Page:Poems By Chauncy Hare Townshend.djvu/128

 108 EARLY POEMS ON Too late to stay--I wake to view--my fall, And mourn the pleasures, I cannot recal. Haply some lonely wanderer o'er the wild, Like me, have dreams of fleeting bliss beguil'd. Lur'd by thy treacherous spells, fantastic Sleep, To climb the cliff, that totters o'er the deep, He lays him down on some loose point reclin'd, Whose baseless summit rocks to every wind. There, while the lightnings glimmer on the wave, Crest the white foam, and indicate his grave; While the loud thunder shakes his giddy bed, His bosom feels no chill, foreboding dread. Her varied mantle Fancy o'er him throws, Her voice of music soothes his deep repose, And fairy scenes- of happiness arise, Which truth, alas, shall never realize! Which, like the world, in danger's hour recede, And leave the wretch to perish, where they lead. Lo, she transports him to the 1ov'd retreat, Where rov'd in infancy, his careless feet; On whose green turf, beneath whose bowering shade, With her--to youthful love how dear !--he stray'd. Swift as the flash, that cleaves yon stormy skies, O'er yon wide plain, with rapture wing'd, he flies, ......... Google

�