Sudden you mount, you beckon from the skies;
Clouds interpose, waves roar, and winds arife.
I shriek, start up, the same sad prospect find,
And wake to all the griefs I left behind.
For thee the fates, severely kind, ordain
A cool suspense from pleasure and from pain;
Thy life a long dead calm of fix'd repose;
No pulse that riots, and no blood that glows.
Still as the fea, ere winds were taught to blow,
Or moving spirit bade the waters flow;
Soft as the slumbers of a faint forgiv'n,
And mild as op'ning gleams of promis'd heav'n.
Come, Abelard! for what haft thou to dread?
The torch of Venus burns not for the dead.
Nature stands check'd; Religion disapproves;
Ev'n thou art cold-yet Eloïsa loves.
Ah hopeless, lafting flames! like those that burn
To light the dead, and warm th'unfruitful urn.
What scenes appear where'er I turn my view?
The dear Ideas, where I fly, pursue,
Rise in the grove, before the altar rise,
Stain all my foul, and wanton in my eyes.
I waste the Matin lamp in sighs for thee,
Thy image steals between my God and me,
Thy voice I seem in ev'ry hymn to hear,
With ev'ry bead I drop too soft a tear,
When from the cenfer clouds of fragrance roll,
And swelling organs lift the rising soul,
One thought of thee puts all the pomp to flight,
Priefts, tapers, temples, swim before my fight:
In feas of flame my plunging foul is drown'd, 275
While Altars blaze, and Angels tremble round.
While proftrate here in humble grief I lie, Kind, virtuous drops just gath'ring in my eye, While praying, trembling, in the dust I roll, And dawning grace is op'ning on my foul: Come, if thou dar'st, all charming as thou art! Oppose thyself to heav'n; dispute my heart; Come, with one glance of those deluding eyes Blot out each bright Idea of the skies; Take back that grace, those forrows, and those tears; Take back my fruitless penitence and pray'rs; 286 Snatch me, just mounting, from the blest abode; Affift the fiends, and tear me from my God!
No, fly me, fly me, far as Pole from Pole;
Rise Alps between us! and whole oceans roll! 290
Ah, come not, write not, think not once of me,
Nor share one pang of all I felt for thee.
Thy oaths I quit, thy memory resign;
Forget, renounce me, hate whate'er was mine.
Fair eyes, and tempting looks (which yet I view!)
Long lov'd, ador'd ideas, all adieu!
O Grace ferene! oh virtue heav'nly fair!
Divine oblivion of low-thoughted care!
Fresh blooming Hope, gay daughter of the sky!
And Faith, our early immortality!
Enter, each mild, each amicable guest;
Receive, and wrap me in eternal reft!
See in her cell fad Eloïsa spread, Propt on fome tomb, a neighbour of the dead. In each low wind methinks a Spirit calls, And more than Echoes talk along the walls. Here, as I watch'd the dying lamps around, From yonder shrine I heard a hollow found. "Come, fifter, come! (it said, or seem'd to fay) "Thy place is here, sad sister, come away! "Once like thyself, I trembled, wept, and pray'd, "Love's victim then, tho' now a fainted maid: "But all is calm in this eternal fleep; "Here grief forgets to groan, and love to weep, "Ev'n fuperftition loses ev'ry fear :
" For God, not man, absolves our frailties here." I come, I come! prepare your roseate bow'rs,
Celestial palms, and ever-blooming flow'rs.
Thither, where sinners may have rest, I go,
Where flames refin'd in breasts seraphic glow: 320
Thou, Abelard! the last sad office pay,
And fmooth my passage to the realms of day;
See my lips tremble, and my eye-balls roll,
Suck my last breath, and catch my flying foul !
Ah no - in sacred vestments may'st thou stand, 325
The hallow'd taper trembling in thy hand,
Present the Cross before my lifted eye,
Teach me at once, and learn of me to die.
Ah then, thy once-lov'd Eloïsa see!
It will be then no crime to gaze on me.
See from my cheek the tranfient roses fly!
See the last sparkle languish in my eye!
'Till ev'ry motion, pulse, and breath be o'er;
And ev'n my Abelard be lov'd no more.
O Death all-eloquent! you only prove
What duft we doat on, when 'tis man we love.
Then too, when fate shall thy fair frame destroy,
(That caufe of all my guilt, and all my joy)
In trance extatic may thy pangs be drown'd,
Bright clouds descend, and Angels watch thee round,
From op'ning skies may streaming glories shine, 341
And Saints embrace thee with a love like mine.
May one kind grave unite each hapless name,
And graft my love immortal on thy fame!
VER.343. May one kind grave etc.) Abelard and Eloïfa were interred in the same grave, or in monuments adjoining, in the Monastery of the Paraclete: he died in the year 1142, she in 1163. P.
Then, ages hence, when all my woes are o'er, 345
When this rebellious heart shall beat no more;
If ever chance two wand'ring lovers brings
To Paraclete's white walls and filver springs,
O'er the pale marble shall they join their heads,
And drink the falling tears each other sheds;
Then sadly say, with mutual pity mov'd,
"Oh may we never love as these have lov'd!"
From the full choir when loud Hofannas rise,
And swell the pomp of dreadful facrifice,
Amid that scene if some relenting eye
Glance on the stone where our cold relicks lie,
Devotion's self shall steal a thought from heav'n,
One human tear shall drop, and be forgiv'n.
And fure if fate some future bard shall join
In sad fimilitude of griefs to mine,
Condemn'd whole years in absence to deplore,
And image charms he must behold no more;
Such if there be, who loves so long, so well;
Let him our sad, our tender story tell;
The well-fung woes will footh my penfive ghost; 365 He best can paint 'em who shall feel 'em most.
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