Which soon their barren glory yield
To the warm shed and cultured field;
And he, who came, of all bereft,
To whom malignant Fate had left
Nor home nor friends nor country dear,
Finds home and friends and country here!
Such is the picture, warmly such,
That long the spell of Fancy's touch
Hath painted to my sanguine eye
Of man's new world of liberty!
Oh! ask me not if truth will seal
The reveries of Fancy's zeal,
If yet my charmed eyes behold
These features of an age of gold-
No-yet, alas! no gleaming trace!1
Never did youth, who loved a face
From portrait's rosy, flattering art,
Recoil with more regret of heart,
To find an owlet eye of gray,
Where painting poured the sapphire's ray,
Than I have felt, indignant felt,
To think the glorious dreams should melt,
Which oft, in boyhood's witching time,
Have wrapt me to this wondrous clime!
But, courage yet, my wavering heart!
Blame not the temple's meanest part,
Till you have traced the fabric o'er :-
As yet, we have beheld no more
Than just the porch to Freedom's fane,
And, though a sable drop may stain
The vestibule, 'tis impious sin
To doubt there's holiness within!
So here I pause-and now, my Kate,
To you (whose simplest ringlet's fate
Can claim more interest in my soul
Than all the Powers from pole to pole)
One word at parting-in the tone
Most sweet to you, and most my own.
The simplest notes I send you here,3
Though rude and wild, would still be dear,
If you but knew the trance of thought
In which my mind their murmurs caught.
1 Such romantic works as The American Far
2 Norfolk, it must be owned, 's an unfavourable
mer's Letters, and the Account of Kentucky, by specimen of America. The characteristics of Imlay, would seduce us into a belief that inno- Virginia in general are not such as can delight cence, peace, and freedom had deserted the rest either the politician or the moralist, and at Norof the Ohio. The French travellers, too, almost form. At the time when we arrived the yellow of the world, for Martha's Vineyard and the banks folk they are exhibited in their least attractive their share to the diffusion of this flattering mis- that assailed us in the streets very strongly acall from revolutionary motives, have contributed fever had not yet disappeared, and every odour conception. A visit to the country is, however, counted for its visitation.
quite sufficient to correct even the most enthu
3 A trifling attempt at musical composition accompanied this Epistle.
"Twas one of those enchanting dreams,
That lull me oft, when Music seems
To pour the soul in sound along,
And turn its every sigh to song!
I thought of home, the according lays
Respired the breath of happier days;
Warmly in every rising note
I felt some dear remembrance float,
Till, led by Music's fairy chain,
I wandered back to home again!
Oh! love the song, and let it oft
Live on your lip, in warble soft!
Say that it tells you, simply well,
All I have bid its murmurs tell,
Of memory's glow, of dreams that shed
The tinge of joy when joy is fled,
And all the heart's illusive hoard
Of love renewed and friends restored!
Now, sweet, adieu-this artless air,
And a few rhymes, in transcript fair,
Are all the gifts I yet can boast
To send you from Columbia's coast;
But when the sun, with warmer smile,
Shall light me to my destined Isle.
You shall have many a cowslip-bell
Where Ariel slept, and many a shell
In which the gentle spirit drew
From honey flowers the morning dew!
AFTER AN INTERVAL OF ABSENCE.
CONCEALED within the shady wood
A mother left her sleeping child,
And flew to cull her rustic food,
The fruitage of the forest wild.
But storms upon her pathway rise,
The mother roams, astray and weeping,
Far from the weak appealing cries
Of him she left so sweetly sleeping.
She hopes, she fears-a light is seen,
And gentler blows the night-wind's breath
Yet no 'tis gone-the storms are keen,
The baby may be chilled to death!
Perhaps his little eyes are shaded
Dim by Death's eternal chill—
And yet, perhaps, they are not faded;
Life and love may light them still.
Thus, when my soul with parting sigh, Hung on thy hand's bewildering touch, And, timid, asked that speaking eye,
If parting pained thee half so much :
I thought, and, oh! forgive the thought,
For who, by eyes like thine inspired,
Could e'er resist the flattering fault
Of fancying what his soul desired?
Yes-I did think, in Cara's mind,
Though yet to Cara's mind unknown,
I left one infant wish behind,
One feeling, which I called my own!
Oh blest! though but in fancy blest,
How did I ask of pity's care,
To shield and strengthen in thy breast
The nursling I had cradled there.
And, many an hour beguiled by pleasure,
And many an hour of sorrow numbering,
I ne'er forgot the new-born treasure
I left within thy bosom slumbering.
Perhaps indifference has not chilled it,
Haply it yet a throb may give―
Yet no-perhaps a doubt has killed it!
Oh, Cara!-does the infant live?
ON THE DAWNING OF A NEW YEAR'S DAY.
WHEN midnight came to close the year,
We sighed to think it thus should take
The hours it gave us-hours as dear
As sympathy and love could make
Their blessed moments! every sun
Saw us, my love, more closely one!
But, Cara, when the dawn was nigh
Which came another year to shed,
The smile we caught from eye to eye
Told us those moments were not fled;
Oh no!-we felt, some future sun
Should see us still more closely one!
Thus may we ever. side by side,
From happy years to happier glide;
And still, my Cara, may the sigh
We give to hours that vanish o'er us,
Be followed by the smiling eye
That Hope shall shed on scenes before us!
TO THE INVISIBLE GIRL.
THEY try to persuade me, my dear little sprite,
That you are not a daughter of ether and light,
Nor have any concern with those fanciful forms
That dance upon rainbows and ride upon storms;
That, in short, you're a woman; your lip and your breast,
As mortal as ever were tasted or pressed!
But I will not believe them-no, Science! to you
I have long bid a last and a careless adieu :
Still flying from Nature to study her laws,
And dulling delight by exploring its cause,
You forget how superior, for mortals below,
Is the fiction they dream to the truth that they know.
Oh! who, that has ever had rapture complete,
Would ask how we feel it, or why it is sweet;
How rays are confused, or how particles fly
Through the medium refined of a glance or a sigh!
Is there one, who but once would not rather have known it, Than written, with Harvey, whole volumes upon it?
No, no-but for you, my invisible love,
I will swear you are one of those spirits that rove
By the bank where at twilight the poet reclines,
When the star of the west on his solitude shines,
And the magical fingers of Fancy have hung
Every breeze with a sigh, every leaf with a tongue!
Oh! whisper him then, 'tis retirement alone
Can hallow his harp or ennoble its tone;
Like you, with a veil of seclusion between,
His song to the world let him utter unseen,
And like you, a legitimate child of the spheres,
Escape from the eye to enrapture the ears!
Sweet spirit of mystery! how I should love,
In the wearisome ways I am fated to rove,
To have you for ever invisibly nigh,
Inhaling for ever your song and your sigh!
'Mid the crowds of the world and the murmurs of care,
I might sometimes converse with my nymph of the air,
And turn with disgust from the clamorous crew,
To steal in the pauses one whisper from you.
Oh! come and be near me, for ever be mine,
We shall hold in the air a communion divine,
As sweet as of old was imagined to dwell
In the grotto of Numa, or Socrates' cell.
And oft, at those lingering moments of night,
When the heart is weighed down and the eyelid is light,
You shall come to my pillow and tell me of love,
Such as angel to angel might whisper above!
Oh spirit!-and then, could you borrow the tone
Of that voice, to my ear so bewitchingly known,
The voice of the one upon earth, who has twined
With her essence for ever my heart and my mind!
Though lonely and far from the light of her smile,
An exile and weary and hopeless the while,
Could you shed for a moment that voice on my ear,
I will think at that moment my Cara is near,
That she comes with consoling enchantment to speak,
And kisses my eyelid and sighs on my cheek,
And tells me the night shall go rapidly by,
For the dawn of our hope, of our heaven is nigh!
Sweet spirit! if such be your magical power,
It will lighten the lapse of full many an hour;
And let Fortune's realities frown as they will,
Hope, Fancy, and Cara may smile for me still!
WRITTEN AT THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE PRESENT WAR.
WHERE is now the smile that lightened
Every hero's couch of rest?
Where is now the hope that brightened
Honour's eye and Pity's breast?
Have we lost the wreath we braided
For our weary warrior men?
Is the faithless olive faded?
Must the bay be plucked again?
Passing hour of sunny weather,
Lovely in your light awhile
Peace and Glory, wed together,
Wandered through the blessed isle.
And the eyes of Peace would glisten,
Dewy as a morning sun,
When the timid maid would listen
To the deeds her chief had done.
Is the hour of dalliance over?
Must the maiden's trembling feet
Waft her from her warlike lover
To the desert's still retreat?
Fare you well! with sighs we banish
Nymph so fair and guest so bright;
Yet the smile, with which you vanish,
Leaves behind a soothing light!
Soothing light! that long shall sparkle
O'er your warrior's sanguine way,
Through the field where horrors darkle
Shedding Hope's consoling ray!
|