In vain, with tender pity's clasp,
To her warm breast she holds
The young, whom death's remorseless grasp
In his dark shade infolds.

Off flew the parent in despair,
Her heart appears to burn;
Nor can the sympathetic fair
Persuade her to return.

She, bearing in her robe the dead,
The parent calls anew;
'Till rising rocks, that near them spread,
Conceals her from the view.

Here she despairing now to heal
The wretched parent's pain,
Sat on a rock, in sorrowing zeal,
And kiss'd the dead again!

Her tender nerves confess'd a shock,
To hear a sudden gun!
A smuggler's vessel from the rock,
She now perceives to run.

But with what grief the sound she heard;
How pants her heart with dread,
As she beholds her favourite bird
Now fluttering o'er her head.