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Some silent stand, and some attempt relief
By balmy words, and sooth the virgin's grief;
But still her snowy throbbing bosom sighs,
And tears descend from her love-darting eyes.
Her snowy neck disordered hair o'erspread,
Her tear-washed cheeks diffuse a rosy red,
Her swelling arms are decored with snow,

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And all the graces in the virgin glow.

Thus, spreading her white limbs along the plains,

135

The blooming Venus mourned Adonis slain :
Adown her rosy neck the tresses flow,

Her eyes look languid through the veil of woe;
"Twixt her loose robe her heaving breast is seen,
And all the graces mourn around their queen.
Thus on the downy bed the virgin burns,
And round the fair the blooming bevy mourns.

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The monarch hears his love-sick daughter's pain:

Why weeps my daughter, why, my joy, complain?

The youth remains, nor is the noble fled,

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Nor shall his noble blood disgrace the marriage-bed.

No horrid herdsman, no indecent hind,

Of clownish manners, or rapacious mind,

First, Cupid, aimed thy soft enamouring dart,

And vanquished all my young Egidia's heart.

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Obscure, unhonoured, heedless, all alone,

Lost to himself, and to the world unknown,

The youth, long, Grampus! climbed thy brows, till fate
Instructs the mind, and spread the arms of state.

Good is thy choice, and what thy sire designed;

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Dry, dry these cheeks, and sooth thy troubled mind.

The monarch placid spoke: The maid arose,

Her raptured soul with joys extatic glows.

The veil of woe removed, she brightly shone;

As beamy Phœbus, or the silver moon

160

Emerging from a cloud, she graceful moves',
And gently trip around the little loves.

Before the priest the blooming couple stand;
Much she desired, but blushed to join the hand.
"Tis done; the youthful hero spreads his arms,

And clasps, enraptured, more than phantomed charms.

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Emerging from a cloud, she graceful moves.] "She came in all her beauty, like the moon from the cloud of the east." I. 92.

THE HIGHLANDER :

A POEM.

IN SIX CANTOS.

First published in 1758.

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