(3)
The moon had passed, & the evning still found Julia lost
in pleasing revery, & tender recollection--
"Days of my youth!" she exclaimed--'Ye are gone! Your [?]
visions, your ardent hopes, all, all have
gone, & proved as fleeting & unsubstantial as those light clouds
which float over yonder sky.--Ye, painted & beautiful vapours!
resplendant with the noon day sun,
your varying & evanescent forms, your soft & glowing clours,
are but the embodied breathe of nature; extractions from
the earthy, too etheral for those lower regions.
Disengaged from grosser matter, ye asend to heaven take the
sighings of the heart,--the breathings of a sould dissatisfied with
the low born pleasures, & as piring after immortality. For what
but vapours pointed by a brilliant Fancy; what but every
varying forms, are the fond hopes--the glowing pleasures
of human life!
The morning & the noon are past, the day is closing--the
clouds follow the setting sun, & settle round the horizon.
Down shall his fiery orb sink from sight, but his lingering
rays will still paint the cloudes & diffuse over the landscape
a rich & mellow light.
Ye, days of my life! your bright mornin ghas gone,
your meridian shall soon be past & when its evening
comes, will yet some pleasures, hopes & affections cluster
round its close, like these light clouds round the closing day?