Poems (Campbell)/Gavin the False
GAVIN THE FALSE.
"Again I feel my bosom glow With love, with rapture, and delight;His faith is prov'd, his love I know, Nor time can cool, nor absence blight.
I hasten now, with trembling joy, To meet him by the river's side;No fearful doubts my breast annoy, For I shall soon be Gavin's bride.
My parents smile upon us too, And love my Gavin as their child!"Thus youthful Rosa sung, and flew To meet him in the flow'ry wild.
'Twas morning hour, the sunny beams Had scarcely sipp'd the dews away;Bright were the fields, the woods, and streams, And loud the sweet lark's matin lay.
Serenely bloom'd the landscape round, And rapture throbb'd in Rosa's heart,For there no vice had entrance found, But all was pure and void of art.
She tripp'd along the verdant vale, And almost reach'd the destin'd grove,When, lo! upon the whisp'ring gale Breath'd a soft voice—the voice of love.
She stopp'd—for well she knew that voice— "Alas! to whom can Gavin speak?To meet me here was Gavin's choice"— And deeper blushes dy'd her cheek.
She saw him through the chequer'd shade— She mark'd the rapture in his eye—She saw a lovely stranger maid, That smil'd, and gave him sigh for sigh.
She heard him all his vows repeat; Quick throbb'd her heart—she heard no moreBut swiftly turn'd her trembling feet, And sought the river's fatal shore.
"Gavin!" she cried—he caught the word; Echo return'd the desp'rate cry—But, ah! too late false Gavin heard, He only came to see her die.
Stretch'd on the river's brink she lay; An aged shepherd rais'd her head,And sadly shook his tresses grey, And sorrow'd o'er the dying maid.
Her fading eye was dim with death, Her drenched ringlets loosely flow,And short and quick the parting breath Upheav'd her bosom's virgin snow.
He would have spoke—but conscious guilt And wild remorse his bosom wrung;And more than death the traitor felt As o'er the injur'd maid he hung.
"False!—yet belov'd—forgiv'n—adieu!"— Her quiv'ring lips no more could say;To happier realms the spirit flew— To realms of everlasting day!
Poor Rosa! in the grave was laid; But frantic Gavin, far and wide,Long, long, a houseless maniac stray'd, Still raving on his murder'd bride.
And she, whose base, detested fraud Had lur'd his erring heart astray,Despis'd, deserted, and abhor'd, In friendless mis'ry pines away.