. But of all drear lots That love must draw from the dark urn of fate, There is one deepest misery—when two hearts, Born for each other, yet must beat apart. Aye, this is misery, to check, conceal That which should be our happiness and glory; To love, to be beloved again, and know A gulf between us:—aye, 'tis misery! This agony of passion, this wild faith, Whose constancy is fruitless, yet is kept Inviolate:—to feel that all life's hope, And light, and treasure, clings to one from whom Our wayward doom divides us. Better far To weep o'er treachery or broken vows,— For time may teach their worthlessness:—or pine With unrequited love;—there is a pride In the fond sacrifice—the cheek may lose Its summer crimson; but at least the rose Has withered secretly—at least, the heart That has been victim to its tenderness, Has sighed unechoed by some one as true, As wretched as itself. But to be loved With feelings deep, eternal as our own, And yet to know that we must quell those feelings With phantom shapes of prudence, worldly care— For two who live but in each other's life, Whose only star in this dark world is love!