Halloween

Poor flutt'ring heart, ah! wilt thou ne'er

Thy master's burden learn to bear!

Ah, cruel Mem'ry, why retrace

The angel features of that face!

Those eyes that could a wound impart

More fatal than a foeman's dart,

Which ends at once the painful strife

That he who loves endures through life.

My Mary was the sweetest rose,

That in Love's beauteous garden grows;

Her form, her mien, her soul so pure

Enchanted me beyond all cure:

So graceful, artless, modest, mild,

She ev'ry eye and heart beguil'd;

Yet blush'd to meet th' admiring gaze

Of all who sought to speak her praise.

Through sleepless nights in vain I strove

To quench the flame of ardent love:

In vain I tried to shun her sight, --

To seek my lost repose in flight!

My falt'ring tongue full soon reveal'd

The truth my eyes had ill conceal'd;

And in the bower, at eve's decline,

I trembling ask'd her to be mine.