55
Yet once again, the name of Adelaide:
They told, a lonely orphan, she had sought
The convent's silent shade: some secret grief
Had prey'd upon her; and it had been said,
She was a victim at the sacred shrine—
Rather the bride of sorrow than of heaven.
He heard no more, but left the mirthful group,
And sought again the groves, where once young love
Had borne the halcyon hours upon his wing,
Roaming in that strange mood, when conscious wrong
Presses upon the heart;—when feelings rise,
We may not brook another's eye should see;
When memory haunts us, as a spectred form
On which we dare not gaze, and solitude
Is what we tremble at, yet what we seek.
