CHAPTER LXI



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Where now are all my flattering dreams of joy? Monimia, give my soul her wonted rest;-- Since first thy beauty fixed my roving eye, heart-gnawing cares corrode my pensive breast!

Let happy lovers fly where pleasures call, With festive songs beguile the fleeting hour, Lead beauty through the mazes of the ball, Or press her wanton in love's roseate bower:

For me, no more I'll range the empurpled mead, Where shepherd's pipe and virgins dance around, Nor wander through the woodbine's fragrant shade, To hear the music of the grove resound.

I'll seek some lonely church, or dreary hall, Where fancy paints the glimmering taper blue, Where damps hang mouldering on the ivy'd wall, And sheeted ghosts drink up the midnight dew,

There, leagued with hopeless anguish and despair, A while in silence o'er my fate repair: Then, with a long farewell to love and care, To kindred dust my weary limbs consign.

Wilt thou, Monimia, shed a gracious tear On the cold grave where all my sorrows rest? Strew vernal flowers, applaud my love sincere, And bid the turf lie easy on my breast?



I was wonderfully affected with this pathetic complaint, which seemed so well calculated for my own disappointment in love, that I could not help attaching the idea of Narcissa to the name of Monimia, and of forming such melancholy presages of my passion, that I could not recover my tranquillity: and was fain to have recourse to the bottle, which prepared me for a profound sleep that I could not otherwise have enjoyed. Whether these impressions invited and introduced a train of other melancholy reflections, or my fortitude was all exhausted in the effort I made against despondence, during the first day of my imprisonment, I cannot determine; but I awoke in the horrors, and found my imagination haunted with such dismal apparitions, that I was ready to despair: and I believe the render will own, I had no great cause to congratulate myself, when I considered my situation. I was interrupted in the midst of these gloomy apprehensions by the arrival of Strap, who contributed not a little to the re-establishment of my peace, by letting me know that he had hired himself as a journeyman barber; by which means he would be able not only to save me a considerable expense, but even make shift to lay up something for my subsistence, after my money should be spent, in case I should. not be relieved before.