Can I forget-canst thou forget, How quick thy fluttering heart did move ? Oh, by my soul, I see thee yet, With eyes so languid, breast so fair, And lips, though silent, breathing love. When thus reclining on my breast, And still we near and nearer prest, And then those pensive eyes would close, While their long lashes' darkening gloss I dreamt last night our love returned, Was sweeter in its phantasy Than if for other hearts I burned, For eyes that ne'er like thine could beam In rapture's wild reality. Then tell me not, remind me not, Of hours which, though for ever gone, Till thou and I shall be forgot, And senseless as the mouldering stone Which tells that we shall be no more. MIDNIGHT AT CORINTH. 'Tis midnight: on the mountains brown Who ever gazed upon them shining, And scarce their foam the pebbles shook, And echo answered from the hill. And the wide hum of that wild host It rose, that chanted mournful strain, Such as when winds and harp-strings meet, Wakes, though but for a stranger's knell. ON A CORNELIAN HEART WHICH WAS BROKEN. ILL-FATED Heart! and can it be That thou shouldst thus be rent in twain? Yet precious seems each shattered part, ADDRESS, SPOKEN AT THE OPENING OF DRURY-LANE THEATRE, SATURDAY, OCTOBER 10, 1812. IN one dread night our city saw, and sighed, Bowed to the dust the Drama's tower of pride; In one short hour beheld the blazing fane, Apollo sink, and Shakspeare cease to reign. Ye who beheld, (oh! sight admired and mourned, Whose radiance mocked the ruin it adorned!) Through clouds of fire the massy fragments riven, Like Israel's pillar, chase the night from heaven; Saw the long column of revolving flames Shake its red shadow o'er the startled Thames, While thousands thronged around the burning dome, Shrank back appalled, and trembled for their home, As glared the volumed blaze, and ghastly shone The skies, with lightnings awful as their own, Till blackening ashes and the lonely wall Usurped the Muse's realm, and marked her fall: Say shall this new, nor less aspiring pile, Yes it shall be the magic of that name Defies the scythe of time, the torch of flame; On the same spot still consecrates the scene, As soars this fane to emulate the last, Oh! might we draw our omens from the past, Some hour propitious to our prayers may boast Names such as hallow still the dome we lost. On Drury first your Siddons' thrilling art O'erwhelmed the gentlest, stormed the sternest heart. On Drury, Garrick's latest laurels grew; Here your last tears retiring Roscius drew, Sighed his last thanks, and wept his last adieu: But still for living wit the wreaths may bloom That only waste their odors o'er the tomb. Such Drury claimed and claims — nor you refuse One tribute to revive his slumbering muse; With garlands deck your own Menander's head! Nor hoard your honors idly for the dead! Dear are the days which made our annals bright, Pause―ere their feebler offspring you condemn, |