The Tear

Too oft is a smile
But the hypocrite’s wile,
To mask detestation, or fear;
Give me the soft sigh,
Whilst the soul telling eye
Is dimm’d, for a time, with a Tear

Mild Charity’s glow,
To us mortals below,
Shows the soul from barbarity clear;
Compassion will melt,
Where this virtue is felt,
And its dew is diffused in a Tear

The man, doom’d to sail
With the blast of the gale,
Through billows Atlantic to steer,
As he bends o’er the wave
Which may soon be his grave,
The green sparkles bright with a Tear;

The Soldier braves death
For a fanciful wreath
In Glory’s romantic career;
But he raises the foe
When in battle laid low,
And bathes every wound with a Tear.

If, with high-bounding pride,
He return to his bride!
Renouncing the gore-crimson’d spear;
All his toils are repaid
When, embracing the maid,
From her eyelid he kisses the Tear.

Sweet scene of my youth!
Seat of Friendship and Truth,
Where Love chas’d each fast-fleeting year
Loth to leave thee, I mourn’d,
For a last look I turn’d,
But thy spire was scarce seen through a Tear

Though my vows I can pour,
To my Mary no more,
My Mary, to Love once so dear,
In the shade of her bow’r,
I remember the hour,
She rewarded those vows with a Tear.

By another possest,
May she live ever blest!
Her name still my heart must revere
With a sigh I resign,
What I once thought was mine,
And forgive her deceit with a Tear.

Ye friends of my heart,
Ere from you I depart,
This hope to my breast is most near
If again we shall meet,
In this rural retreat,
May we meet, as we part, with a Tear.