Ruin'D Innocence Poem by Charlotte Dacre

SEE'ST thou yon lily in its blooming pride,
Its snowy bosom op'ning to the view,
Surcharg'd with gems of bright and fragrant dew,
With envy view'd by ev'ry flow'r beside?

'Tis the fair idol of the gard'ner's toil,
Rais'd by his hand, the fav'rite of the vale,
Kiss'd by the sun and courted by the gale,
Confess'd the glory of the lovely soil.

Too happy sweet!—for now the pirate hand
Longs to purloin thee from thy native bed;
Prefers thou should'st be his, and shortly dead,
Than gaily bloom amid thy spotless band.

A moment snaps thy halcyon life in twain,
Some selfish wight, devoid of soul, decrees
That thou should'st die his vacant mind to please,
And then, despoil'd, be cast abroad again.

Cast, haply, on the spot where lately too
In beauty's pride thou little dreamt thy fate;
Despis'd by those who envied thee so late,
And crush'd by feet that once were stopp'd to view.

The gard'ner who thy charms was wont to greet,
Missing thy beauty from the fragrant bow'r,
Bestows his care upon some gaudier flow'r,
And knows thee not—disfigur'd at his feet.

So the bright vestal, 'mid the circle gay,
Awhile is gaz'd at, envied, and admir'd;
Then by the fell destroyer, man, desir'd,
Obtain'd—and then—unpitied cast away.

Now sidelong view'd by wretches vulgar born;
Sneer'd at, or pitied, by the mock refin'd;—
Pity, degrading to the feeling mind,
And bitterer than of ignorance the scorn.

Despis'd—dishonor'd—driv'n forth alone;
What stone, unconscious, rests her patient head?
Or sod ungenial, yields that breast a bed,
Where happy innocence once held her throne!

Or list'ning to the next seducer's tale,
Has she awhile her gloomy fate delay'd?
In vain—it follows like a vengeful shade,
And tho' now distant—hope not it shall fail.

Glitter awhile the pageant of the hour,
Bright as the gem that glistens on the thorn,
More short-liv'd even than the fleeting morn,
Drank in the ray which lent its faithless pow'r.

Affect the mirth thy languid soul disdains,
Laugh while false rapture lightens from thine eye;
The transitory smile shall haste to die,
While melancholy still its place maintains.

Prophetic of the fate that, nurs'd in gloom,
Lingers to strike at thy devoted breast,
A victim to the crimes of man confest,
And drives thee thro' destruction to the tomb.