The Project Gutenberg eBook of Lays of ancient Virginia, and other poems

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Title: Lays of ancient Virginia, and other poems

Author: James Avis Bartley

Release date: September 23, 2005 [eBook #16735]
Most recently updated: December 12, 2020

Language: English

Credits: Produced by Mark C. Orton, Pilar Somoza and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LAYS OF ANCIENT VIRGINIA, AND OTHER POEMS *** 



Transcriber's Note: The Table of Contents has been added to this
version. The sections in the ToC were named following the page headers
division.





LAYS


OF


ANCIENT VIRGINIA,


AND OTHER


POEMS:


BY


JAMES AVIS BARTLEY,


OF ORANGE COUNTY, VIRGINIA.


RICHMOND:

J.W. RANDOLPH, PUBLISHER


1855






Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1855,

BY J.A. BARTLEY,

In the Clerk's Office of the Eastern District Court of the United States
for the Eastern District of Virginia.




G.S. ALLEN & CO., PRINTERS, CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA.







TO MY FATHER,

THIS VOLUME IS INSCRIBED

BY HIS SON,


THE AUTHOR.








PREFATORY LETTER TO THE PUBLIC.


Dear Public:


These Poems were written with pleasure; if they be read with pleasure, I
shall be requited amply. How often the Guardian Angel of the Father of
Virginia in surpassing loveliness rose before my imagining eyes! Like
the spirit of a dream, she glided through the foliage, verdant and
shadowy. Enchanted myself, the desire to enchant others seized me. The
"Poet's Enchanted Life" is a gallery of poetic pictures of nature. Most
of the minor and miscellaneous pieces, breathe the spirit of virtuous
affection. If critics censure me unjustly or intemperately, I will fight
them—but I hope to find them, as well as you, dear Public, very kind
friends of a loving Author.


J.A. BARTLEY.




CONTENTS




{7}




POCAHONTAS.




Where yonder moss-grown ruin[A] lonely stands,


Which from the James, the Pilgrim may survey,


Stretch alway forth its old, forsaken hands


As if to beg some friend its fall to stay,


And now the wild vine flaunts in greenness gay;


Erst rose a Castle, known to deathless fame,


Though now the mournful rampart falls away,


Hither Virginia's hero-father came,


To found a glorious state, and give these regions name.




For, then, both far and near the forest wide,


Stretched from the main unto the setting sun,


And Bears and Panthers walked in fiercest pride,


And slept at ease when their red feast was done,


But here of white men there had ne'er walked one,


But a fierce race of wild and savage hue,


Their simple life from chase and angling won,


And oft, when wrath arose, each other slew,


In bloody wars which dyed their soil with crimson dew.




I ween it was a novel sight to see


The white man landing in the vasty wild,


Which each familiar creature seemed to flee,


Where not a christian dwelling ever smiled,


Nor e'er a well-known sound the ear beguiled,


But all was wild and hideous—and the heart,


Mayhap, of stout man, trembled as a child,


—And oft the exile's tear would, gushing, start,


That ever he was lured from Albion's coast to part.
{8}



But there was one, the chieftan, of that band,


Whose soul no dread, however great, could chill,


His was the towering mind, the mighty hand,


On which, his feeble followers resting, still


Would fear no peril from approaching ill.


With him the strangers built their rugged home,


And turned the soil, and eat, and drank their fill;


Glad that to this fair Eden they had come,


And reconciled became to their adopted home.




Thus pass'd away in peaceful happiness,


A little space by yonder river's side,


But now arose the wail of keen distress,


Gaunt Famine, with his murderous eye, they spied,


Stalk round the walls of those who wept and sighed,


And when their venturous chieftain wandered forth,


Ill hap betrayed him to the savage pride,


The death-club rose, his head upon the earth,


To perish there and thus, that man of kingly worth.




Not yet! before that last sad deed be done,


An Indian maiden springs beneath the blow,


And says her virgin blood shall freely run,


For him, extended on the ground below,


See! how, her face upturned, her tears do flow,


See Love and anguish painted in her eyes,


That, like a Seraph's, in their pity, glow,


And surely Angels, looking from the skies


Claimed this poor savage girl a sister in disguise.




Those eyes, those tears prevent the falling stroke,


For Powhatan could not withstand her tears,


His favorite child, who, charmed, beneath the oak,


His savage spirit from her dawning years,


The wondering white man now he kindly rears,
{9}

And bids his menials haste the Indian's fare


For him whom now his daughter's love endears,


And lo! within the Lion's horrid lair,


The Dove has brought her mate, and sees him unhurt there.




Oh Love! how powerful o'er all thou art,


In dusky breasts or breasts of whiter hue,


To thy delicious touch the human heart


Throbs with respondent transport ever true.


On Love's swift wings, this Indian virgin flew,


To snatch from hateful death the lovely chief,


Love drew her tears, like showers of pearly dew,


Love filled her passionate breast with tender grief


And love still drinks her soul, and naught can give relief.




She decks her long, black hair with gayest flowers


And tries each girlish art to warm his breast,


And, straying oft, among the leafy bowers,


Whilst Luna's silvery smiles upon them rest,


And Earth sleeps deeply, in that beauty drest,


The lonely Muckawiss[B], with doleful strain,


Pities her fate—alas, she is not blest,


But hopes and doubts, and dares to hope again,


That Smith may love, and ne'er is free from love's soft pain.




And fair was she, the dim wood's lustrous child,


Though born amid a race of uncouth men,


And gentle as the fawn, which, through the wild,


Trembled with timorous haste, and fled, and when


She stood within the rude and silent glen,


Of deepest forests, she appear'd more bright,


Than other nymphs who roamed these regions then,


And now—for o'er her form and sylph-like waist,


A native modesty entranced the most fastidious taste.
{10}



He whom she loved to all these charms was cold,


Though well he saw her bosom's gentle fire,


Stern is the soul that worships fame or gold,


To all that softer ecstacies inspire.


A stony heart these tyrants e'er require,


Brave Smith ne'er thought of Pocahontas' love,


But only that his name would glitter higher


In coming centuries, others' names above,


Whose soon contented souls an humbler distance rove.




To cheat her pining soul of this dear dream,


They told a dreary tale that he had died,


While to her father's hut, like some fair gleam


Of sunlight, with some heavenly thought, she hied,


And now both day and night, how sorely sighed,


And inly groaned the poor bereaved maid,


Nor could restrain strong nature's gushing tide,


That in the dark, cold grave, her love was laid;—


Disconsolate, she moved along the leafy glade.




Pausing beside her Smith's imagined tomb,


Weeping, by moonlight pale, she strewed fair flowers,


To wither o'er him, emblems of his bloom


So soon departed from these lovely bowers.


Once plucked, these buds will never bless the showers,


Sweet charities, by wearing wonted charms,


But lose for aye their balm for summer hours;


So all her showery grief him no more charms,


To spring and rest a joy in her exulting arms.




She deems he sleeps within the envious ground,


Which stole him early from her young, warm breast,


No more her brow with wild flower wreaths is bound,


And all her ornaments, neglected, rest;


Since fled is now the dreamy hope which blest
{11}

Her artless soul, she loathes her glance to fling


On corals, braids, and flowers, and royal vest,


And slowly wanders like some moon-struck thing,


Through gloomy cypress groves, and by yon haunted spring.




But time must soothe the most exquisite smart


Of love, when wounded by the dart of death;


For life would flee, should not such woe depart,


Too deeply weighing on the heart beneath.


Fair Pocahontas breathes the wonted breath


Of tranquil life, a creature darkly bright,


Decking her hair again with many a wreath,


Walking amid the high wood's gentle night,


Charming her wild, old Father's heart with strange delight.




Yet nought could make her cease to view with love,


The tender memory of the mournful past;


And once when warring clouds grew black above,


The shrieking Earth with awful night o'ercast,


And long foiled Hatred hoped to glut his fast


With English gore, with irksome steps she stole,


O'er deep morass, through tangled brake, and cast


The boon of life to each devoted soul,


Who slept within that Castle's frail and weak control.




Oh! we might marvel that her savage heart,


Would show such love to her loved father's foes;


But love like this, will act no selfish part;


Over drear earth, diffusing joy, it goes,


Its breath the fragrance of the earliest rose,


Its voice the sound of an unearthly thing,


Its form an Angel's, and as pure as those,


Who come to gladdened man on shining wing,


Which scatters round the sweets of an immortal spring.
{12}



Now when the dogwood gemmed with blossoms white,


The gorgeous grove where oak and stately pine,


Upthrew their gnarled arms of massy might,


And thus a leafy canopy did twine,


This dusky Dryad would with grace recline,


Along the mossy bank of crystal stream,


In whose smooth glass her angel beauties shine,


Beside brave Rolfe, a man of pallid gleam,


Who sighed his soul to her, and taught her love's true dream.




Beneath the silver moon, resplendent queen,


With simple rites, these mingling souls were wed;


The happy stars looked down, with brighter sheen,


To view love's wretched fears for ever fled;


The wild flowers trembled in their dewy bed,


And up a most enchanting fragrance sent;


The blissful Hours, unnoticed, onward sped;


And, with their gentle music sweetly blent,


The breathing winds and waters murmured their content.




Ah me! what deep, celestial transports thrill'd


These beating bosoms, in so sweet a scene:


What tears of tender joy their visions filled,


Scanning each other's soul-absorbing mien


And, in that bower of paradisal green,


Happy, they sighed, in accents fond and warm,


That thus enclosed Earth's primal pair had been,


Where oft they spied bright Seraph's glorious form,


And rose on high afar the grove's eternal charm.




There oft the mocking bird, a songster gay,


Would soothe their souls, with multifarious song,


Singing his farewell-hymns to dying Day,


As fade his smiles the darkening glades along;
{13}

And when the frowns of night more thickly throng,


The amorous firefly led them at that hour,


O'er wooded hills, and marshes deep and long,


To their sweet rest, which sank, with grateful power,


Along their wearied nerves, in their wild, oaken bower.




As flows the stream, with calm, unruffled wave,


O'er shining sands, to kiss the glassy main,


So flowed the life their gracious Maker gave,


Nor felt the obstructive power of obvious pain;


So deep o'er them was Passion's rapturous reign,


That mid their bower's delicious solitude,


They dreamed their hearts might never sigh again;


By love their gentle spirits were subdued,


To the deep rapture of a heavenly seeming mood.




Alas! the race of Pocahontas flow,


As waves, away, which can return no more;


No more o'er plain and peak they bear the bow,


Or shove the skiff from yonder curving shore;


Their reign, their histories, their names are o'er;


The plow insults their sires' indignant bones;


The very land disowns its look of yore;


Vast cities rise, and hark! I hear the tones


Of many mingling Tongues; and boundless labour groans.




And paler nymphs are sweetly wooed and won,


Upon this soil, and they are happy too,


But of these fairer English damsels, none


Have shown devotion more divinely true,


Than thou, untutor'd maid of dusky hue;


Nor shall thy tribes from memory vanish quite,


While beauteous deeds as angels ofttimes do,


Still sway the generous mind with heavenly might,


For thine would snatch even worse from Time's oblivious night.
{14}



The tallest fir, that decks the blooming grove,


Decays the first, the most abounding rose,


By worms is first consumed; the pearl we love


Is stolen first, the star that brightest glows


To gild the gloom, is first that sets, and those


Whose lovely lives on earth we prized the most,


And most assuaged the pangs of thronging woes,


Which—oh how oft! our fated paths have cross'd,


By all are ever mourned, "the loved and early lost."




So Rolfe's dear spouse was early snatched away,—


But left one pledge of her undying love—


(Perchance her happy spirit oft would stray


Round their dear footsteps wheresoe'er they rove)


And Europe's turf grow green her heart above.


No more could grief or joy disturb her breast.


Soft by her tomb let musing Fancy move!


Let not a sound of thoughtlessness molest


The melancholy spot of her eternal rest!




Her fair form sank low in the gloomy earth—


Her spirit soared and found a brighter home,


Where now with sun-bright smiles, she wanders forth,


Beneath the glories of a heavenly dome;


Where Seraphs o'er bright fields forever roam,


And flowers aloft Life's never dying tree,


Whither no evil thing can ever come;


Where now she blends her heart and harp to sing


A ceaseless song of praise to her Eternal King.




But oft the eye which scans yon ruin old,


Where Jamestown erst in simple grandeur rose,


Shall fill with tears—as there it doth behold—


For it will speak to him of heroes' woes,
{15}

Felt erewhile whence this river gently flows,—


And sprang this famous, Hero-bearing State;—


And while with pride his patriot bosom glows,


His heart her gentle history will relate,


And warmly laud her deeds, and mourn her early fate.




[A] Jamestown.


[B] Whip-poor-will.




A SONG.






Amid the tempest, wild and dark,


Upon Life's troubled sea;


One only star illumes the scene,


With heavenly brilliancy.




Oh! sweetly o'er the howling deeps,


Its venturing beam shines out;


And bright, relieves my weeping eye,


And calms my soul from doubt.




That star is pure Religion's light.


A pole star, calm but blest,


It guides my lost and trembling bark,


To Heaven's sweet port of rest.






{16}




ELFINDALE.


PART FIRST.




Sweet Frankie lives in Elfindale;


Where all the flowers are fair, and frail


(Like her fair self,) a slender fairy,


And like a zephyr, playsome, airy,


But lovelier far, than buxom Mary.


Now, since I saw her full, bright eyes,


And heard her tongue's rich melodies,


Solace the evening air,


Sweet Elfindale, e'er loved of yore,


Has grown more fair, beloved more,


A part of some fay-walked shore,


A haunt of beauties rare.


The gay dawn smells more fragrant there,


(When youthful May, new, fresh and fair,


Comes, bird-like through the laughing air,)


Than it was even of old;


And Evening throws a richer dress,


(O'er Elfindale's mild loveliness,)


Of fading pink and gold.


The moonlight nights are lovelier now,


On silent Elfindale;


More pure the beams, more soft the glow,


That sleeps upon the vale:


So much of beauty God hath given


To sweetest Frankie—gracious Heaven!


She spares so much to beautify,


Fair Elfindale to my charm'd eye,—


And yet she loses none at all


Of that which holds my soul in thrall.
{17}

Now, if my harp shall echo well,


The story of her life, and tell,


In worthy feet, her beauty's power


That flourished as a springtime flower,


I shall be richer, happier far


Than one should own a round, bright star.


And what if the fair maid should smile,


To hear my warbled strain?


Ah! that would all my grief beguile,


Undo the life of Pain.


I one time saw a laughing mirth


Leap in the maiden's eyes,


And thought the too aspiring earth


Had robbed the jewelled skies,


Of one bright angel, even her:


She made my very being stir.




I ne'er saw sweet Frankie's mother,


What I had glowed to see,


Yet think no mortal earth's another,


Bore child so fair as she.


I ween that mother was a queen


In royal qualities,


And in her lofty eyes and mien,


Lurked lovely majesties.


I ne'er saw sweet Frankie's mother,


What I had glowed to see;


But cannot, long-lost mother! smother


The love that swells for thee.




When Frankie came into this world,


In lovely Elfindale,
{18}

The winds were lulled, and waves lay curled,


Beneath the moonlight pale:


The cold stars twinkled far above,


And danced, with their bright eyes of love;


The gleaming waters did rejoice,


And breathed a soft, enamored voice;


The sleeping zephyr on his flowers,


Awaked to bless the gliding hours


Which gave this tiny being, birth,


A bliss, a Blessing to the earth.


She was, in truth, a beauteous child:


At three years old her eyes were wild


With something of a playfulness;


And then she had the softest tress


Of auburn tint, that fell and flew


About her neck of damask hue.


To watch throughout the Summer day,


The butterfly's capricious play,


Or humming bird's bright, rainbow wings,


And all gay, joyous, natural things.


To hear the poets of the grove,


Sing forth their little lays of love;


Or to survey the stars come forth,


Or dancing rainbows hug the earth:


These were the pastime and the play,


That whiled her infant hours away.


And blest was sylvan Elfindale,


With child so fair within its pale.




That was a bland and holy morn,


Like one, on very purpose, born,


A gray godmother stood,


Before the chancel's sacred place,
{19}

With Frankie's sweet and artless grace,


And heard the preacher good.


And as the bright baptism fell,


Upon her fallen tresses well,


And o'er her bosom's chastened swell,


The beauteous maiden smiled:


She looked a wingless cherub then—


My inmost spirit fluttered, when


I said, O wondrous child!


I thought a troop of angels stood


Amid that lofty fane,


And (I in that ecstatic mood)


They sped to bliss again.


That, whole bright day, I wandered wide,


O'er sunny hill and vale,


And thought no day of brighter pride


E'er lay on Elfindale;


I thought, that day dear Frankie love,


Had been new-linked with those above;


And henceforth angels would attend


The maiden, to her journey's end.




Fair Frankie grew in attributes


That harmonized like golden flutes,


Or harps of silver strain:


She loved the Lovely—growing so,


With every year's advancing flow;—


She was the Death of Pain!


The dwellers in green Elfindale,


Were happier all for her,


The very flowers she loved to trail,


With pleasure's thrill, would stir.


She loved both man and brute that dwelt
{20}

Within that vale of Good;


And they, as bettered beings, felt


New virtue—as they should.


And thus a shining, golden chain,


Of many links of love,


Knit Frankie to the peopled plain,


And to the good above.


Affection's wreathed rings of beauty,


Bound round a globe of gold;


It is my verse's pleasing duty,


To say to all, behold,


Sweet Frank that central globe of worth;


That gems, with pride, this spot of earth,


This flower-engirdled, blissful vale,


This heart-delighting Elfindale.




And now when lovely Frankie stood,


In the dear pride of womanhood,


The queen of Elfindale;


One sought her for her loveliness—


A joy—a heaven of happiness—


An earth-born angel meant to bless


My throbbing soul with rich excess


Of joys that never fail.


She sat hid in a garden bower,


Watching the first, sweet star,


That crowns the lovely twilight hour,


And glows to earth from far.


A sad sweet dream oppressed her thought,


And tinged her calm, white face;


Her eyes fixed fast, their radiance fraught,


With melancholy grace.


I stole unto her close retreat,
{21}

As winds creep on a vale;


And, standing, gazed upon the sweet,


Sweet queen of Elfindale.


She turned her head, she faintly smiled,


She bent her gaze on me;


It made my very spirit wild,


With thrilling ecstacy.


I caught and clasped, her to my heart,


Yet never spoke a word;—


But the twin-vow that could not part,


By Love in Heaven was heard.




PART SECOND.




Again unto the lofty fane,


Sweet Frankie lightly went;


With smiling joy and same of pair


Upon her features blent.


Again, as on that sunny morn,


When white-winged angels stood,


To see her, of bright water, born,


Before the preacher good.


Again within the chancel's gloom,


She sweetly, gently stands;


With marriage hymn, with rich perfume,


With Hymen's happy bands;


With wild-rose wreaths, with gayest bloom,


And wreathed maiden's hands.


But, now she stands with me even there,


With sweetly downcast eyes,


So purely white, so passing fair,


Like one of Paradise.


The preacher speaks the solemn words,


Yet fraught with deepest bliss;
{22}

We twain in one are bound by chords,


With sob—with clasp—with kiss.


Returning from that sacred place,


All earth and sky rejoiced,


And all the winds and waters' race


Their compliments then voiced.


The birds sang sweetly on the spray,


As they ne'er sang before;


And love lay o'er the world away,


A robe of golden ore.




And now, we live in Elfindale,


Dear Frank and I together;


And there is light on this sweet dale,


In calm, or stormy weather.


A fairy daughter leaps between


Our nightly moving paces;


Upon whose soft and marble brow,


Gleam many artless graces.


We dwell, we dwell, in Elfindale—


I—child—and happy mother;


And, if earth holds a sweeter vale,


We cannot wish another.


Life has been arched with bluer skies,


By curved rainbows brighter;


And nature—ah! what wondrous dyes,


Now lavishly bedight her.


Love has become a glorious robe,


With thickest gold o'erladen;


And now we dwell upon a globe


Which is, indeed, an Aidenn.


I dwell with fixed eyes upon


My wife and cherub maiden,
{23}

I feel the light of that fire-sun,


That broadly shines on Aidenn,—


And all our days that brightly run,


Are heavily joy-laden—


And now we know our grief is done,


And that we dwell in Aidenn.






OF A SKYLARK.




At dawn I rose from silent sleep,


And heard a sky-lark singing,


Amid the azure far and deep,


Till all the arch was ringing.




And now, as deeper, deeper still


His form sank into heaven,


Me-seemed his heart's concentered thrill,


To his loved Lord was given.




If I possessed such wondrous wings,


I would soar and sing to heaven,


Till my freed soul from sordid things,


Should thus be widely riven.




{24}




THE PRINCESS OF PERU.


RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED TO MISS MARY T. ROBERTSON OF ABINGDON, VA.




Far to the wilds of rich Peru,


Gonzalo came—of pallid hue,


Strange in these Western lands of night,


Where nought, save woman's eyes, are bright.


But these have all that outward beam,


Reflected from their glances' gleam


Of light and fire, that kindle bliss;


Or sink to gloom in Death's abyss.


Gonzalo came, a son of Spain,


That land which gleams beyond the main,


And sent its children to these lands,


To gather gold with reckless hands.


And, he, Gonzalo, stood a tower,


In sturdy grace, and manly power;


No Indian's weapon was to him,


More than a sea-reed, slight and slim;


And yet to brown Iola's eye,


He seemed the lord of lady's sigh.


Gonzalo seen, her thought, her dream,


With fancy's love-fraught visions teem.


She deemed that orb of glorious fire,


To which her country's souls aspire,


That crimson god whose glowing face


Illumines all the mortal race:


She deemed his glory, only, vied


With brave Gonzalo's matchless pride.


And down along the green, fresh earth,


Where sin not yet had known its birth;


She knelt, and cast her hands and eyes,
{25}

To the bright God of those bright skies;


And worshipped him whose blessed beams,


Had given Gonzalo to her dreams.


Iola, princess of Peru,


Most fair (though of a dusky hue,)


Like this new, unpolluted clime,


Unknown to hate, unknown to crime,


Where all that dwell know but to love,


(The gentleness which marks the dove.)


And like that rich, unguarded shore,


She knew to be, and seem no more;


And like that land so rich in bloom,


Its branches wrought at noon a gloom;


Her form was bright with beauty's hues,


Which each propitious year renews;


And, as within its bosom lay,


Treasures which mocked the sun's bright ray;


In her rich soul shone wealth to shame,


That tropic sun's meridian flame.


She stood a lovely being fraught,


With that most dear to human thought,


The power to love, to force the bliss


Of heaven, to such a world as this.


Iola, dearest maiden, threw


A wondrous charm o'er all who knew


Her loveliness; her menial train


Adored her even to anxious pain.


And to her father's rapturous eyes,


She shone a rainbow—whose bright dyes


Illumed his aged spirit's night;


A thing of loveliness and light.


And in and out the Inca's hall


She went, returned to his known call.
{26}

She seemed a sunbeam sent from heaven,


To make his troubled spirit even;


For, if his soul, oppressed with grief,


In aught of earthly, sought relief;


Iola's image quickly seen,


His soul grew peaceful and serene.


In his tried spirits' darkest mood,


She was an omen still of good.


Such was the maid with hue of night,


But soul and eyes like midday light,


Whose beauty shed a sparkling spell,


O'er Peru's plain and shadowy dell;—


Who mid the rugged Andes stood,


The charm of polished womanhood,


And many a stranger wondered where,


She caught that grace and beauty's air.




"Iola!" said Gonzalo, "far


Where shines yon lovely evening star,


Sings many a gay and loving maid,


Beneath the cooling olive shade.


Their brows are whiter, too, than thine,


But yet none to me are so divine,


As thine, fair maid of dark Peru,


With heart like its Volcanoes too.


E'er since I landed on those shores,


Of endless spring, and brightest ores,


I have not thought of ought but thee,


Ne'er can my bosom now be free.


List! sweet Iola! am I vain?


I deem thou lovest we well again;


For, when I sought thy downcast eyes,


They met mine with a glad surprise;


And when I spake to thee full low,
{27}

Thy voice was like a fountain's flow,


So softly sweet, so lulling, too,


It bathed my soul in rapture's dew.


Iola! sure I love thee well,


And if thou wilt thy father tell,


I deem he will not eye me ill,


Whose love is with his daughter still."


Iola raised her glance to heaven,


Then to Gonzalo, darting, even


Her soul, into his own, and said;


"This soil with blood was never red;


And, sure, my father would not slay,


Those men for whom his child will pray.


But why thinkest thou of blood? the thought,


With wretched fear is ever fraught.


Think, think of love, and gentle peace,


Gonzalo! let these bodings cease.


Think, think of love—here on my heart,


Repose, and even Death's stern dart,


By Love conjured, will turn away,


Some unloved thing of earth to slay."


"Angel of good!" Gonzalo cried,


"A thousand joys are at thy side,


Thou comest to light my dangerous way,


With calm, and pure, and heavenly ray.


I feel thou art a spirit sent,


From heaven's snow-white battlement,


To lead me through these stranger wilds,


With voice and actions like a child's,


So guiltless in thy love—so dear,


I bless thy goodness with a tear.


Oh! like thy climate's deathless spring,


Succeeding days and years shall bring,
{28}

Living affection to my heart,


Till we no more on earth can part."


"Then, dear Gonzalo! let us meet,


As oft as evening airs are sweet,


In yonder bower—my own—my dove,


And I will be thy gentle love.


That bower my Inca-father reared,


For good such thing to him appeared,


Where his Iola might be lone,


To dream of fancies all her own.


Yes! oft as evening shades came down,


On giant Andes' glittering crown


Of endless snow, that shines afar


Next to the radiant zenith star;


Then throw their dark and sombre lines,


Upon the mountain's lower pines:


Come, then, to me, and we will speak,


Sweet thrilling words, and on my cheek,


Thy lip shall feed till we expire,


In glowing love's consuming fire."


"Yes, I will come, maid of Peru!


Though Fate, yon soaring Andes threw,


Between my wish and thee my love,


That lofty barrier I'd remove;


And press to thee with Condor's flight,


To thee, to love, to life's delight.


N'er since these eyes beheld the day,


Have they seen aught, whose potent sway,


Could bend my will, as thou, dear maid!


Sweet star, amid my spirit's shade.


Not all the wealth that gleams around


Within thy country's magic bound,


And fills my world with loudest fame,
{29}

Of this new world's most wondrous name,


Sways more with me than idle dream,


Or transient bubbles on a stream,


Compared, Iola! with thy power;—


And I will come to thy sweet bower.










"Iola! art thou in thy bower,


At this most dear, appointed hour?


On fleetest pinions I have come,


To meet thee mid this richest bloom,


Thy Inca father's garden flowers,


Whose odors fall like balmy showers;


But, of them all, thou art the flower


Who hast the most delightful power,


And of the wondrous birds that sing


Amid this garden's blooming spring;


Thou art the loveliest; and thy voice


Most meet to bid my soul rejoice."


Iola spoke not in reply;


But gazed on him with vacant eye:


Still was she silent as the grave,


O'er those we love but could not save;


And she seemed calm as tropic sea,


When its hushed waves from winds are free.


Gonzalo wondered; why no word,


Came from that lip that mocked the bird


Of her own land, in melody,


When warbling from his cocoa tree.


But why, O gem of rich Peru,


Thy silence strange, thy aspect new?


What envious power has bound thy voice,


Which erst could bid my soul rejoice.


Oh! surely some malignant sprite
{30}

From realms of most infernal night,


Has taken thy angel voice away;—


But speak, Iola, speak, I pray!


Her tears gushed forth like tropic rain,


That widely floods the blooming plain;


And thus began, "Gonzalo! thou


Deceived'st me—but I know thee now.


Ask me not how I know it sooth;


Enough, I know the bitter truth.


I felt forebodings of this hour;


It did my happiest thoughts o'er power,


With a dark weight; but then I thought,


'Twas by my foolish fancy wrought.


'Twas like the omen which precedes


The earthquake when the summer reeds


Are strangely still, until the shock


The central earth shall wildly rock.


Thou dost not love me, child of Spain!


Thy heart can love no thing but gain;


The paltry dust I tread above,


To thee, is more than woman's love.


My love is vain, and life is less


Since lost my hope of happiness


Look from this garden;—far below


Yon Andes' sides with verdure glow,


But far on high, the icy chill


Of winter glitters, glitters still:


I am that lonely verdure—thou


That mountain's cold, unchanging brow.


I'll ne'er upbraid thee—no—oh no!


For love is kind, in deepest woe,


I love thee still, and will till Death,


Shall win my love with living breath.
{31}

This even, farewell—yes, yes, adieu!


No years our meeting can renew.


Would that when round these royal bowers,


I played in childhood's happy hours,


The Condor bird had borne me high,


On his huge pinions through the sky,


Upon yon mountain's snowy crest,


To hush his high and hungry nest.


Farewell, Gonzalo! fly with speed,


Leave shade and silence to my need."








There was a cry of terror in the hall


Of Peru's monarch, and a startling call;


But no reply—Iola sure was gone;


Yet none knew why or whither she had flown.


Her Inca-father put his crown aside,


And filled the temple with loud prayer—a tide


Of lamentation rolled along the fair


And blooming realm; heaven wore a dim despair.


She ne'er was found; but how or when she died


None knew; by her own hand; or if she cried,


Vainly, in wild beasts' clutch;—but ne'er before


Din wail so wild resound along the shore


Of fair Peru; her father lived not long,


After this chord was snapped in his life's song.




{32}




THE HOLY LADY.




Oh, Heaven hath given to earth some souls,


Of rarest loveliness,


Whose being's constant current rolls,


The wretched still to bless.




Well wishing Heaven hath given to earth,


Some hearts of purest fire,


To renovate our sinful birth,


And raise our low desire.




The Holy Lady did not go


Afar, by sea or land,


But ministered to sighing wo,


And suffering near at hand.




'Twas sweet to see the Lady fair,


Each blessed sabbath morn,


Wear such a sweetly solemn air,


Of bright devotion, born.




'Twas sweet to see her bow at eve,


On lowly bended knee,


To pray, and sadly, sweetly grieve,


For man's perversity.




But sure were we that city fine,


Wherein this Lady dwelt,


Was bettered by a power divine,


And heavenly prompting felt.




When she was old, her heart not cold,


A youthful beauty lay,


A light most wondrous to behold!


Upon her tresses gray.
{33}



The charm of goodness does not fade,


Like natural beauty's flower,


But blooms in glory undecayed,


And death-defying power.






TIME AND ETERNITY.




The darkness falls on wood and field,


On lofty peak, on silent sea,


The infant Moon and Planets yield


A faint and feeble brilliancy.




Cans't thou behold the look and shape


Of mount and main, of wold and wood?


The morrow's sun, o'er sea and cape,


Will show them out, both plain and good.




Time darkens all to mortal eyes


Save what faint reason's stars illume:


But when Eternity shall rise,


All shall their shapes and hues assume.




{34}




YEMEN.




My soul has been wandering in Yemen,


The land of the aloe and myrrh;


Where the breezes that blow from the ocean,


Brought feelings of heaven to her.




In the joy-giving vallies of Yemen,


On its mountains that blush with their bloom;


My soul has been wandering but lately,


To hide from the weight of her gloom.




My Soul, like the fleet horse of Yemen,


Flew chainless o'er mountain and plain,


Till she paused by the flower-scented ocean,


Then returned on her pinions, again.




In that beautiful world, in that Yemen,


My Soul lately wandered in bliss;


Till she found there a glorious maiden,


She vainly had sighed for, in this.




Then my Soul walked far with this maiden—


In this beautiful region of gold,


And died on the love-burdened accents,


From the fount of her bosom that rolled.




Oh Yemen! whose name is the Happy,


Whose mountains are fragrant with bloom—


My Soul met her Consort there lately—


And now she says nothing of gloom.




{35}




LILLY: A POEM.




The May sun sheds an amber beam,


Upon the river's liquid plain,


But never to that glorious gleam,


Her eyes will ope again:


Sweet Lilly, come again,


Sweet Lilly, come again.




We look across the landscape wide,


Where spring bemocks the thought of pain,


And scatters charms with lavish pride;—


The vernal joy is all in vain:


Sweet Lilly, come again,


Sweet Lilly, come again.




The summer breezes lightly lift


The clustered flowers oppressed with rain,


Which fleecy cloud-sieves downward sift,—


It falls on Lilly's form in vain:


Sweet Lilly, come again,


Sweet Lilly, come again.




Oh! can the glory of the year,


The Spring that decks the widening plain,


Thus strive to make the maid appear,


But yield the hopeless task in vain:


Sweet Lilly, come again;


Sweet Lilly, come again.




Silence!—where brighter May suns beam,


On greener hills and vales,


Bright Lilly walks, as in a dream,


Fann'd by celestial gales:—


Now, Lill! come not again!


Now, Lill! come not again.




{36}




ADIEU TO EMORY.




Adieu to thee, Emory! adieu to thee now!


There is grief in my spirit, there's gloom on my brow,


I have left the sweet scenes where I knelt at thy shrine,


O Learning! thy wreath with my name to entwine.




Adieu to the scenes where, when study was o'er,


And the toil of the mind was remembered no more;


I roamed o'er the mountains, forgetful, afar,


'Neath the light of the beautiful Evening Star.




Like the light of that star—like a splendor on high—


Like a Heavenly Dream that was born in the sky—


Bright Poesy burst on my pathway even there,


And a rainbow of Beauty encircled the air.




Ah! she shone with a brilliance more dazzling and strong,


Than e'er to a child of the earth could belong;


And her pinions that waved through the rose-scented air,


Had a tint that was brighter than thought can declare.




Yet adieu to thee, Emory,—thy scenes I regret;


In a far distant scene, I may think of them yet;


Fond Fancy may roam o'er thy mountains again,


And love them as freshly and warmly as then.




Yet, the tears gush unbidden, when breathing adieu,—


With the change of our years, our hearts are changed too!


And, haply, the world, with its coldness, will chill


My feelings at length, as bleak winter the rill.




Adieu to thy scenes, adieu to thee now!


There is grief in my spirit—there is gloom on my brow—


Though Fancy may paint all thy beauty once more,


The days that have flitted, she cannot restore.




{37}




VIRGINIA.




Thy soil, Virginia! is all hallowed ground,


Made such by steps of patriots; thy high fame,


Alway unto our ears, a glorious sound,


Kindles, in all high hearts, heroic flame.




I walk beneath thy forests, high and lone,


I hear a voice that sinks into my heart,


The voice of fetterless Liberty; the tone


Which bids the flame of patriotism start.




Greece was the land of heroes, and her soil


Is sacred with the deathless memory


Of martyred virtue, which on Death could smile,


At Marathon and proud Thermopylæ:




Gray Rome shall never lose the magic charm,


That valor's fire can pour along a land;


That charm shall bid the hearts of mankind warm,


Long after her last stone hath ceased to stand:




Yet, thou, Virginia! art a prouder land,


For when thy hills become red shrines to Right;


Thy plains become the spots, where, smiling, stand,


The angels, gentle Peace and true Delight.




And now, how fair thy homes! on every hand,


Thy cities and thy country domes arise,


From mountains vast, to ocean's shelly strand,


And bring a pride into our gazing eyes!




How brave thy polished sons! their hearts how free!


How far above the plotting of the mean!


How they contemn all base chicanery,


And proudly move, as men, through every scene!
{38}



And when thy daughters, an angelic train,


Roam mid thy flowery walks, how sweet their love!


And when they speak—the sound seems like a strain,


That wander'd from a blissful clime above!




Immortal land! my soul is proud, to think


I yet can walk upon thy mother soil,


And, willing that her mouldering frame may sink,


Back to thy breast, after its lifetime toil.






WATOGA.




Oh, think not that the polished breast,


Only, can feel the fire of love,


Pure as the flames that brightly rest


In bosoms of the realms above.


Yes! often in the rudest form,


A heart may be, more clear and bright


Than ever lent the loveliest charm


To goddess of the Festal light.


Come, hear a story of the time,


When this wide land was one green bower,


The roving Red man's Eden-chine,


Where bloomed the wildest flower.


The great ships brought a wondrous race,


One evening o'er the ocean beach;


Strange was the pallor of their face,


Strange was the softness of their speech.


'Twas evening, and the sunset threw
{39}

A gorgeous brilliance o'er the scene,


Deep crimson stained the heaven's sweet blue,


But ocean rivalled all its sheen.


The painted red men came to view,


With marvel, what the winds had brought,—


For, surely, those proud vessels flew,


As if their force from Heaven they caught.


But who is yonder slender youth,


With smoothest brow and smoother cheek,


And eyes so full of boyhood's truth,


And mouth, which closed, yet seems to speak?


"Ah, sure, that lovely youth's from Heaven!


A dark-eyed maiden of the wood


Sighed out upon the breath of even,


As in the mellowed light she stood.


And, ever from that fatal hour,


This white youth's image, slight and pale,


Would haunt the maiden's leafy bower,


And wake her spirit's wail.


In that high heart that fiercely hates,


Love is as fierce and wild;


And so the love is wild, that waits


To mount its height in this poor child:


This poor, frail child who born beneath


A roof of leaves, is made to dream,


That she may wear a bridal wreath


For youth of snowy gleam.


Watoga! sure some demon lied,


To thee, when wrapt amid thy sleep,


To make thee his forlornest bride,


Beneath the moaning deep.


That youth who floats an Angel through,


Thy night, thy daily dream—
{40}

He loves a maid whose eyes are blue,


And cheek like yon full moon's white beam.


The simple ornaments which thou


Hast taken thy form to deck,


The wild flower wreath that binds thy brow,


The shells that gem thy neck;


Each ornament shall deck a bride


To wed the Demon Death,


Beneath the ocean's sluggish tide,


A thousand feet beneath!


The fair youth who hath warped thy mind,


He loves a snow-white maid!


Then know'st it!—now not long confined,


Thou'lt fly the greenwood shade.


'Tis night on lone Atlantic's deep,


And summer o'er that placid sea,


The stars watch Earth's scarce-breathing sleep—


Oh! she sleeps deeply—tenderly.


What figure o'er yon bluff that scowls,


Upon the smiling water?


Ah! whose that wild and freezing howl?


It is the forest's daughter.


One moment,—and the hollow moan


Of billows sings her funeral song;—


In sooth, it was a dreadful tone,


And it will haunt us long.


This is the brief and mournful tale


Of one who loved in vain;—


She slept not in the flowery vale,


But in the deep, deep main,


They tell she was a demon's bride,


But now a wondrous wail,


Each night swells o'er the peaceful tide,
{41}

And through the loudest gale.


Watoga was her Indian name,


The white men called her yellow-flower;—


And evil fire, a poisonous flame,


Blasted her heart's sweet bower.


Failing to be the youth's dear bride,


Adorned in colors gay,


She went to a Demon's pride,


Under the Sea, they say.


And I have grieved to think of her,


And, if in these degenerate years,


There's feeling, her most mad despair,


Would melt a stone to tears.






NAPOLEON.


INTRODUCTION.




If ye will walk amid the ancient wood,


Ye will perceive the lordly oak o'erspread


The slender shrubs, and shield them from the storm.


If ye will look upon a thrifty hive


Of honey-loving bees, ye will remark


A Sovereign rules this small but populous State;


And, if she live, they live, and fill with life


The sunny air around—but if she die,


They quickly die, and then their precious sweet,
{42}

Becomes a dainty dish for vilest worms.


If ye will scan the custom of those birds,


That seek the boreal lakes, when spring unfolds—


Soaring far up amid the azure heaven,


Ye will note one who leads them in their flight,


As Chief his army to the embattled fight,


And, oft he shouts far back to them to cheer


Their fainting hearts, and flagging pinions on,


To trace the long, long course to far off lands.


If ye will note the noblest of a flock,


Ye will observe the weaker follow him.


And thus if ye will wisely look on men,


Ye will perceive the wisest lead them on


To every work; for this is nature's law,


And whoso breaks it, breaks it to his hurt.


Fair France once drooped beneath the feeble rule,


A blighting reign, of many a Bourbon fool,


Until Napoleon rose, her natural king,


And crushed the Bourbon, as an abscess thing.


Great Heaven decrees, that Greater still must reign,


Or else the weaker must exist in vain.


Fair France seemed conscious of this grand design,


And hailed Napoleon as a man divine—


Bedecked his path for many a flowery mile,


And claimed her monarch with a beaming smile.


Thus came Napoleon—and, on every hand,


Fair Joys prepared to hover o'er the land.


Then, France! thy glorious age was nigh begun,


When rose upon thee such a glorious sun;


Soon had thy bliss and praises been complete,


And Earth had, falling, worshipped at thy feet.


Beneath this monarch's rule—who loved the best—


Thy meanest subject had been very blest.
{43}

And thou had'st antidated our high claim


Of rescuing man from civil slavery's shame.


But, ever, Envy views, with murderous eye,


Those souls who strive to make their station high.


When France was weak, her sister realms were kind—


When France grew strong, in hellish league combined,


They sought to crush her to the sordid earth—


Lest she should grow—and they should pine in dearth.




Go beat the spaniel, if he rouse thine ire,


His servile nature may no more aspire—


But leave the lion in his lordly lair,


Or he thine entrails in his rage will tear.


Go, rob the linnet's unprotected nest,


And rend her offspring, from her little breast;


But leave the Eagle in his eyrie high,


Or thy torn flesh shall hush his eaglet's cry.


Fair France's lion was Napoleon! he


Roamed o'er the land, a monarch proud and free:


And when the Nations, in their pigmy might,


Provoked the Lion to engage in fight,


With gory jaw, he rent their legions strong,


And left them bleaching the wide earth along.


Fair France's Eagle was Napoleon! he


Soared thro' her sky, a monarch proud and free:


And when the boy-like kingdoms thought to bring


The glorious soarer down with bleeding wing,


With swift, fierce swoop, he darted from on high,


And the rent pigmies, shrieked with mighty cry.




Vain were their wishes, all their envy vain,


They could not bring the soarer to the plain;—


Till Fate's fell arrow—surer than the rest—


Winged the far flight, and pierced his glorious breast.
{44}

Then fell Napoleon, Eagle of his clime,


By Fate's fell shaft, from yon proud heaven sublime:


And when he fell, France knew no keener woe,


Then the deep piercing of that mortal blow.


The sweet land drooped, and sickened in her grief—


That hope so happy, had given truth so brief—


That Fate's fell shaft her glorious Bird had slain,


No more o'er conquered earth to soar again.




But not at once Napoleon breathes his last—


More woes must come—if now the worst be past.


Napoleon's star, declining on his eye,


Tells France shall yield him not a place to die.


That he must hie him to an alien shore,


And see his France, and blue-eyed boy no more.


The noble Lion must be chained at length,


By Fate's strong force, though not by man's weak strength.


But, harmless now, that meaner things shall prey


On whom they fled from, in his Glory's day.


Oh! when the Chieftain turned to wave adieu


To lovely France, across the waters blue,


The iron man who never quailed in war,


Where Death's conspiring darts flew fast and far—


If peering Envy marked no gushing tear—


Wept, wept to leave the land that was so dear—


And if that woe was mute—it was more deep,


As deepest floods, in silent caverns sleep.




But who are they to whose exalted name,


He turns for friendship in his fall's deep shame?


What flattered enemy may gladly prove,


A fallen Hater yet may know her love?


Britannia! in this latest deep distress,


Napoleon's fate thou now mayest surely bless,
{45}

Attest thy greatness to a fallen foe,


And make thy fame sublime o'er all below.




Lo! on yon dreary isle, yon desolate rock,


That quails beneath old ocean's ceaseless shock—


Where flaming suns and sudden ruins combine,


Fo waste and wreck the human form divine—


Where man cut off from all most dear to man,


Makes hopeless exile, happy if he can:—


Then say; Britannia! that thy nobleness


Deigns thy asylum to thy foe's distress?


Say, this the Glory which thou lov'st to boast,


O'er meaner dwellers of each neighboring coast?




Contracted nation! thy contracted home,


A sterile rock round which the billows foam!


How well consorts it with thy dwarfish soul,


That owns no noble feeling's high control.




What glorious record holds the past of thee,


What single page from foul disgrace is free;


Bend, weeping Mary, Scotland's lovely Queen,


With noblest grace, and sad, yet royal mien,


Bend from yon dome of pure, celestial blue,


Say, when a fugitive from sorrow flew,


To Britain's bosom, did she live—or die—


Unheard—uncared for, her last lingering sigh?




On yon bleak isle, behold the Eagle razed,


Who lately soaring, down on Europe gazed.


See now a jackal move about his gate,


Gloat o'er his grief, and mock his fallen State—


Howl round his nobler prisoner every hour,


How brave! to mock him now, deprived of power!




Behold, on yon lone rock the Lion bound,


Who once o'er prostrate Europe looked around;
{46}

See now, a Spaniel, yelping at the gate


Of his strong dungeon, mock his altered State.




Methinks, when dying on that lonely isle,


The sad abode of his most sad exile;


If, haply, he had touched the mournful lyre,


It breathed this "Farewell"—ere he did expire.








"I die not on this hideous rock,


As common men would die;


The world will weep above my grave,


Despite a dismal lie.




I well endure the fiercest pangs


That myriads give to one,—


But oh! my lovely France! I grieve,


To leave thee so undone.




My towering aim, to see thy fame


O'er all beneath the sky—


So much—at last—is now achieved,


And, half content, I die.




The woes my foes decree me here,


Ne'er wake my faintest sigh—


But when I view my country's woes,


Not yet I wish to die.




But lo! the Future opens now,


Before my glazing eyes,


And shapes of new and coming things,


Before my vision rise.




I see the Bourbon hurled at last,


From France's tottering throne,


A proud Napoleon reigning there,


France, smiling, points her own!'
{47}



Earth yet adores my mighty name—


And, late, laments my doom,


Nor longer wrongs the gliding ghost


That loathes its island tomb.




Long—long through age succeeding age,


Napoleon doth awake


A fearful throb in injured breasts,


To make vile despots quake—




And teach the world this truthful lore,


That Greater still must reign,


Or Weaker must exist on earth


And pass to dust in vain!"






STANZAS.




Hark! how the wintry tempest raves,


Along the frozen plain—


Dark, dark the lowering clouds above,


And fast descends the rain.




But, lady! now a deeper gloom


Surrounds thy lover's soul,


And wilder floods of grief and woe,


Around his spirit roll.




{48}




THE LOVER.




Scene I.—A Wooded Mountain in bloom—Time
sunrise—Enter Lover Solus.






This is my fair resort, the Summer Sun


Is rising there, the ocean gleams like gold,


On which his rolling chariot burns like fire.


Ten thousand birds are up in branch and air,


To hail this coronation, every day


Repeated from the first to last of time.


It is a glorious sight, and worthy all


That has been said or sung of it in verse.


But yet 'tis dim to me, Odora's eyes


Have cast that glory in a dull eclipse,


Oh! sweet Odora! I am mad with love


Of thy sweet eyes. Would they might rain their rays


Upon me, as yon orb, rains rays on earth.


Oh, sweetest eyes of love! they set on fire


My tinder heart. Odora! come to me!


Upon this mountain's green and glittering brow,


Where now I stand and gaze down earth and main,


O'er which that God's all gladdening glory soars.


Come, sweet Odora! thine eyes outshine that God.


Thy speech's music so transcends these birds,


They'll pine for grief and die. Oh sweet, come, come.






Enter Odora in the Dress of a Woodnymph.








Transcendant vision! Even now I thought of thee,


My mind, o'erheated, called—and thou art here.


What blissful fate hath brought thee? Dost thou roam


The scented hills at morn, to gather flowers;


To gaze into the fountain's glassy mirror,


Or list the sweet birds sigh on every bough,


Thou art a woodnymph, speaks thy fair attire.
{49}

Sweet fancy of a sweeter maidenhood,


That thou dost walk at dawn a woodnymph wild.


Here will I seal upon thy foam-white brow


My flame again, which burns like yonder orb.


Odora! speak to me! thy voice is sweet,


As sounds of rescue to a ship-wrecked soul.






Scene II.—Lover in a gorgeous Saloon in a great
City—Evening—Enter Odora—Lover speaks.








Again I meet my love. 'Tis wondrous bliss,


That such a Moon shines on my spirit's night.


Like yonder moon, at times, she disappears;—


But still the virtue of her visit stays,


Till she returns, with moon-like certainty.


Come, my Odora come! sing,






Odora Sings.








When winds are cold, and winter strips,


The Oak and ghostly Pine;


And fastens every streamlet's lips,


And cold icicles shine:


Still fair amid the scene so bleak,


The daisy flower is seen;


So truest love will comfort speak,


And make life's winter green.








That strain would charm an adder even to tears,


So sweet a song, from mouth so full of grace.


Before I saw thee, my Odora! ne'er


I thought this world could ever grow so fair


To me. Love throws a rosy, sparkling tissue


On mountain, hill, lake, tree, shrub, leaf and flower,


Love sweetens every note of nature seven fold.


But sing again. Thy voice is like a harp.






Odora Sings.






When winds are bleak, and snows are deep,
{50}

And waters frozen dumb;


And voiceless insects snugly sleep,


Where beam can never come:


The daisy blooms beneath some tree,


That screens her form from harm;—


So, love! I nestle near to thee,


And live beneath thy arm.






Oh! angel! thou dost sing a meaning lay,


And teachest wisdom, in sweet poetry.


But whence, my fair philosopher, thy lore,


Hath God bestowed such deep laid knowledge on


A light and playsome girl, whose pranks and wiles


Have quite bewitched my would-be firmer soul.


Methinks thou singest well to-night; adieu,


And may pure angels bring thee radiant dreams.






Scene III. An Evening in Summer. A Garden.—Lover
alone, and reading a book.






A tale of happy love! 'Tis like my fate.


Two youthful beings, yearning each for love,


Met by a haunted stream, with ivied banks,


Beneath the evening star—the star of love.


Their souls fled to each other suddenly:


So that they felt they were ordained of old,


To twain be one, one flesh, one bone, one soul.


They loved, and dwelt among the grassy hills,


By lakes that mirrored all their trees and flowers.


A happy life, and curly-headed boys


Were round their steps, their walks, their cottage door,


Filling the air with laughter, silvery sweet.


Gay spring, bright summer, autumn, winter passed,


And found and left them happy, So time flew,


Till both were old, their hearts yet light and gay.


Then, they slept sweetly, side by side, near by
{51}

A favorite stream they oft had gazed upon,


Meek christians said they hoped that love so rare


Had full fruition found, in brighter worlds.


It is a happy story, and my eyes,


Have poured their pearl upon these pages here,


That tell so dear a tale. Oh! God be praised,


If such a fate befall my love and me.


I will go seek Odora, and return


To talk with her amid this fragrant bower,


Of what a book has charmed my sighing soul.


I found it here. Perchance she read it first.


How that one thought which doth fill up the mind,


Will color outward objects, circumstance,


And accident, with tincture of itself.






He goes—then Odora and he re-enter the garden.






Lover speaks.—I here have found, Odora, love, this book,


Which tells a strange, sweet tale of happy love,


How two young beings found a heaven on earth,


Cans't tell me, whence it came, if fact or dream?




Odora speaks.—It is a happy story. In my father's room


Of precious volumes late I fell on this;


And read it in this garden; sweet romance,


It brought the love-beats to my heart, drops to mine eyes.






Scene IV.—Odora and Lover in a field under a
perfect Rainbow. (Lover Speaks.)






Above this field that shines an Eden, lo!


That wondrous arch of many married hues:


A gorgeous belt, round Nature's lovely waist!


Sure, earth now seems no place of graves. A wide


Gay, blooming Paradise! With moistened face,


She smiles, like God, upon this joyous world.


A new, wild burst of various harmony,


Salutes that Bow of charm—that orb of Glory.
{52}

Thou art the sun and rainbow to my heart,


And, as they fade from sight—but do not die—


But come to-morrow with their wonted charms,


Thou shalt not die—but gleam o'er me in heaven,


With none of all thy beauty, lost or less.


Can'st thou not sing a song, love, ere it fades?






She Sings.






The Sun gave birth to yonder bow


That trembles in the sky


That life-bestowing sun art thou—


That trembling bow am I.


When he withdraws his beaming face,


The rainbow disappears;


And, if those frown on me but once,


I melt away in tears.






I thank thee for that song. Oh! thou art, sure,


The wealthiest empire ruled by mortal man.


Thy thoughts fall down on me, like drops of gold.






Scene V. The Banks of a romantic river, flowing
among mountains, and viewed by moonlight.






How wild this scene, among the mountains lit


By moonbeams. Ivied bluff and cedared bank,


And river rippling o'er its gravelly floor.


The cool and silence, and the holy night,


Remember me of fairies, those strange forms,


That ever revelled underneath green trees,


And danced upon the velvet, verdant sward.


Here will I sit upon this grassy knoll,


And hear the song of this sweet water's flow,


And gaze upon yon moon, who nears her noon.


How beautiful to me, are moonlight shores.


Here will I sing of loved Odora's charms,


What time she lies locked in sleep's rosy arm.
{53}

No bird was ever fairer in its nest.


No bud e'er sweeter in its unoped cup;


No jewel brighter in the chrystal sea;


No diamond richer in the caves of earth.






Lover Sings.






The God of love, made beauteous things,


To give His Man delight—


He made the sun—the bird's gay wings—


The constellated night.


He made the mountains of the earth,


The ocean, beautiful;


He gave all harmonies their birth,


Man's troubled soul to lull.


The charm of charms—the Joy of Joys,


That crowned the perfect whole;


Was, Woman's form, and Woman's voice,


And Woman's tender soul.




{54}




THE ANGELS OF EARTH.




Angels of Earth! they soothe and bless


The troubled soul of man,


Bestow the most of happiness,


They can.




Angels of Earth—they are but few,


Sustained by Heavenly grace,


To raise again, and to renew,


Our race.




Predestined thus they do retain


That image earliest given,


To Adam, yet unknowing pain,


From heaven.




They move before our wondering eyes,


A vision passing strange,


And sure we feel from yonder skies,


They range.




But oft, as brightest flowers and bows,


The earliest fade and die;


This glorious vision soonest goes


On high.




Our verdant vale once knew a maid,


Who dwelt in such a light,


Her presence made the spirit's shade,


Look bright.




Harmonia was her name. Her voice


Was tremulously low;


To hear it made the heart rejoice


And glow.
{55}



Could I compare that voice divine,


To bird's most joyous lay,


When hailing from his lofty pine,


Young day?




Or, to the thrush's full, rich song


That gushes from her breast,


And hushes all wild Passion's throng


To rest?




Could I compare the sight of her,


To glorious angel spring—


To whose sweet breath—all lands—seas—stir,


And sing.




Oh fair Harmonia! God is love,


Who gave thee to our earth,


To renovate and lift above


Our birth.




Harmonia dwelt within a vale


Of wildest loveliness,


Where sweetest odors fill'd the gale


To bless.




And so they called it "vale of Spring,"


This dear Harmonia's home;


Where Beauty shed, with spendthrift wing,


Her bloom.




The pine-crowned mountains stood around,


To screen the lovely dale,


From tempest's stroke, and lightning's wound,


Fierce gale.




Harmonia grew to woman's pride,


And blent her life with one;


Like rivers bright, now side by side,


They run.
{56}



The tale of grief, the sinner's tear,


Come not to them in vain;


The sad, remorseful wretch they cheer,


Again.




Oh ne'er thought we, a vale of earth,


With morn, and noon, and even,


Could seem to own the very worth


Of heaven.




Such is the valley of the spring,


Our sweet Harmonia's home,


Where beauty sheds, with liberal wing,


Her bloom.




Meek Eva is another soul,


Ordained to soothe and bless,


And charm to joy, with soft control,


Distress.




Meek Eva hath great, gleaming eyes,


Full-orbed with radiant light,


Which bring the beauty of the skies,


To sight.




No word of anger ever falls,


From her sweet mouth of grace;


No sinful passion ever palls


Her face.




Sweet Eva lives to do but good,


In all her gentle life:


With her good fame, the neighborhood,


Is rife.




Angels of good, they shed abroad


The spirit of the dove;


For He who gave them, is a God


Of love.
{57}



Angels of light—they make a heaven


Of such a world as this—


They make the rugged pathway even,


To Bliss.




Angels of Earth—but we shall see


These angels yet again;


Where angels, robed in purity,


E'er reign.






AUSTRALIA; OR, THE NEW GOLDEN AGE.




In ancient days, in old, immortal Rome,


Where virtues, surnamed Roman, had their home;


When Virtue triumphed over Vice, and threw


Across their annals, a more lovely hue;


When every citizen was proud to be


The state's fast friend, and venal bribes would flee;


When manhood wrote upon each lofty brow


That glorious seal which makes the meaner bow;


When Industry, Art, Science, Learning cast


That light o'er Rome which gilds her to the last;


The Roman minstrel caught the sacred flame,


And made that age the chosen child of fame:


The Golden Age recalled the happy hour,


When man walked sinless in the first, sweet bower.


Such was the glorious golden Age of yore,—


That golden Age of virtue is no more.


The modern, brighter, happier Age of Gold;—
{58}

Oh! dost thou mean that Vice lies dead and cold


In her detested grave, where none will shed,


Not even her slaves, a tear above her, dead—


That Virtue lives—the rainbow child of heaven,


And holds the balance in these centuries even?




The Golden Age! the words are still the same,—


The meaning once man's glory—now his shame.


Hail thou new Golden Age! O heavenly Age!


Mankind sustains thee with a noble rage:


All, all unite to gild thee with some rays


Of gathered light—themselves with shining praise.


See! how they rush, and leave sweet childhood's home,


The serf his hut, the lordly man his dome,


Forsakes, with callous heart, each hallow'd scene,


The oft frequented tree, the shady green;


Swift, swift they fly to see the realms of gold,


And think to reap the joy their raving fancies told.


Ye, isles of Britain! see them quickly leave


Your rocky coasts, and never deign to grieve.


Ye, sunny shores of France! behold them start


Nor shed one teardrop, as your ships depart.


Ye love-charmed bowers of Spain! your Houris' eyes


Are rayless now—for brighter lustre vies!


Ye, boundless plains, and giant hills, that rise


In craggy pride, and prop Columbia's skies,


Ye view your maddened sons, with guilty haste,


Roll from your shores and tempt the watery waste—


Forgotten every claim that Virtue knows,


Despised the scenes, where early childhood rose,


Swift to the land of gold, they, joyful, flee,


Nor care the sacred joys of home again to see.


Lo! where they rush, and leave the drooping land—


Unseen the parting tear, the loved one's waving hand.
{59}

Thus they depart—if those who walk the main,


But few shall view their native scenes again.




Oh God! how vile thy creatures there become!


Thy pleadings powerless—all thy threatenings dumb:


On far Australia's plains, by California's streams,


Life's crimson flowing current often gleams:


For Cain has found in gold another power


To make him slay, as Envy at the hour,


When Thou dost set the ever-during mark


On him a Wanderer, where all earth was dark.


And how uncertain is the hold on life,


In those sad lands of gold and constant strife.


Fiends strike by day; by night they ever lurk,


By wood or cottage, swift to do Death's work;


Till even when none are near to deal the blow,


Imagination sees a hidden foe,


Behind each tree, and by the little cot,


Till gloomy Apprehension shades each spot.




Lo! in yon bower of honeysuckle where


A thousand bees intone the summer air;


And humming birds, a fairy birth of springs,


Hover to suck the sweet on quivering wings;


There, at the morning's sweet and balmy prime,


A clasping couple blame the swift-wing'd Time.


Each morn, each eve, they seek this lonely bower,


And deeply bless its fair and fragrant flower,


Which shadows o'er so much of wildest bliss—


The burning glance—the long and honied kiss—


The broken sigh—the murmured, tender word,


Whose thrilling tone the inmost heart hath stirred—


The matchless joy which makes us hold as nought,


All pangs that Fate may bring, or ever brought.


The lover hears that far amid the West,
{60}

Gold gleams within each river's crystal breast—


That, wide and far, the gorgeous vision smiles,


And laps the spirit in delicious wiles.


He quits—he flies—he will behold the strand,


Where Wealth lies gasping for his tardy hand.


He will return—an edifice shall rise


In stately grandeur to the curving skies;


In their own land, his lovely bride and he,


Will move a lord and lady of degree.


She springs—she flings her fair, etherial form


Upon his breast, which once, with love, was warm—


But now curst love of gold has surely chilled,


The heart that once her love so wildly thrilled.


Her long, fair locks, distracted, stream below,


Her gushing tears like wintry torrents, flow:


Her Herbert steels his heart against their power,—


The ship that wafts him sails, ere morning's hour.




At length he hails the longed for, distant shore;


The perils of the deep, at least, are o'er,


No fell disease has struck, with vengeful power,


His form to earth, to this protracted hour.


He sees the land—before his gaze unfold


The mighty, gorgeous realms of guilt and gold.


How swells his bursting heart with evil pride!


Cursed pride, for which so many souls have died.


Accursed pride of Lucre—loathsome Dame


Of every sin on earth that hath a name.


In fancy now he sees his palace soar


A fairy work! upon his childhood's shore;


In fancy sees his smiling, loving bride,


A queen amid her menial train preside;


And quite forgets that she his wiser wife,


Would love some cot, wherein to pass their life:—
{61}

Till Fate, vindictive, lays her lover low


Far from the hand which might relieve his woe.


At last, he dies—his spirit's latest groan


By her unheard—his latest wish unknown.


Thus Heaven hath punished him whose love of gold


Hath made him slight what he should dearest hold.




Beside yon haw-crowned hill, a widowed dame,


Dwelt with her son, by whom her living came.


Enticed by gorgeous dreams that haunt his sleep,


Her age's pillar wanders o'er the deep—


Deserts his aged, widowed, trembling dame—


Ah thus will gain destroy the sense of shame!


There on those barren hills and burning plains,


His insane fancy gloats on glittering gains.


Until, at last, avenging fever lays,


His form on earth, through dark, delirious days,


Without a mother's soothing care to ease


His dying throes, beyond those distant seas.


Yet, when, in that brief space which comes before,


The spirit flies, to visit earth no more,


A transient light breads on his wildest brain,


His bosom speaks in this lamenting strain!


"Ah! damning love of gold, which sees me here,


And made me leave an aged mother dear.


Now Heaven, how just! repays my guilty deed!


No mother soothes me in my sorest need.


Yet if kind Heaven will prize that mother's prayer,


Which, incense-like, now rises through the air;


I build my faith—that my last breath will ope


The gate of bliss to my believing hope."




Far mid yon vastest woods, behold a swain.


If small his joy, small is his spirit's pain.
{62}

He tills the soil, for him the wild flowers bloom,


And lovely daisies shed their meek perfume.


His happy wife, relieves his every care,


And bliss is double when enjoyed with her.


His flocks supply his little household dear,


With decent garments, and salubrious fare.


Glad he beholds the smiling god of day,


Walk from the East upon his radiant way,


Gild all the fields—the lengthy plains—the peaks


Of giant mountains, with vermillion streaks—


While all his farm spreads out beneath his eyes,


His heart's sweet home—his little paradise.


How better far this humble, noiseless life—


Afar from guilty gold and bloody strife.


How glad he views his prosperous projects smile,


What guiltless joys his long, long life beguile.


With joy he sees his offspring rise around,


His body's scions, with sweet virtue crowned.


And, when, at last, his form succumbs to time,


He sees that offspring strangers yet to crime;


And, inly joys to think his drooping age


They will sustain, and all his pains assuage,


Till, like an apple mellowed, ripe, and sound,


He falls, and slumbers in his own good ground.




{63}




THE PROPHECY OF COLUMBIA.




The sun descends along the glowing west,


His bright rays quivering o'er Potomac's breast—


And still he flashes, with his parting smile,


And gilds the top of yonder mighty pile[C]—


Which Heroes children bade arise to heaven—


In this new paradise (though later given.)


He sets! that glorious orb! and now is gone—


And night's dark wings are slowly moving on;—


But see! the moon, full-orbed, ascends the sky,


And walks that dark-blue path so calm on high—


Pours her soft light—a sea of silvery beams,


On that proud pile—as on the sleeping streams;


As if indignant that the Night would hide,


With her black wing, a nation's central pride—


That towering dome, beheld from o'er the sea,


To crown the clime of all who now are free.


As there I wandered, when the day was o'er—


Near that proud pile—along the silent shore—


And, fondly lingering o'er the magic scene,


Marked each blest spot, where Freedom's feet had been,—


The Present fled—the Future rose to light—


Columbia's Genius stood revealed to sight.


Her Phantom form uprose and touched the sky—


Her mighty realm lay stretched beneath her eye.


An awful light—yet gentle—yet serene—


Shone from those eyes, and from her god-like mien;


At first, cold fear ran through my shivering frame,


And dread forebodings o'er my spirit came.


But soon she spoke—though not in warlike tone,


But mild as zephyr when his breath hath blown.
{64}

A smile of kind, parental love confest


Her glowing son whom now she thus addrest.




"O son! well-pleased, I mark thy patriot fire,


Nor wholly scorn thy yet unpracticed lyre.


Behold yon structure whose lone, silent height


Meek Luna gilds with her celestial light.


See how it soars! and leaves the darker plain—


So high—that none will soar, as that again—


Until the Monument that God will rear


On sin's dark grave—as Tyranny's is here.


Yes! view that Capitol;—its lofty dome


O'erlooks the clime thou lovest to call thy home.


Just, just the joy thou feelest—it o'er views,


The happiest land that quaffs the sun's bright hues.


But think thou not that, this, my chosen land


Has reached its borders—they shall yet expand—


Until yon heap, on which the moonbeams play,


O'erlooks a hemisphere that owns my sway.


There boundless tracts of evershining snow,


There—flowery isles that in the tropics glow—


There sea-like pampas, waving to the main,


There—thousand cities dotting o'er the plain—


There—noble James—there Hudson's fairy tide—


There—Susquehanna—e'er with Song allied—


Here—broad Potomac, too,—shall here arise


The hum of wide industry to the skies.


There—mighty Oregon—amid the West—


Rolls wealth uncounted o'er his watery breast.


There—mightier Amazon—the King of Floods,


Sweeps grandly down from nevertraversed woods,


There—Lakes—supplied by endless hills of snow—


There—Mexico—the gulf of placid flow—


There—wide Atlantic—blue as Beauty's eyes—
{65}

There—far Pacific—vast as are the skies—


Each whitened by quick-passing, shifting sails,


Conspire to make me rich—till Carthage fails


To show a record of more wealth and power,


Even where the farthest isles became her dower.


And yon dusk hill[D], amid the moon's pale light,


In nation's eyes, shall soar a prouder height—


Till from each shore where man has learned to dwell—


The eyes shall strain, and feel the mighty spell—


For there repose the bones of Washington—


Upon that hill—earth's noblest, earthly one.




But this Columbia's fairest praise shall be,


Her Sons shall kneel beneath their chosen tree—


At prayer—as fades the daylight into even—


And, lift—unblamed—their hearts to smiling Heaven.




Here Learning, too, shall rear unnumbered domes,


Here Shakspeares—Tassos—find more happy homes,


Here Homer's fire, and Virgil's polished grace,


A sacred charm shall give to many a place.


Each shady hill shall be a Muse's haunt—


By each pure spring aerial nymphs shall chant—


Chant the sweet song to heavenly Liberty—


While thundering cataracts peal it to the sea!"


She spake no more;—or I too much opprest


By wondrous visions, needed welcome rest.


And when I waked, the day had now unfurled


His rosy banners o'er the laughing world,


And while the glorious prospect charmed my view,


I felt Columbia's prophecy was true.




[C] The National Capital at Washington.


[D] The Tomb of Washington, at Mount Vernon.


{66}




LOVE.




Of woman was I born, and man I am.


I come to teach the greatest, yet the most meek


Of all true lessons which man e'er can learn—


God's man was made to love, and nought to hate,


Except the Ill which God and angels hate.


Oh! this grand lore hath fallen on my heart


Like smiling sunlight on a gloomy ocean.


Oft have I heard and felt great throbs of love


Vibrating through the universe of worlds,


Through every grain of matter, through the hearts


That live and swarm beneath the eye of God.


Oft standing mid the holy calm of night,


The surf of love came rolling on my soul


From off the farthest verge of God's great realms,


As rolls the surf of ocean on a beach,


For ever and for ever, and for ever.


Love was the Cause of all things, and the End;


For God is Love and ever will be Love:


And those who feel most love are most like God—


As seraphs, cherubs, saints and righteous men;


And those who feel least love, are least like God,


As Satan, Moloch, Belial, and bad men.




Once man, and all that live and move on earth,


In sea, and sky, were bound by links of love


To God and angels, in one perfect chain—


And God and angels came and talked with man


Full often, in the shade of Eden's trees,


While lions and all lambs lay down together,


All in the happy shade of Eden's trees.


Oft have I watched the myriad lovely flowers,
{67}

In spring and summer, in the woods and meads,


And thought they clasped their tiny hands in love,


Then all bowed low their painted heads in love,


To the great lord of light who smiled on them.


Oft have I watched the myriad forest leaves,


Trembling as if with some sweet thought of love,


Till love's sweet incense went up from all these,


To the bright orb who smiled bright love on them:


And then a thousand birds began to sing


One song of love to that bright God above.


Oft I have heard that larks, in England's realm,


Fly from the earth, at morning's golden blush,


And fill the whole bright arch with golden songs?


And I have reasoned they sung only love,


Which teaches them that strangest melody,


Which they soar nearest heaven to warble out.


Oft have I seen the beams that leave the sun,


Embrace within the clouds, with shining arms—


And form a splendid arch in earth and heaven,


Which shines eternal covenant of Love—


Toward which our hearts forever mount and sing,


As skylarks mount and sing to morning's flash.


Oft have I seen the sparkling water-drops,


Cohere in love, and make a crystal lake—


A gulf—a sea—an ocean's mighty mirror.


Oft have I thought that all the system worlds,


A few of which we watch, at holy night,


Far up amid those deep, blue fields of night—


Are hung by Love, and wheel forever round


The Central Point, in circles swift but true;


And in their orbits flying thus for ever,


Sing forth a choral song of burning love,


To that Creator who loves them again.


Oft have I thought, the law which Newton named
{68}

The Law of Gravitation, is the Law


Of Love, which God had called the Law of Love.


And if a world could ever hate the rest,


'Twould rush forever to the abysm of gloom,


And dreariest part of chaos. I infer


God's man was made to love and nought to hate


Only the Ill which God and Angels hate.




Ah! happy spirits were they all in heaven,


And all loved God, and one another loved—


And all moved round the Triune God enthroned—


In blissful circles—nearing him for aye,


Yet not approaching ever—till that Foul


And Hateful One fell off from love and then


Fell down into his dark, eternal den,


Where love's sweet beam can never, never reach.






THE LOVERS.




Two lovers in the strength of life,


Had built a beauteous home,


Where tall, ancestral oaks uprose,


O'ershadowing their high dome.




He was a tall and manly form,


With ringlets dark like night;


But she was like the lily's stem,


With eyes of moon-like light.




Six happy years they chronicled


Within their nest of bliss;


To taste each day some sweetest joy,


They could not go amiss.




Three little images of them,


Two boys and one a maid,
{69}

Beneath those high, ancestral oaks,


With silver laughter, played.




The thunder-blast of war came o'er


The lover's startled soul;


The wife bowed low her head and heart,


To sorrow's strong control.




The lady drooped—as droops a flower


Without the sun or rain;


And now at twilight's hectic flush,


She sang a wild, low strain:




"He's gone, I cannot smile as when


I saw him at my side!


Ah me! the memory of that hour


When I was his new bride.




"Our two young hearts were joined in love,


As two bright lamps of flame,


Cut off from him, life is to me


A mockery and a name.




"God help my helpless little ones,


And keep them for his own.


My heart is breaking—husband! long


Thou shalt not be alone."




When faded all the autumn flowers


The lady surely died—


Broken the bands that bound her life


To him—his wife and bride.






Love was the Cause of all things, and the End,


For God is Love, and ever will be Love.


God's grey-beard prophets sang a future time,
{70}

When all would be restored in love to God,


And the first Eden be rebuilt on earth;


That lions and all lambs should play together,


On the long grass of Eden's greenest lawns.


That man should yet behold that happy scene,


When one loud jubilate of worship—love—


Should climb the heavens from each lone shore of earth.






SONG.




Oh! Love's the sweetest joy of earth,


Love's keenest pang is bliss,


And, like a wild, delirious bee,


We hang upon a kiss:




With lip to lip and heart and heart,


We live in that sweet death,


And feel the breeze of paradise,


Upon a loved one's breath.




We lean upon a beating breast,


As on a throne of gold;


And, like a monarch, thence, look out,


On love-hued sea and wold.




We dwell upon a loved one's song,


As on a strain of heaven,


And think it charms the throbbing stars


That throng the halls of Even.




Oh! Love is like a river-flood,


That rolls and pauses never—


An ocean-tide that bears us on


Forever and forever.






This is the lore I come to teach the world—


That Love formed all of matter, all of spirit;
{71}

That Love keeps all things, lest they fall to chaos;


That Love's pulse vibrates throughout all God's works,


Whose beat is harmony like angels' songs—


And man is most like God and least like Devil,


When he most loves all things which God hath made.






HOURS WITH NATURE.




When smiling spring, an angel fair!


Walks o'er the verdant plain,


And breathes a soft and balmy air,


From isles beyond the main:


When robins sing, and waters play,


And lambs skip o'er the mead,


And forest birds, with music gay,


Their callow offspring feed:


When May-flowers shine by every stream,


And fragrants showers come down,


While sun-rays o'er the mountains gleam,


And form a dazzling crown:—


Oh! then 'tis sweet to be with thee,


Dear Nature ever fair,


To roam thy walks of song and glee,


Thy realms, sky, earth and air.


Bright angel spring, thou seem'st divine,


With ever smiling brow:


No sin-created gloom is thine,


Nought dims thy beauty now.


Wide earth, stream, river, lake and sea,
{72}

Shine forth an angel land,


Where spirits, robed in purity,


Roam, love-linked, hand in hand.


Now June, like full-blown womanhood,


Succeeds the maiden spring,


And broods upon the solitude,


With broad and bird-like wing.


The air re-echoes forth a song


Of full and perfect bliss,


Where happy lovers roam along,


And melt into a kiss.


But Summer bursts upon the world,


With views of waving grain,


Beneath the sweating sickle hurled,


Upon the fragrant plain.


The warm, long day calls forth at length,


The storm's electric fire,


That shatters the oak's imperial strength,


And bids the shrubs expire.


The cloud rolls off—and see! what pride!


A many colored bow,


Hangs on the cloud's retreating side,


And o'er the fields below.


Then, glorious summer flies away,


From upland, slope and plain;


And Autumn, crowned with shocks of hay,


Appears in joy again.


Old, jolly Autumn! happy man!


Wild tumbling on the meads;


We'll love thee, Autumn, as we can,


Thy glory is our needs.


Thou heapest our barns with plenty—thou


Art, sure our faithful friend;
{73}

And, in the aspect of thy brow,


Lovely and useful blend.


Thy golden hues recede at length,


And seem to sigh decay,


Till, thou, despoiled of life and strength,


Art borne, a corpse, away.


Wild, bleak, and blustering Winter wild,


Assumes the icy throne;


Deep snows upon the earth are piled,


And hushed is every tone.


The trees stand bare, bleak skeletons,


Of bodies once so fair,


And dirges, dirges, woeful ones,


Resound amid the air.


Bleak, winter wild! thy dreary scenes,


Have yet one modest flower;


The daisy finds some little greens,


Whereby she builds her bower.


The daisy is a preacher wise,


Whom heavenly robes array;


Each winter lives, and sweetly tries,


A loving word to say.


"Oh! man, amid thy darkest woe,


Some humble bliss remains;—


Then, let thy murmurings cease to flow,


And hush thy doleful strains."


It is the dawn. Faint crimson streaks


The dewy, orient sky,


Like virtue's blush, on maiden cheeks,


Ah! sweet and peerless dye.


At last—the sun, an Eastern king,


Comes forth in rested pride;


And soars, with bright and burning wing,
{74}

Above the hill and tide.


Above yon Blue Ridge, towering piles,


Uptorn by Nature's throe—


He speeds, he speeds, through myriad miles,


To his meridian glow.


The birds sink down, amid the copse,


And sing a feeble song;


At last, each sound, on sudden, stops,


And Silence holds the throng.


But Evening, comes, a sober maid,


With one bright, starry eye;


And throws her mantle—star-inlaid—


Upon the silent sky.


It is night's noon. How dark, how vast,


Yon boundless vault appears;


A shadow o'er the earth is cast,


That wakes the spirit's fears


How death-like hushed! all life seems dead,


Does Nature live at all?


Ah, truest symbol! it has said,


"The hush—the gloom—the Pall!"


Day is the varying life of Man,—


Some sunshine—clouds again—


Night is his death—which erst began


When Sin began to reign.


Dark, spectral Night! I sing of thee;


For, thou art lovely, too—


And Death will wake the melody


Of him whose life was true.


To walk upon the azure sea,


It is a thing of bliss;


When skies are bright, and sails are free


And smiling wavelets kiss.
{75}

How grandly leans the ship, a queen,


Above the sparkling tide—


With joy she walks the watery scene,


A thing of fear and pride.


To scale the crown of vast Blue Ridge,


And eye the world below—


Farm—river—ravine—wiry bridge—


And soaring crane and crow—


And misty woods—and fields afar—


Neat villages and towns—


Blest herds and flocks no beast can mar,


That nibble sunny downs.


Oh! that is, sure, a pleasant thing,


And bathes the soul in joy;


And many a grief-worn man 'twould bring,


To be once more a boy.


'Tis sweet to rove, at twilight dim,


Beside an aldered stream,


To list thy lady's evening hymn,


'Neath starlight's trembling gleam.


'Tis sweet to sit within a bower,


Inwrought with flower and vine,


What time along yon mountain tower,


The shades of eve decline.


'Tis sweet to hear the nightingale,


O'erflow the forest shade,


With harmony which might avail,


To win a Dis-stole maid.


'Twere sweet to cleave the snowy foam,


With ship and spirit free,


Where tropic spices ever roam,


The Caribbean sea.


'Twere sweet to sail by Yemen's shore,
{76}

And touch that golden strand,


Where Indus' river wanders o'er,


Its glittering, golden sand.


Oh! Nature! thou art far above,


The painter's, Poet's pride—


Thou art the glorious Child of Love—


Adorned a heavenly bride.






YORKTOWN.




Here met three nations, panoplied for fight,


Moving before the vision gorgeously;


Then shamed with Battle's gloom the paling Night,


Upon the land and sea.




Earth quailed beneath the cannon's burrowing roar,


Beneath three Armies' slow and ominous tread;


And Ocean who the portioned conflict bore,


Shuddered with pain and dread.




But when the morning rolled the double shroud


Of Night and Battle from the land and sea,


The Sun looked forth through no obstructing cloud,


And saw a Nation free.




{77}




POET'S ENCHANTED LIFE.


The Angel-Child.




A fairy land of grass and flowers,


And of the greenest trees


A land of singing brooks and springs,


A land of singing breeze.


A land of bright but mellowed hues,


Beneath the western skies,


The lady bore a beauteous child,


In this sweet paradise.


An auburn head—an olive face—


An eye of azure light—


A perfect beauty seemed the child,


To my enchanted sight.


I loved him for his loveliness,


This budding, beauteous child,


The mother's heart within would leap


When e'er the infant smiled,


And when upon her warming breast,


She watched his closing eyes,


His lips would smile, as if he saw


The angels in the skies.


And truth to say, she ofttimes thought,


The angels were near by,


So strange a gleam was on his hair,


So bright his cherub eye.


He was so meek and gentle-souled,


So free from evil stain,


Ah! well I knew, 'twere toil to find


So lovely child again.


It was a antique, white-walled cot,


Beneath the western skies,
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This lady dwelt with this sweet child,


In this sweet paradise.


The mother loved her beauteous child;


Oft gazing on his sleep,


The joy that smoothed her matron brow,


Was beautiful and deep.


The summer flower hath hasty growth—


The sweet child grew apace,


And lo! a brighter loveliness,


Was born upon his face.


So fair—so fair—and oh! so dear!


Alas! a mother's love


May be too strong to please her God—


The child went up above.


And now alone the mother was


In all this world so wide,


For ere the child had lisped his name


Her stricken husband died.


Alone in all this world so wide,


Alone the mother was;


If this were true—God wot 'twas false,


Our hearts should sigh alas.


The child—the child—transformed! come down,


On rainbow-colored wings,


Whose flashing, o'er the mother's path,


A mystic glory flings.


He set gay flowers of heavenly pride


Amid this cursed clime—


Ah! brilliant flowers—ah! brighter flowers,


Than bloomed in Eden's prime.


He softly led her on the way,


And sang to her charm'd soul,


A sweet, low strain that men heard not,
{79}

And fiends could not control.


At last the mother went with him


To dwell on Heaven's wide plain,


Where father, mother, cherub now,


Sing forth a glorious strain.






SUNSET.




The Summer's sunset throws a tender spell,


Along the hills, o'er ocean's softened swell;


The God of day goes flaming down the sky,


And zephyr floats on perfumed pinions by.


Oh! who can gaze upon this gorgeous sight,


Nor feel his bosom chain'd by deep delight,


This hour when beauty wears her richest dye,


And love o'erflows charmed ocean, earth and sky;


Till fancy, dreaming in her lovely bower,


Hears far off strains of deep, o'erwhelming power,


And, lifting up her pensive orbs above,


Spies Angels winging through yon vault of love,


And says that "they are wafting souls forgiven


On their bright pinions, to yon nameless Heaven."


On such an eve, so peaceful and so bright,


Two loved ones flee beyond yon failing light,


No more to droop within this gloomy world,


Their angel pinions next God's throne were furled;


There now—for aye forgot this earthly night—


They lave those bright wings in eternal light.




{80}




IMAGINATION.




Now fir'd imagination soars on high, and shows


Magnific scenes. The first—a summer's dawn—


A sky of purest blue—a golden sea


Beneath—earth bright with lovely hues like Heaven.


Yon orb of fire suspended o'er that sea


Of molten gold, burns like a throne in Heaven.


His foaming, flashing radiance, floods earth—sky—


And throbbing sea, till each lies bathed in glory,


Which seems the break of a celestial morn.


That scene has passed. Another charms


The gaze. The mighty orb of blazing flame,


Has run a curve of brightness o'er the sky,


And presently will cut the Western main,


With its bright rim. We stand upon an isle,


One of the Hesperian, in the unknown seas,


Toward the setting sun. The waves which gush,


And softly splash against the rocky shores,


Are dyed by richest, ever varying tints,


Like those, we fancy, tinge that sea that flows,


Around the throne of God, and, in whose billows,


The seraphs, as wing'd birds, embathe their breasts—


Whilst heaven becomes another sea like that—


And all is bright waves dashing o'er our hearts,


And making music sweeter than the songs


Of those we loved in youth, ere hatred grew.


That scene has pass'd. Imagination sleeps


To husband strength for more ambitious flight.


But, soon restored, with native, heavenly might,


She soars beyond the sun high thron'd at noon—


And, with her hand that flows with gold and gems,


Flings wide Heaven's gates that flame with living beams.


And lo! the scene of Heaven! Oh! brighter far,
{81}

Than aught earth shows of beautiful or fair,


Is that bright heaven of our hopes and dreams.


Yet even imagination's piercing eye


Receives into its scope but humble part


Of all the glory that o'erflows that heaven.


A boundless sea of love—all hued like love,


Gleams round the throne of Triune God, which seems


To rise from out that placid depth, built of


Its water, crystallized to gold and pearl,


Wherein joy's beauteous light forever plays.


Over that sea rings set beyond vast rings


Of burning seraph, saint, and cherub, stand


With starry crowns; and, with unceasing songs,


Struck from their lyres that burn as morning suns,


And born in hearts that burn in joys of heaven—


Louder than twelvefold thunder, yet more sweet


Than all the sweetest strains e'er heard on earth,


Fill Heaven with light and song ineffable,


Along the bright flow of eternity.


Then swift in flight as saint and seraph there,


She passes back through those vast gates of fire,


And slowly drops upon some flowery peak,


Or ocean isle, upon this mundane sphere;


Then sleeps soft in the folds of some fair flower,


Or, in the crystal bosom of a dewdrop.




{82}




MILLY.




A fairy thing was Milly when


She blest my wondering sight;


I ne'er shall meet her match again—


A maid so gaily bright.




Her ringlets flowed about her neck—


A neck that mocked the snow!


A sunny robe her bosom decked,


That proudly heaved below.




Sometimes she roamed the leas at morn,


And sang like a sweet bird—


Until a melody was born


On each outgushing word.




Sometimes amid her cottage home,


She touched the breathing lyre,


And then her quivering lips were dumb,


Her soaring soul on fire.




She was a very fairy maid;


And then we sinned to crave


That she with us might be delayed,


And never reach the grave.




One twilight when a star came forth,


She clapped her hands and smil'd,


And said that star within the North


Would take an earthly child.




Did some near, viewless angel speak


That word unto the maid,


That thus with sweet, unblanched cheek,


That awful word she said?
{83}



But thus it was; when autumn told


The yellow leaves to fall,


The maid no more could we behold,


No more she knew our call.




And now I watch that cold, high star,


Amid the leaden North,


And think she looks on me afar,


Forlorn upon this earth.






THE WINTRY DAYS.




The wintry days have come once more,


The birds are still, the sweet flowers dead,


And faint winds sigh a wailing song


O'er leaves heaped high within their bed.




The neighboring stream that lately leapt,


And laughed, and played adown the glen,


Is now as hushed and mute as though


It ne'er would leap and smile again.




A mournful silence fills the sky,


And falls upon the gazer's soul,


And down the sympathizing cheek,


The watery teardrops silent roll.
{84}



The beauty of the peaks and plains,


The loveliness of earth and sky,


Have passed away, and, passing, said,


"Ye mortals frail! ye too must die."




So has the beauty of my hopes


Withered beneath woe's wintry touch,—


My heart has yielded to despair,


Though lingering long and weeping much.




But oh! bright Hope, mid bleak Despair,


Sprang, cheerly speaking to my heart,


Sweet, smiling spring shall yet return,


And joyless winter must depart.




And Mercy throned beyond the sun,


Whose breath thy living soul hath given,


Will lead thee to a deathless spring


Within the glorious gates of heaven.




Ah! deeply do I bless that word!


It drives my gloomy fears away;—


I kneel upon the dreary snow,


And bid my God be praised for aye.




{85}




SPRING.




Now, Mary fair, the Spring has come,


Back to our fairyland,


And buds begin to breathe perfume,


The breeze blows sweet and bland;


The gay, green groves are ringing clear,


The crystal waters shine;


Now, Mary sweet, the scene is dear,


The moments are divine.




And, Mary, hearken how the birds


Are courting in the grove,


Oh! listen how their music words


Speak tender things of love.


Let us be happy, Mary fair,


We waste these heavenly hours,


Let's rove where fragrance fills the air,


Among the opening flowers.




Yes, Mary dear, let's quit the throng,


And from the tumult flee,


The birds these living bowers among,


Shall sweetly sing for thee;


And happy zephyr wave his wing,


And streams make melody,


And loveliest flowers gaily spring


Thy matchless face to see.




Dear Mary, why, why should we stay,


While Nature calls us forth?


See! love and pleasure, smiling, stray,


O'er all the gladsome earth!


While all around is mirth and song,


Let us be joyful, too,


And, listening to the feathered throng,


Our vows of love renew.




{86}




AN INCIDENT.




The sighs of summer night, were sweet without,


As the breath of spirits, on the folded roses,


The sweet moon, like a young and timid bride,


Came softly trembling through the eastward oaks—


Where I espied a Glorious Beauty standing,


Glowing and bright, in a portico vine-wreathed.


Shaken by wrestling Hope and Doubt within,


I quickly slid unto her side; and she


Wore no dark frown—but smiled—she smiled on me!


Her white brows shone amid her darkest hair,


Like that moon's beams amid the opening gloom:


And her slight, delicate shape would shame the limbs


Of fairies tripping on the moonlit green.


And she did smile on me—that Glorious Beauty!


And I stood there, and clasped her lily hands!


And I did peer into her lustrous eyes!


And they gave back my ardent gaze of love!


She spake—the tremulous accents of her voice


Was like a sweet stream breaking upon rocks;


And when the music of those thrilling words,


Rushed on my soul—I sank upon her bosom,


And felt that we could part no more on earth.




{87}




THE LETTER.




Amid a flower-strown cottage room,


The Lady sat at even,


Beneath the peerless evening star,


Just peeping out in heaven;


And, in her hands, as lilies, white,


She held a billet-doux,


Which, round upon the tranquil air,


A grateful fragrance threw.




And now she bends her beauteous head,


To read the written lines—


Her white hand starts—a crystal tear


Upon the paper shines;


Her startled bosom gently heaves,


Like billows capped with snow,


And quickly o'er her lovely face,


Her blushes come and go.




Those glowing words have waked within


Her soul, the flame of love,


Which blends her woman nature with


The natures of above:—


A fire whose rays will change to light


Her lover's darkest gloom,


Till he beholds it beam again,


On Heaven's undying bloom.




{88}




THE LOST PLEIAD.




No more with thy bright sisters of the sky,


Who warble ever,


Wilt thou send forth thy choral melody,


Sad maid! for ever.




No more the bright, innumerable train,


Who move in Heaven,


Will know thy face upon the etherial plain,


At rosy even.




The night will mourn thine absence ever more,


With dewy tears,


And, the bright day, will, dimmer now, deplore,


The darkened years.




Our wandering eyes will search for thee in vain,


And we shall sigh


That thy high beauty could not conquer pain,


The doom to die.




Earth scarce had mourned some lesser beauty—thou,


Celestial maid!


Mid all didst wear a so unearthly brow,


And thou—decayed!




The beauteous thought of thee which, ray-like, slept,


In our pure love,


Became a memory which we have kept


To grieve above.




Gone, like the withered pride of early Spring—


Like sweet songs, o'er—


Ah! thou hast turned from us thine angel wing,


To come no more.
{89}



Struck from thy high and glittering sapphire throne,


In upper light,


Say, did thy loveliness go, hopeless, down,


To nether night?




Or, throned beyond the gloomy fate to fall,


Bright maid divine!


Sublime amid the Eternal's flaming Hall,


Dost thou e'er shine?






THE SLEEPER.




The sleeper lies, with closed eyes,


And softly moving breath,


So soft, so still, her life's sweet thrill,


'Tis only more than death.




Her dark, dark hair, reposing there,


Upon her pillow's snow,


And sweeping down her cheek's faint brown,


And bosom's spotless glow.




She wakes at last, her sleep has past,


Her eyes on me are thrown;


My sleeping love—my heavenly dove—


Has been in realms unknown.




{90}




DWELLING IN HEAVEN.




They do not—nay, they cannot die;


They go to dwell in Heaven;


Where God a free and full supply


Of purest joys hath given.




They do not—nay, they cannot die:


Because we see them not


Do objects cease—oh! brothers! why


This lesson now forgot?




They die not—nay, they cannot die:


In joy's serene, calm air,


Their cheek yet wears its roseate dye


Their smiles are yet as fair.




Their tones yet breathe as sweet a strain,


Their hearts are still as true,


And still their wonted love retain,


My friend, for me and you.




Oh no! they do not, cannot die,


They live far up in Heaven,


Beyond where flame yon portals high,


At still and silent even.




They dwell—they dwell eternally,


Where roll no winds—no storm,


And, if we seek them, we shall see,


Each bright and happy form.




{91}




THE FACE I SEE IN DREAMS.




Strangely sweet, and softly clear,


With pure and starry beams,


Reposing there, and moving here;


The face I see in dreams.




Oh! lovely is that wild, sweet face,


Which thus and ever gleams,


And smiles, with a seraphic grace,


Upon my heart's deep streams.




Oft at pale midnight's holy calm,


Beside imagined streams,


I recognize the soothing balm,


The face I see in dreams.




And, even at noon's wideseeing glare,


When earth, with clamor teems,


That face appears, as strangely fair,


That face I see in dreams.




The sum of universal charms,


The sun of beauty-beams,


Appear to deck that form of forms,


And face I see in dreams.




{92}




TO ELOQUENCE.




Ah Eloquence! thou God-like power;


That swayest the human heart,


We still must call thee, rarest dower,


In the high gift of Art;


And still thou shalt be styled a queen,


To brighten earth's grief-shaded green.




When thou dost falter sorrow's tale,


With trembling accents low,


The plaintive breezes of the vale,


With mingled pathos, flow;


The melting eye is bathed in tears,


And grief, in every face, appears.




When thou dost stand in mortal's view,


And breathe thy thoughts of flame,


The conscious soul, conceives them, too,


And breathes and burns the same;—


And when, in fancy, thou dost soar,


'Tis like Niag'ra's thundering roar.




When thou dost tell of living joys


Far up in heaven above,


The rapturous music of thy voice,


Is like the Voice of Love—


The entranced spirit flits away


To bathe in seas of whitest day.




{93}




NEAR YONDER BANKS AT EVEN.




Near yonder banks at even,


We whispered words most dear,


Till love's sweet star in Heaven,


Was shining, bright and clear.




We saw the river glancing


Beneath the planet's light,


Its ripples seemed, while dancing,


To mock the gloom of night.




But soon the star in Heaven,


By rising mists was hid,


And, by us, dark and even,


The river's current slid.




So shone our love's sweet river


Beneath Hope's radiant star;


But soon, in darkness, ever,


It swept, in silence, far.




{94}




AN HYMN.




To him whose soul is locked and bolted fast,


By lust and guilt against the entrance there,


Of heavenly light; whose soul is over-cast


By mists of sin and fogs of black despair;




The meaning of these worlds, not understood,


Becomes a dark and cabalistic book;


He not perceives that He who made, is good,


And that, His love was writ in every nook.




Dark, dark his every view of actual things,


The diamond shines with faint, unmeaning ray;


What use or beauty hath the bird's gay wings?


What glory, worlds that sweep through space away?




His ear is barred against the glorious song,


Which Nature chants, ne'er wearying, to her God;


The planetary paeans, borne along


Through God's high vault, descend upon a clod.




Oh fool of fools, and wretched man is he,


Who breathes his life in this untutored state;


And, in that world to come, how dread will be


His startled soul's at last awakened fate.




But, unto him, whose scales have fallen away,


Whose deafness has been healed by Love Divine;


A flood of music gushes in foraye,


And all God's works, with deathless lustre, shine.




The diamond hath a beam that, conquering, vies;


The bird's gay wings assume yet gayer hues;


Brighter become the rainbow's gorgeous dyes,


Purer the evening and the morning dews.
{95}



Sweeter the choral song of groves and founts,


Grander the anthem of the starry spheres;


From God's vast universe, forever, mounts


A strain that charms his own and seraphs' ears.




Undaunted, he surveys the ocean rage,


With placid face, he feels the earthquake's shock,


He knows his Lord the fury will assuage,


His soul is safe, though earth's foundations rock.




The Omnipotent yet liveth! He will bear


The humble soul, on His parental breast;


And, when the last great throe the sky shall tear,


This soul upon His arm shall surely rest.






TO P.S. WHITE.




What is the gilded chaplet worth,


That decks a conqueror's brow?


There is no conqueror on earth


Of nobler kind, than thou,


For bloodless victories are thine,


Whose splendor never shall decline.




The thanks of men redeemed from shame,


The smiles of womanhood,


The praise of great ones wed to fame,


And of the humble good,


A victor's monument, shall be,


Through coming ages, unto thee.




{96}




MONTPELIER, ORANGE COUNTY, VA.




Where'er the great have lived or died,


A charm pervades the very air;


And generous spirits, pausing, oft


Will pour the heart's deep homage there.




Thus, thou, sequestered, simple spot!


Where dwelt a mighty one of yore,


Becomest a shrine, where pilgrims kneel,


From earth's remotest, every shore.




Whose fame, where'er a patriot breathes


A thought of freedom, has been heard;


And fallen on tyrant's startled souls,


Like coming fate's prophetic word.




Yet, shame upon this senseless age,


Which blindly worships guilty gold,


No votive marble shows the tomb,


Whose vault received his ashes cold.




Alas! that this should be our shame!


For which even yet our eyes shall weep;


Nought points the world's admiring eye,


To where its friend's sad relics sleep.




{97}




THE HEAVENLY FLOWER.




Now the final stroke is over!


And the heart hath ceased its beat;


And that form so palely beauteous,


In a ghastly winding sheet.


She has pass'd the gloomy portal,


She has reached the realm of light;—


And there is a heavy silence,


While we sit and muse to-night.




She was a flower, fading quickly,


From before our wistful eyes,


Giving back her spirit fragrance,


Early to the eager skies.


But she parted all so lovely,


Growing brighter day by day,


That our souls could scarce regret her,


Passing, like a dream, away.




Now that frail and beauteous flower,


Which scarce opened here below,


Scattering round a heavenly sweetness,


On the hearts which bled with woe;


By a death which maketh living,


Changed into a lovelier flower,


Gives a fragrance far more lovely,


Round about a deathless bower.




Oh! weep not for this, fond parents!


Though your earthly eyes be dim—


Yet—she blooms in fadeless beauty,


Where the Seraphs chant their hymn;


Where a heaven, serenely glorious,


Bends above a paradise,
{98}

Clad in tints of gayer splendor,


Than our dream-land's gorgeous dyes.




Yes! she blooms in deathless beauty,


In that brighter world than ours;


Where the happy saints and angels,


Gleam her glorious sister flowers;


Where no frost, no killing tempest,


E'er shall fall, or fiercely blow,


But mild zephyrs, waked on roses,


Round her softly come and go.




There she yet is pure and lovely


As she was with us below—


And our hearts should cease to mourn her,


When her God hath bade us know—


That, within that peaceful heaven,


She is happier than before,


And that we should strive to meet her,


When, like hers, our toil is o'er.




{99}




LILLY MAY.




The fairest of our village maids,


Was blue-eyed Lilly May;


Her brow was decked with golden curls,


Her laugh was wild and gay:


And spotless as a ray of heaven,


Young love within her lay.




The rose which decked the fairy vale,


Near by our rural town,


Showed not a deeper tint of blood,


Than dyed her cheeks of down,


And innocence like that of heaven,


Her fair, young head did crown.




Oh Lilly May! Oh! Lilly May!


My heart was all thine own,


Earth ne'er gave me a sweeter sound,


Than thy low, loving tone;


For we each other's first loves were,


And each heard each alone!




Oh Lilly May! I curse the day


That tempted me to part!


And ever haunting, strange regret


To my sad soul thou art;


I fear that I have deeply sinned,


And broken thy true heart.




{100}




TO ELEANOR.




When Hesper shows his rosiate lamp of love,


High in yon lofty arch of dewy blue;


When gentle dews distilling from above,


Sparkle upon the spreading grass and groves of yew—


When sinks to rest the faintly murmuring breeze,


And dim and indistinct the landscape view—


Lonely I stray among the poplar trees


And muse, dear Eleanor, dear love, on you.




When Luna looks upon yon mountains brown,


And gilds the winding stream with silvery hue,


And Silence, like a fall of whitest down,


Falls where the sylphs their elfin dance renew


In lonely glens and cliffs of ivy green;


And human forms lie bathed in sleep's soft dew—


Silent I stray along the fairy scene,


And muse, dear Eleanor, dear love, on you.




When golden streaks along the East appear,


Spreading and flashing o'er that sea of blue;


And springs at length with aspect bright and clear,


Great Sol upon the glittering world of dew—


The wakened Hours commence their wonted race,


And Nature strikes her living harp anew—


Smiling I scan Creation's glorious face,


And muse, dear Eleanor, dear love, on you.




{101}




THE VOW OF LOVE.




'Twas evening's hour of magic power,


The sun went brightly down,


And shadows fell as with a spell,


Along the mountains brown.




On high the sky, with gorgeous dye,


Then glittered bright and wide,


And westward far, the evening star,


Came trembling like a bride.




The birds did chime their drowsy rhyme,


As day was getting o'er,


The rippling wave, did sweetly lave


The winding, pebbly shore.




There walked beside that crystal tide,


Fair Holston's lovely stream,


My lady bright, at soft twilight,


In beauty's matchless gleam.




And I did walk and softly talk


Unto her beauty there,


And deemed that she more fair must be,


Than Goddess, wrought of air.




Her hand in mine—"Oh! be thou mine,


Nor scorn my pleading sigh,


"Yes"—still I cried, "be thou my bride,


My own, until we die!"




Now as that tide doth onward glide


To reach the glittering sea,


With sparkling glow, our souls will flow,


To bright eternity.




{102}




DISAPPOINTMENT.




Last eve ere sleep had closed mine eyes,


To me there came a dream,


That when the saffron morn should rise


O'er lovely hill and stream;


I should behold a vision move


By yonder crystal spring—


A vision of an earthly dove,


With pure and blessed wing.




I thought the days of old romance,


Would now return to earth;


And, in that soft and placid trance,


So sweet—yet not like mirth—


I saw the Dryads gently gliding


Through shadowy groves of myrtle—


And Nereides their glances hiding,


And Venus with her turtle.




Alas! our brightest dreams deceive!


The morning rises, bright and sweet,


And every thing in nature waits


Thy fairy face and form to greet;


But they, alas! will wait in vain,


As I, with aching heart,


Whilst wrapt in other joy or pain,


In other scenes, thou art.




Thus ever from our path below,


Some vision lovelier far,


Than Eden's bird, or glittering gem,


Or beam of Beauty's star—


Glides swiftly by—and we are left


To mourn the fleeting bliss,


That mocks us, as we sadly thread,


So dark a scene as this.




{103}




THE DREAM OF LOVE.




I dreamed last night, my lady-love,


A dear, delicious dream;


'Twas not in bower or blooming grove,


Nor by the sylvan stream.




'Twas in thy father's noble hall,


In dreams I saw thee, lady love!


Yet 'twas no gorgeous festival,


No flowers beneath—no lights above.




It was a sacred, simple scene,


Thy smiling sisters gathered round,


With kindly air, and gentle mien,


And spoke—a magic, home-born sound!




Then thou and I, sweet lady-love!


Roved out amid the garden green,


Whilst Day and Night together strove,


Along the soft, romantic scene.




And then I praised the charming view—


The lofty peaks and rosiate skies—


The vallies, in their vernal hue—


The sky's still brightening, crimson dyes.




And oh! I saw thy angel smile,


It smiled its lovelight all on me!


My heart was heaving high the while,


And still my eyes saw nought but thee.




I took thy trembling hand in mine,


Then clasped thee to my happy breast,


And then those honeylips of thine


My forehead with their kisses blest.
{104}



Last night I dreamed, sweet lady-love!


This dear, delicious dream;


Oh! could I waking pleasures prove


So sweet as those that seem.






SABBATH.




The Sabbath morn! How beautiful,


How peaceful and how blest;


An Angel's whisper seems to lull


The weary world to rest.




Hark! how the churchbell's music steals


From yonder sacred fane;


Then echoes, like a heavenly sound,


O'er neighboring hill and plain.




And see! along each different way,


To yonder temple fair,


With soft, slow step, and solemn mien,


The village folk repair.




And now, great Nature sends on high


Her orison of prayer,


And wears upon her sacred face


A smile divinely fair.




{105}




THE THUNDER STORM.




'Twas a cloudless night in August, and the earth all silent lay,


With hills, and glittering rivers and mountains far away,


And angels then seemed bending through the whiteness of the beams,


Whispering to weary mortals soft and sorrow-soothing dreams.


Oh! surely, eye of mortal never gazed on fairer scene,


Than there lay sweetly dreaming in that loveliness and sheen:—


But what is darkening yonder? and hark! that distant sound,


That comes like ghostly mutters faintly o'er the echoing ground.


And now that lightning flashes, like sulphureous light of Hell,


And now the winds come rushing o'er the far off wood and fell.


That cloud grows quickly larger, and the lightning flashing more—


Hark! Earth and Heaven are rocking in a consentaneous roar!


And heavily the deluge floods the hills, the vales, the streams,


And beasts howl out for terror and men start up from dreams.


Oh! 'tis a dreadful scene to-night, the dreadest e'er we saw,


The hardest heart that beateth now, in watery fear will thaw.


But lo! 'twas but a moment, like a wayward Beauty's wrath,


And the moon resumes in heaven, see! her all serener path—


And the clouds receding slowly rest upon the horizon round,


And the katydids and waters make the only living sound.


'Tis yet a night of loveliness, and fondly we may deem,


That Heaven and Earth are resting in the beauty of a Dream.




{106}




THE LIFE-LAND.




Oh yes, there's a land, far away, out of sight,


Where the fairest of flowers forever bloom bright—


Where the groves never wither—the buds never die—


And bright rivers of crystal forever roll by.


'Tis the clime of the Christian—the home of the blest—


Where the wretched are happy—the weary at rest.


'Neath its bowers in bloom, by its waters so still,


The righteous shall walk, free from anguish and ill;—


And they never shall pass from its portals again,


For their pleasures forever and aye shall remain.






TO MISS ——.




The flowers you gave, dear girl, will fade,


Nor shun the common lot, to die;


The thoughts they spoke, still undecayed,


Shall bloom immortal as the sky.




Beneath the sun's meridian ray,


They'll fade and leave no trace behind:


The love they woke shall ne'er decay,


But be immortal like the Mind.




{107}




THE WIFE TO THE ABSENT HUSBAND.




Come back to me, my absent friend!


Since thou wast far away,


The vernal flowers have lost some charms,


Less bright the vernal day.


The wild, sweet voices of the fields;


Of birds amid the sky;


Of streams that wander through the wood,


With dreamy melody;


Sound not so sweet—and shine less bright,


Unto my pensive soul,


Since thou wentest forth, O dearest friend,


To brook the world's control.




Come back to me! come back to me!


Let not the dream of fame,


Too long allure thy lingering feet


To worship at a name.




Yet, I would have thee nobly strive


To win that glorious meed,


But still, of Woman's saving love,


Hast thou not urgent need?




Come back to me! come back to me!


Thou never yet hast known,


How lone and desolate I feel


When left, by thee, alone.




The dove without her loving mate,


Repeats a song like mine—


Thus seems, o'er sad, neglected love,


To murmur and repine.
{108}



Come back to me—oh! quickly come!


The joy that I shall know


Will more than pay for all this depth


Of dark and bitter woe,




Which thou hast doomed my heart to feel


Through many a weary day;


And I will then forgive thy fault,


In lingering thus away.






OH, BLUE-EYED MAID, I SIGH FOR THEE.




Oh! blue-eyed maid, I sigh for thee,


A gentle twilight's close,


When music dies upon the lea,


And dew drops wet the rose.


I look on tranquil nature round,


And list to music's fall,


And think but half their charms are found,


Since thou art far from all.




Oh, blue-eyed maid! the gorgeous beams


That light a monarch's hall,


The glittering wealth of golden streams,


To me were darkness all;


Unless thy light of loveliness,


Adorned the regal scene,


And thou bedecked in royal dress,


Shouldst reign my loving Queen.




{109}




TO MARY.




Oh, Mary, when afar from thee,


And mountains rise between,


And I am wandering pensively


Through many a varied scene;




It soothes to bid my fancy stray,


On freest wings, to thee,


And cherish all the memories


So very dear to me.




I view again thy face, thy form,


Thy look, thy ready smile,


I hear again those magic words,


That all my soul beguile.




I sit beside thy chair, and gaze,


Upon thy willing face,


And there behold the speaking glow


Of that mysterious grace,




Which binds my constant soul to thee,


And makes, through all life's years,


All that can make thy heart rejoice,


Or bathe thy cheek with tears,




Awake in me the thrill of joy,


Or bow my soul in grief;


And makes me strive to make thee blest,


Or yield thy pangs relief.




Yes, Mary, I will love but thee,


Of all thy lovely race;


Our hearts shall find in life one home,


In death one resting place.
{110}



And, if I linger now afar,


'Tis fortune's hard decree—


Oh! were the dove's swift pinions mine,


How would I fly to thee.




Those charms, with memory's feeble light


On me would cease to beam;


Their rays, with present, perfect warmth,


Upon my heart would gleam.




Thus, by thy side, so sweetly near,


How blest to pass my life;


To press thy gentle hand in mine,


And call thee my sweet wife.




If Adam lost his happiness,


Bewailed with ceaseless sighs,


With thee, my Eve, I scarce could wish


Another Paradise.




{111}




THOUGH THOU WAST PASSING FAIR.




Though thou wast passing fair,


And wondrous beauty crown'd thee,


And Fancy's robe most rare,


Forever brightly bound thee:




I could not teach my heart,


To bow in love before thee,


Nor bid the death depart,


Which now hangs darkly o'er thee.




I know a hectic flush


On thy sweet cheek is burning,


That thou dost stilly hush


Thy wrung heart's deepest yearning.




I know that in thy breast,


A serpent closely lurking,


Forbids thee e'er to rest,


Thy utter ruin working.




When, in the chilly ground,


Thy lovely form lies sleeping,


Where vi'lets spring around,


And purest dews are weeping:




Thy sinless soul ascending


Above this dreary sod,


Shall feel its being blending


In deathless love with God.




{112}




THE LADY'S SOLILOQUY.




Ah! now I am beloved by him,


And sweet it is, to think,


That life no more will be so dim,


To make my spirit sink.




Ah! now I am beloved by him;


The secret I will keep;


In silence to the mantling brim,


I'll quaff this cup so deep.




Beloved by him! beloved by him!


How dear the tender thought!


My eyes in happy tears do swim,


My heart with bliss is fraught.




Beloved by him—that noble youth!


With proud yet gentle mien,


Who speaks the guileless words of truth,


And yet is not so "green."




Beloved by him—ah! I shall own


A husband very soon;


And he shall kneel before my throne,


With many a costly boon,




The plate, the gold, the proud array


Of horses, charioteers;—


And when comes round the paying day,


I'll kiss him in arrears!




{113}




LOVE WITHOUT HOPE.




I cannot cease to love thee,


Coldest fair!


Though pleading cannot move thee,


And I despair.




Thy beauty was diviner,


Than the summer moon,


And thou didst outshine her,


At her noon.




Thy brow was like the silver


On the star-lit sea;


Thy bright eyes did bewilder


All, as me.




Thy motions were the motions


Of a charmed bird,


As, poised o'er dream-world oceans,


His sweet voice is heard.




Thou wast queenlier far


Than the queenliest flower,


More glorious than a star


In a fairy bower.




But it can not move thee,


My mad prayer!


Though I must ever love thee,


Coldest fair!




{114}




TO MARY.




Dear Mary, if my heart has hushed awhile,


Its loving voice within my breast—yet there,


Thine image was enshrined the dearest thing,


Which now remains to me in this sad world.


Thou bad'st me sing a song of thee, and said'st,


That I should make thee to my dreamy thought,


Whoe'er I would, and I will make thee be,


A fair and gentle friend—a lovely one—


Ah yes, the nearest, tenderest of all friends.


Sweet Mary, dost thou read my thought?


Who will be all in all to me on earth,


Sheathing my soul against the edge of pain,


Even till I seem to dwell in paradise,


With thee my Eve, and we may need no fall.


See, fairy spring hath walked upon the hills,


Where her foot-prints are green and flowers appear;


The turtle coos within our pleasant land.


Oh! now I throb to be by thy sweet side,


To sun me in the sweet spring of that smile


Which warms the beauties of my mind to birth.


Thus, Mary, when afar from thee, amid


The unloving and unloved I muse of thee,


And sing and love thee still, and cannot wish


The thought of thee a moment from my soul.


Thou art the friend whom I would ever have


Dwell by my soul in absence and when nigh.


Thou art the friend whom I would have be still,


The loved and guardian angel of my path,


Amid the mazes of a treacherous world.


Thou art the friend, with whom in smiling peace


I fain would walk, to the not dreadful tomb.
{115}

And now, adieu, sweet Mary! I must cease


My strain; but, as a wind-strain sleeps


Upon a bed of roses; so the echo


Of this my strain, will find its rest with thee.






WRITTEN IN AN ALBUM.




As stainless thought my hand should write,


Upon this page of spotless white;


Nor would I that thy falling tear


Should blot the wish recorded here.




Oh, like the rose which opens here,


The earliest of the vernal year,


May Mary's bloom enchant the day,


And bless the Minstrel's votive lay.




But when the envious, Boreal wind,


Shall leave his Northern cave behind,


And seek to sieze thy beauteous bloom


To deck his dark and dreary tomb:




May some kind angel swiftly fly,


And leave the region of the sky,


Transplant thee to a clime where ne'er


Sad winter mars the blooming year.




{116}




THE DEAD EAGLE.




No more through the regions of glorious day,


Shall thy wings waft thee proudly—oh proudly away—


No more shall thy scream thrill the spirit that heard,


And saw thee, high mounting, O proud, mighty bird:


For thy form lies with beasts on the filth of the plain,


And it never shall soar from its slumber again.




How strong was thy wing, and how fierce was thine eye—


Which vanquished the storm—and the sun throned on high—


How far was thy flight mid thy path through the blue,


As thou sankest away from our wandering view;—


But thy form rottens now with the beasts of the plain,


And it never shall soar from its slumber again.




We will mourn, we will mourn for thee, proud bird of heaven,


Whose loftiest walks to thy footsteps were given;


For thy form rots with beasts on the reed-sighing plain,


And it never shall soar from that slumber again.




{117}




LAMENT.




My soul is sad—oh! dark to-night,


'Tis wrapt in midnight's gloom;


Wild minstrel! seize thy harp and sing,


As o'er the victor tomb.




For thoughts, more beautiful than dreams,


Within my soul have died,


As fade away the glorious tints


From heaven, at even-tide.




Wild minstrel! seize thy harp, I pray,


And let a dirge arise


In frantic woe—then faintly die


Amid the nightwind's sighs.




The saddest—deepest—wildest strain


Should wail such visions o'er;


Within the mournful Past entombed,


To be awaked no more.




{118}




OH, LOVE! THE DEW LIES ON THE FLOWER.




Oh, love! the dew lies on the flower,


And the stars gleam on the sea;


It is the charm'd, the silent hour,


When I should roam with thee.


The day dies out within the West,


The shadows gather near;


And now sweet fancies fill my breast,


And thou art strangely dear.




Behold! as yonder heavenly moon,


Breaks through the dark-blue sky,


And through night's deepest, stillest noon,


That brightness will supply—


Thy smile thus sheds its heavenly light


Athwart life's deepest gloom,—


Thus brightly gilds the spirit's night


Its gentle beams illume.




{119}




RED ROSE.




Sweet rose! ere Ellen gathered thee


From off thy parent stem,


With hope to rival her sweet cheek,


Thou wast a floral gem.


But when I think her snow-white hands,


Did pluck thee, rose! for me,


The brightest gems of earth or sky,


Are naught compared with thee.


How fondly even for hours I gaze


Upon thy charms so rare,


Thy tint of richest, purest red,


Thy fragrant petals fair.


Sweet rose! my Ellen's pledge of love,


Thou fairest thing of earth,


Save darling Ellen's angel self,—


Words cannot speak thy worth.


To token faintly to her soul,


How prized by me thou art,


My trembling hand has placed thee here


Beside my throbbing heart.




{120}




ELLEN.




Ellen, my heart is not yet thine,


And still I can but sigh,


Whene'er I view thy semblance shine


In Memory's mirror nigh.




Thy brow so soft—thy cheek so fair—


Thy looks so sweetly mild—


Thy angel air—thy angel smile,


My spirit have beguiled.




Ellen, my heart is not yet thine,


But oft my fancy dreams—


When evening's peaceful shades decline


Along our mountain streams.




Yes! oft my tranced fancy sees,


Mid evening's deepening shade,


Thy airy form—and, in the breeze,


Thy voice I hear, sweet maid!




Oh! Ellen! may yon heavens smile,


On thee, their beauteous birth,


And with the loveliest joys beguile


Thy path amid the earth.




{121}




THE SABBATH WORSHIPPER.




'Twas Sabbath morn. A holy light


Hung o'er the hill and wood,


O'er wooded stream, and lofty height,


And mighty solitude.


All Nature lay in bright repose,


And from her silent lips arose,


In mystic accents through the air,


The voice of worship, praise, and prayer.




I gazed into the bright, blue sky,


Then bent my eyes to view,


The earth which lay so sweetly by


In robes of summer hue;


I dreamed that blessed ones might deign,


To leave their radiant seats again,


Nor weep to yield their home in heaven,


For the bright ones that Earth had given.




On morn, so holy, pure, and bright—


I looked on one most fair,


Whose braided hair was dark as night,


And wrought with maiden care—


Forth issue from her father's door,


Walking with sweet mien evermore,


As if blest spirits led her there,


And she beheld their forms in air.




Hark! how it thrills the holy air—


The choir's high song of praise,


Which many voices mingling there


In sweetest concert, raise,


And oh! how warmly, fervently
{122}

Those words of prayer ascend the sky,


And joined with that loud strain of praise


Blend with the song that Seraphs raise.




And sits that lovely lady there,


Uniting in the strain?


And does she bend her form so fair,


When silence comes again?


Yes! she was there, and lovelier there,


Than she this hour could be elsewhere;


Though few beneath yon heavenly sky


Might with her erring beauty vie.






TO ——.




As some gay flow'ret brightly rears,


Its head beside the pilgrim's way,


And charms away his flowing tears,


And glads him, with its blessed ray—


Sweet Mary—"Angel without wing,"


Heaven gave thee man's rough path to cheer—


To bid the mourner smile and sing,


"At last, Earth is not wholly drear."




{123}




WHERE IS OUR BROTHER?




Where is our brother? I have come


From wandering far and long,


And oh! I miss one well-known face,


Gone from our little throng.




Where is our brother? Where is he,


Ye late saw smiling here,


I look in vain his face to see


To catch his tones so clear.




Where is my brother? Can it be,


That we shall never more


Behold his form upon the earth,


As oft, so oft, before.




Ah! till we meet before the bar


At Time's last, awful day,


We shall not see his face again,


Although we mourn alway.




In youth cut down, he lies so still,


That all the strength of grief,


Cannot restore his form to us,


One moment though so brief.




Through Life's long day, we'll think on him,


And mourn his early flight,


And Earth, to us, hath lost a star,


Gone down in endless night.




To us, gone down in endless night,—


Beyond the sun afar,


He beams beside his Savior-God,


A bright immortal star.




{124}




STAR OF REST.




Star of Rest! thy silvery lustre,


Brightly streams from heaven above,


Ere each sweet and glittering cluster


Ope on earth their eyes of love.




Star of Rest! how gently closeth


Every bud beneath thy brow,


And the wearied frame reposeth


From its daily labor now.




Star of Rest! thy streaming splendor,


Lends the proud and queenly moon,


Till a glorious host attend her


Through her deep and silent noon.




Star of Rest! we bless thy beaming,


From that vault so calm and blue,


For thou bringest sweetest dreaming,


And thou fillest the heart with dew.




Love of Heaven—oh! brightly shining,


Gleam above our dying bed,


When the Day of life declining,


Tells us that its toil has sped.




{125}




MELANCHOLY.




There comes a time for flowers to fade, and light to die in gloom,


There is a time for mortal bliss to know a certain doom.


Sometimes I feel that I have reached that hour, and I have felt,


When pondering o'er the dreary change, my spirit in me melt.


The joyful trust, the bounding hopes, that laughed at scorned defeat,


The feeling, like pure rock-born streams, as strong, as deep, and sweet;


The soul that thrilled with transport wild, at Beauty's magic name;


Ah! all have strangely altered now,—I am no more the same.


And now I feel alone and sad amid an ocean wide,


I care not much to what strange coast my single plank may ride,


I am alone—what matters it where my bowed frame may be,


Since now my heart is never more by land or rolling sea.


I feel that as yon Night now throws its mantle o'er the earth,


Till ghostly shapes and ghostly sounds, go dimly walking forth—


That soon the night of Death may throw its mantle over me,


And unfamiliar things shall rise from dark eternity.


Yet, would I hope, when such shall come, to dwell not with pain,


But walk, with a triumphant song, o'er heaven's unshadowed plain—


Where Youth and Hope, and Love and Joy, (the angels,) ever smile,


And evermore the aching heart from woe and grief beguile.




{126}




FOR MARY.




Oh! may the brightest smiles of heaven


That beam on men below,


Still shine upon sweet Mary's path,


Wherever she may go.




May Angels, like herself! still guard


Her steps from every ill,


Until she walks in robes of white,


O'er God's high, happy hill.




And, when, in that celestial clime,


She beams a spirit bright—


How sweet to think she'll love me then


Where nought our love can blight.






LINES.




Oft have I heard thine accents steal,


Like music on the air,


Then quickly turned to see thy form,


Sweet Mary! standing there.




But thou did'st ever glide away,


Nor heed my pleading prayer—


But now, alas! thou'rt but a Thought,


A phantom like the air.




{127}




THE FLOWERS.




The flowers! the flowers! I love ye, flowers;


Ye have a mystic voice


To speak unto my inmost soul


And make my heart rejoice.




Your charms illume the splendid halls


Where wealthy princes move,


And light the humble peasant's cot,


Like gleams of heavenly love.




Oh flowers, bright flowers! I feel within


My inmost heart, your power;


And know I see the light of Heaven,


Within a blooming flower.




Had I a lovely home amid


Some valley green and fair—


The flowers—sweet flowers—should ever gleam,


In star-like beauty there.




{128}




THE ENCHANTED REALM OF JOY.




Oh! I am sick of the ennui that comes of the earth,


All tasteless its landscapes—and charmless its mirth.


Away, swift away, on a pinion, as sprite,


I will speed to a kingdom not day and not night:


Where a spell of enchantment as soft as a dream,


Moves over the mountain, the valley, and stream;


And the bird and the rill with a sleep-bringing rhyme,


Soothe the gliding away of the current of time.


Away, swift away to this dream-world of bliss—


From a place all so tiresome and tasteless as this.


And would I might ever abandon its beams


That radiate but feebly, to dwell by the streams


That gleam from the mountains of green fairyland,


And, at last, in bright morn of Heaven expand.




{129}




TO MISS M.T.R.




Whate'er may be my unknown fate


Upon this dark, terrestrial sphere,


Wilt smile to hear that I am blest,


And o'er my anguish shed thy tear?




Methinks it were a happy lot,


That thou would'st grieve or smile with me;


And though all others prove most false,


I ne'er should find untruth in thee.




Yes! thou wouldst seem some heavenly one


If such thy friendship followed me,


Nor would I cease, through every change,


To crave of Heaven its love for thee.




{130}




BENEATH THOSE STARS OF SUMMER.


RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED TO MISS ——.




Beneath those stars of summer,


I told thee my wild love;


And I beheld thy blushes,


And saw thy bosom move.


It was a holy moment,


And bliss o'erflowed my heart;


For thou did'st say that never


I should from thee depart.


I thought how very happy


Our future life would be,


That life's worst pain and suffering


Were sweet, if shared with thee.


Thou said'st thy deepest pleasure,


Thy highest pride would be,


Through all of life to gladden,


To soothe and comfort me.


And now when years have glided,


As silver waves depart,


I feel that thou did'st utter


The truth from out thy heart:


For thou hast never pained me,


Through all these happy years,


But still hast fondly loved me,


And charmed me even to tears.


Thou hast been such a blessing,


Thy virtues so much worth;


'Twere not profane to call thee


An angel upon earth.


And if those souls most loving,
{131}

Upon this spot of care,


Shall feel most bliss in heaven,


Thou'lt be a bright one there.






TO FANNIE.




My Fannie dear! when absence rends


My faithful heart from thee,


What gloomy thoughts oppress my mind,


There is no joy for me.




By day, woe wastes my sinking soul,


By night I wake and sigh;


And still the grief that kills me quite,


Is, Fannie is not nigh.




Oh! may that God whose name is Love


Her form to me restore;


That I may never, never part


From darling Fannie more.




{132}




A STROLL DOWN QUALITY ROW.




The other day I took a stroll,


Just when the sun grew low,


A down the Row of Quality,


That gay and charming row.




I had been dreaming all the day


Of bright, poetic forms


Moving through silent fairyland,


Bedecked with glorious charms.




As down the row, I slowly walked,


First came proud Majesty;


Love shone in all her queenly looks,


Command was in her eye.




Then gentle Grace came smiling next,


Without the aid of art,


And, with a soft and pleasing bliss,


She past into my heart.




Then Beauty came supreme o'er all,


A Heaven-anointed queen;


But modest Goodness walked behind,


With mild yet winning mien.




Then I returned to dream and sing


Through many a pleasant hour,


Of all that evening's loveliness,


And beauty's matchless power.




{133}




THERE IS A GOD.




The azure vault so far above,


Arrayed in smiles of peace and love,


Would sweetly seem the truth to prove—


"There is a God."




The blooming earth so glad below—


The fragrant flowers—the streams that flow—


The tuneful birds—would bid us know,


"There is a God."




Yon soaring sun on wings of fire,


Proclaims his great, celestial Sire—


'Tis chanted by the starry choir,


"There is a God."




We know it, too, at nights' fair noon,


When lo! the pale and placid Moon,


Illumes the balmy night of June,


"There is a God."




The smiling Spring, and Autumn brown,


Hoarse-raging Winter's angry frown,


And Summer fair, unceasing own,


"There is a God."




The mountains high, and dark, and vast—


The thunder's roar—the howling blast—


The lightnings springing thick and fast,


Amid the gloom,




That wraps the Earth, and Sea, and Sky—


The Storm-fiend's wild, terrific cry—


The Earth-quake's shock—proclaim on high,


"An awful God!"
{134}



But oh! that awful God above,


Is yet a gracious God of love—


A bleeding Lamb—a wounded Dove—


The sinner's God.




Poor sinner! love His holy name,


And when this world shall pass in flame


A heavenly mansion thou mayst claim,


To dwell with God.






TO THE BELOVED.




I dream of thee, beloved one,


When the moon comes o'er the sea,


And hangs her horns of silver,


In yonder forest tree!


I wake from out my slumber,


I think I hear thy voice,


It thrills my list'ning spirit,


It makes my soul rejoice.




Oh love! thy fair, bright image,


Is hov'ring near to mine,


Oh love! I see thy passion,


In those deep eyes of thine:


Ah me! those bright eyes gleaming,


Have bound my senses quite,


Those eyes are o'er me beaming,


The only stars of night.




{135}




TO LORA GORDON BOON.




Sweet maiden of the feeling soul,


I saw thy little form,


Arrayed in gay and glittering garb,


And felt thy beauty's charm.




And, Lora! when I saw thee show


The mighty poet's thought,


The poet's truth, with vivid force,


Before my mind was brought.




And when I heard thee sweetly sing,


The bold gay "Cavalier,"


I thought that was the sweetest tone


E'er fell on mortal ear.




"Sweet Maid!" 'twas love's most plaintive voice,


That echoes from the soul,


And makes the listening spirit pause


In that divine control.




And when thou sang'st the "Soldier Boy,"


I heard the drum and fife,


The bugle's blast, the cannon's boom,


The keen, sharp shriek for life!




And when thou sang'st with gentle voice,


The "Bonnie Breast Knots" too;


'Twas like the words of peace and love,


That follow war's wild crew.




And when I saw thee lightly whirl


Through that ecstatic dance,


My happy spirit flew with thee,


As in a joyous trance.
{136}



Sweet maiden, when thou pass'd'st away,


I felt a soft regret;


And oh! thy genius and thy charms,


I never shall forget.




Sweet maiden, fare thee—fare thee well!


Thou sing'st and flitt'st away—


A thing that charmed us, and shall be,


Remembered through life's day.






MONTICELLO.




On Monticello's classic brow,


I stood and gazed around on earth;


And feelings of no common glow,


Within my bosom had their birth.




The glorious memory of the past,


When valor, single-handed, won,


The brightest boon for man at last,


Freedom for every sire and son.




I thought how strangely, wildly rung


That dictum in the world's dull ear,


Breathed with a firm, unfaltering tongue,


"No tyrant's pride shall flourish here."
{137}



But, look upon yon humble tomb,


Oh! does it hide some humble one?


Now, part the mountain's leafy bloom,—


Is this the grave of Jefferson?




Huge shame confound this long neglect,


That thus o'ershades his resting place,


Who, living, sought to raise, protect,


And fit, this home of Adam's race.




Who guards that most illustrious tomb,


And welcomes there the pilgrim's love?


A stranger to his native soil,


Stands sentinel his grave above.




Virginia! oh! retrieve thy name,


No longer scorn thy source of pride;


Pay double tribute to their fame,


Whose shades so long in vain have sighed.




Rear monuments to tell the world,


The virtues of departed worth,


Till yonder sun in night be hurled,


The glorious heritage of earth.




Then through the ages that succeed,


The hearts shall come from every shore,


To worship where their relics lie,


Whose glorious fame can die no more.




{138}




TO MARIAN.




Dear Marian, thou art far away,


And I'm disconsolate to-day,


In sorrow sighing;


My pleasant thoughts lie like the leaves,


O'er whose cold heads Æolus grieves,


Complaining, dying.


'Tis weary, dreary, dreary here,


The yellow leaves are falling sere,


With mournful rustling,


The little bird has hush'd his song,


And close the greener boughs among


He's coldly nestling.


How sad the high wind's sounding dirge,


As 'twere old ocean's moaning surge,


Around our dwelling;


I well may tell the reason why,


But oh! the teardrops in mine eye


Are swiftly swelling.


The world is sad, and I am so;


Does Marian hear my plaint? Oh, no;


She's far away.


Ye envious streams—ye hateful hills!


Ah me! what cruel anguish thrills


My heart to-day!


But soon may Fortune learn to smile


Upon her sad and helpless child,


And let us meet,


No more to part, no more to sigh,


But happy live, and happy die,


In union sweet!




{139}




THE SPIRIT OF POESY.




O! radiant spirit, bright Poesy, where


Is thy dwelling, thou seraph of beauty, so fair


In the rainbow thou laughest at sweet summer's even,


And thou ridest the tempest that rends earth and heaven;


On the lawn gemm'd with dew, 'mid the forest in green,


On the mountains' huge brows, in the valleys between,


In the blue rolling ocean, in sky, earth and air—


Thy spiritual loveliness broods every where,


Thou quaffest morn's tears in a chalice of light,


And thy form in the splendor of Phoebus flames bright;


Thou kissest the rose-bud so fay-like and fair,


And the lightnings thou wreathest in thy dark-streaming hair!


Thy melody trills in the silver rill's flow,


And it roars in the earthquake that thunders below;


All heaven is fill'd with thy presence divine,


All earth in the smile of thy beauty doth shine:


From heaven to earth, and from earth swift to heaven,


Thy golden-wheel'd chariot is viewlessly driven:


And thou robest all things in the raiment of love,


By fingers of seraphim woven above—


And the song which thou sing'st is the melody flowing,


Like droppings of nectar, from angel lips glowing—


And God is the Fountain, O, Poesy bright,


Whose waters now flood me with mystic delight!




{140}




THE WATER.




The water, see it, leaps from the mountain's high brow,


Like a roll of smooth silver, and laughingly now


See, it skips, like a child, through the valley so green,


Throwing beauty and blithesomeness over the scene.




See the dew-drops of morning that glitter so bright,


Drunk up by the leaves and the flowers with delight;


See the fair delicate fays, for their heavenly feast,


In colors more lovely their light limbs have drest.




See the dark-rushing showers exultingly come


Down, down to the earth from their high, cloudy home!


How the countless drops twinkle, and dance, and rejoice,


Then creep to the ground with a tremulous voice!




Oh the water, the water, it shineth so bright!


It falls like a beautiful raining of light,


And it gladdeneth the earth, and the sky, and the sea,


'Till the world laugheth out in her fullness of glee!




See it all smileth fairest—'tis beauty above,


In Heaven and Earth 'tis but beauty and love;


With harmony dancing—a scene like a dream,


When Heaven comes down on the spirit to beam!




Oh the water! the water! man, quaff its bright flow;


It will gladden thy spirit, but give thee no woe:


As it fresh'neth the world, so its rills will impart


Health, gladness, and sweetness and joy to thy heart.




But oh, the foul demons (horrific to tell)


Have mixed a fierce poison, the wild flame of hell;


And it killeth each fairest and loveliest thing


That the earth ever knew in her bridal of Spring.
{141}



'Tis the wild stream of hell! oh it burneth the soul,


It scatheth, and blighteth, and killeth the whole;


Yet, a Vulture, it gnaweth the quivering liver,


Forever consuming, but satiate never.




Ay, it fills the wide world with the wailing and woe,


That liken the shrieking of Devils below:


And the words of the eloquent never can tell,


The abyss of this anguish, this foretaste of Hell.




Oh God of the curst! turn this fierce stream away,


In trembling, and misery, and anguish we pray;


Make the waters of Temperance flow wide o'er the Earth,


Till she shine as of yore in the smile of her birth!




{142}




BLANNERHASSETT'S ISLAND.




On beautiful Ohio when you sail,


And view its banks, forever green and fair,


And feel the falling sunlight, and the gale


That freshly stirs that wild and western air;


You may observe a lovely island there,


A greenery spot, enclosed by waters bright,


A spot of beauty, and a spot most rare;


There the fair summer moon sheds softest light,


And summer stars look down from heaven's cerulean height.




Around that isle, a mournful story clings,


That ever wakes a soft and sad regret,


In those who feel the sorrow which it brings,


All swift and fresh upon the memory yet,


Of those who sail beyond it, brightly set,


An emerald within that crystal flood;


Its sad, strange name a feeling doth beget


That wakes a sigh in bosoms meek and good,


And leaves the thoughtful sprite in no ungrateful mood.




Here Blannerhasset[E] dwelt; a blest recluse,


In this green Eden of the leafy West;


And felt sweet Peace her softest balm infuse,


Into his once too world-disturbed breast:


There did he find a deep and quiet rest:


The mockbird sang his vespers, while the star


Shone sweetly o'er the rippling river's crest;


There no rude sound the halcyon calm did mar,


And Grief was absent still, and Hate was banished far.




So Blannerhasset with his partner, dwelt,


In kind connubial tenderness, in this
{143}

Most gay and blooming scene; here, here they felt


That feeling which if earth hath aught like bliss,


Is bliss! the tender look! the touch! the kiss!


And, often mid this sylvan scene was heard,


(Where no vile Envy gave its serpent hiss,)


The voice of love, the only, joyous, word


Which blended with the notes of wind, and rill, and bird.




Sweet pair! with all that's best of life, possest,


Wealth, love, refinement, learning, genius, birth;


Bright, blooming offspring, virtuous, good and blest


Charming their hearts, with that young, pangless mirth;


And, when at evening mild, they saunter'd forth,


Beneath the rosy sky, they looked toward heaven,


And wondered why this was so bright an earth,


And why that God whose gifts to man are even,


This wondrous happiness to them alone had given.




Then came a dark-soul'd man, with magic eye,


And glozing tongue, and Blannerhasset's mind,


Became his slave, he could not now deny


His devilish spell, a villian, smooth refin'd,


Whose mighty arts his thoughtless victim bind,


In fearful chains: Burr was this Satan's name,


Who crept into this Eden unconfin'd,


And drove this erring pair of later fame,


Like that of old, to roam and sigh o'er earth the same.




"Come, go with me," said Burr, "and you shall find,


Strange honors, riches, and a deathless name,"


And Blannerhasset thought the villian kind,


Who fed his soul, on novel dreams of fame,


While Burr aspir'd to breathe a sinful flame,


Through Blannerhasset's sweet and guiltless wife,


But she his artful cozening overcame,
{144}

And brav'd the demon with victorious strife,


And sacredly maintained the whiteness of her life.




But they were ruin'd, this sequester'd pair,


Who shunn'd the world's alluring charms to crime,


Soon they were driven forth in dark despair,


Like the sad consorts of that earlier time.


A grief fell on that island's blooming prime.


They pass'd away, and never saw again,


Their island home amid that pleasant clime.


Awhile they roamed o'er earth's most desolate plain,


But soon securely slept from life's wild woe and pain.




This is real history of that isle,


That ever draws the weary traveller's eye,


He sees its fairy greenness brightly smile,


Amid that river; as he passeth by,


Perchance his human eye's no longer dry,


While he recalls that mournful history;


And he may ask, with sudden sorrow, why,


The dream of rapture doth so early flee


And souls so meek and good, the prey of fiends should be.




That isle is now as lovely as of yore,


Gay Nature smiles as sweetly, the wild air


Is resonant with music; the green shore


Exhales a constant fragrance, sweet and rare,


But those who made its borders still more fair,


Have slept the sleep of death, long years ago,


Yet is their memory fresh, and ever there


The pilgrim's heart will feel the thought of woe,


His eye will blend a tear with yon fair river's flow.




[E] Transcriber's note:
Spelling is different in the title of the poem; both have been kept as in the original.


{145}




TO BETTIE.




Give me thy heart, give me thy hand,


Thy love, thy dower, thy goods, thy land;


Give me o'er thee a free command,


Then shall I be a monarch grand.




This brave great world is little worth,


Its largest wealth is but a dearth;


But fond and mutual love can make,


Another richer for its sake.




Give me thy love, thy heart, thy soul,


O'er thee a sovereign control,


Then though huge seas of sorrow roll,


I will defy their wish'd control.




Give me thy destiny, thy all


Which thou dost best and dearest call;


Then let the darts of envy fall,


Let ruffian malice ban and brawl.




I will contemn their power; I will


Still strain with joy's ecstatic thrill,


Thee to this bosom, dearest! till


I rest in heaven from earthly ill.




Give me thy heart, thy unstained hand,


And though I scorn it, give thy land,


Then, by a rainbow sweet and bland,


Shall life's cerulean arch be spann'd.




Beneath that arch of beauty, flowers


Brilliant as bloom in heaven's own bowers,


And bathed in joy's ambrosial showers,


Shall strew the earth through charmed hours.
{146}



Beneath that bow, rich melodies,


Like odors that in heaven arise,


Sweet as an angel's breathing sighs,


Shall rise and kiss the smiling skies.




Give me thy heart, hand, bosom, all


Which thou dost nearest, dearest call,


Than let the darts of envy fall,


Let ruffian malice ban and brawl.




Till life's long summer shall depart,


The tender thrill of joy shall start,


We'll laugh at Boreas' icy dart,


Beside the fire which warms the heart.






EPITAPH FOR AN INFANT.




Sweet bud of life, God knew this earth,


Was not a home for thee;


He took thee, even from thy birth,


To bless Eternity.




{147}




THE MILLENNIUM.




The promis'd years, the better times,


By God himself foretold,


Have dawn'd, and banish'd hateful crimes,


The latest age of gold.




Not now a brother fears to tread


The way a brother goes,


Not now the wife's sad heart is fed,


On brutal cuffs and blows.




Not now the human eye is fierce


With cruel thirst of gore;


Not now the angry spear doth pierce


The bosom. Such are o'er.




This scene become a Paradise,


A scene of peace and love,


Wherein each living being tries


To work for God above.




The Bible fills the mighty world,


The end is drawing nigh,


When, earth in burning fragments hurl'd,


The soul shall rise on high.




The promis'd years, the better times,


By God himself foretold,


Have dawned with their triumphal chimes,


On the sweet air unroll'd.




{148}




TO A POET'S WIFE.




Thou art indeed a happy one,


And hast a charmed life,


A noble triumph thou hast won,


A bright-eyed Poet's wife.




His fancy plucks all glittering gems


From mountain caves and sea,


To form that best of diadems,


He proudly gives to thee.




That realm that doth thy power obey,


Is richer far than these,


More sweet its nights, more bright its day,


More bland its wandering breeze.




And gentle creatures move and kiss


The sceptre in thy hand,


And gather garlands, wreaths of bliss,


Amid thy fairy land.




The Angels' song comes down at times,


And flows into his song,


Like the triumphal, silver chimes,


That steal the heavens along.




{149}




LILLY LANE.




Come to my calling,


Lilly Lane,


Like music falling,


Come again.




The earth is dreary,


Sorrow's reign,


My thoughts are weary,


Come again.




The flowers upspringing,


Bring me pain,


My thoughts are winging


To thee again.




Come to my sorrow,


Come again,


Give night a morrow,


Yet again.




Oh! birds are singing


Many a strain,


The woodlands ringing,


Come again.




Yet I am weeping,


E'er with pain,


Grief's vigil keeping,


Come again.




The dawn gleams brightly


O'er the plain,


The airs come lightly


O'er the main.
{150}



They ne'er shall wake thee,


Lilly Lane,


All things forsake thee,


Lilly Lane.




I'll not bereave thee


Lilly Lane!


I'll never leave thee,


Lilly Lane.




On thy grave I'll mutter


"Lilly Lane!"


With a frantic, dove-like flutter,


"Lilly Lane!"




Around thy tomb I'll hover,


Near the main,


Like a bleeding dying plover,


"Lilly Lane!"




{151}




A SONG OF THE OLDEN TIME.




To-day my gay and happy heart,


Was lost in pleasant dreaming;


And I had won a loving part


In all the by-gone's seeming.




I saw that most renowned maid,


Before her father falling,


Those savage hearts, within the shade


Of antique trees, appalling.




I saw the deep and gushing love,


That fearful moment started,


That murmur'd like a turtle dove,


To cheating hope departed.




I saw the kind and gentle deeds,


That gemm'd her after being


That little camp, from sorest needs,


And frequent slaughter, freeing.




I thought that she was kindly sent,


In gracious God's foreknowing,


To save from fatal detriment,


This infant nation growing.




I saw the savage maiden's form


With Culture's graces, glowing;


In virgin beauty, bright and warm,


Like vernal roses blowing.




I saw her sweetly, deeply smile


On Rolfe beside her sitting,


As o'er the neighboring stream the while


The shades of eve were flitting.
{152}



I saw her wed in love beneath


The forest's lofty awning;


While white and dusk maids bring a wreath,


Like night commixt with morning.




I saw the strange and novel fame,


She left to song and story,


Which down the future's track of flame,


Beams forth with deathless glory.






FAREWELL TO ALBEMARLE.




Farewell, ye verdant hills and vales,


Farewell thou rolling river,


Whose waves flow onward to the sea,


Returning, never, never.




From all thy scenes, I might have gone,


I might in joy have parted,


But since my love remaineth here,


I wander broken-hearted.




I go from one with whom to part,


Is grief that can't be spoken,


From whom to rend my faithful heart,


That heart, even now, is broken.




{153}




SHE WOULD HAVE IT SO.




I loved her; and beneath the moon,


We met among the flowers of June;


I gave her my all, my love's rich boon,


I loved her, but we parted soon,


She would have it so.




I loved her; through my span of life,


She might have been my cherished wife;


And I had striven, with ceaseless strife,


To make her days with pleasures rife;


She would not have it so.




I loved her; for she bent on me


A smile and look of sorcery;


Until my heart could not be free;


Alas! that such deceit should be;—


But she would have it so.




I loved her; and my heart was broke,


Beneath the heavy, crushing stroke;


As 'neath the lightning dies the oak


When she in scorn and anger spoke;


She would have it so!




{154}




TO FANNIE.




Fair maid, in those beloved eyes,


The dream of pensive beauty lies,


The radiance when the day grows less,


The charm of twilight loveliness.




Those eyes are mirror of thy soul;


As in the waves that deeply roll,


The sun and moon and stars are seen,


Reflected with undimmed sheen.




Thus in the depths of those fair eyes,


I see the brightness of the skies,


I would my image there might shine


In orbs so blessed and divine.






ON HEARING THAT MY LOVE WAS ANGRY.




Sweet love! and wast thou angry then,


And did a lovely frown,


O'ershade that brow of whitest pearl,


That cheek of softest down?




Nay, be not so; thou can'st not be,


Less lovely to my sight;


Though darkness shade the cliff and vale,


Yet starry is the night!




{155}




TO A POET.




O poet, would'st thou make a name


That ne'er will die,


But be coeval with the lights


In yonder sky?




Strike not a single, trembling chord,


In the heart-lyre;


But wake the full and sweet accord


Of every wire.




Of joy, of grief, of hopeless love


And pining care,


Of terror, pain, and deep remorse,


And wild despair.




Of Hope, of Faith, of Piety:


Each fibre move;


But yet the sweetest note shall be


The note of Love.




Strike! poet! strike each quiv'ring chord,


In that strange lyre,


Then, men thy golden songs will hoard,


Till time expire.




{156}




THE CHILD'S PRAYER.




O Lord, I kneel at mother's knee,


And lift my trembling heart to thee.


Send down thy grace, I meekly pray,


To drive my evil thoughts away:


Alas! even now I feel my heart,


From God is learning to depart.




But Thou, even now, canst change my heart,


For very good, O God, thou art;


And thou can'st give me ample grace,


To run aright my earthly race;


Nor wander whither I must die,


Far from the comfort of Thine eye.




Yes Lord! I beg thy Heavenly love,


To fit me for a home above;


That I may sing the anthems sweet


Where pardon'd children all shall meet;


And that on earth my walk may be,


O God, forever nigh to Thee.




{157}




CRITICUS.




The Southern Muse—so long with drooping wing,—


The Southern Muse, alas! too sad to sing—


Her fair head drooped and dim her mournful eye,


While pitying breezes sighed in sorrow by,—


At last—at last—a wondrous friend has found,


Whose power shall make her through all time renowned:


Oh! now to her what magic shall belong,


To charm the nations with a peerless song!




Hail Criticus! thou marvel of the age!


Oh! thou wilt fire her with a noble rage!


Oh! thou her song wilt kindly patronize,


And make her honored in the nation's eyes.




Oh! glorious vision which transports my soul,


While thoughts of triumph through my bosom roll;


The Goddess comes, she brightly smiles once more,


Nor sadly sighs, as long she sighed of yore;


Her breath the fragrance of the Southern grove,


Her voice the voice of victory and of love;—


Approaching proudly now, with sweetest strain,


Greets Criticus, her godsire—but in vain.




How modest! Criticus! thou wilt not wear


A single honor—nobler is thy care—


Thou wilt not, merely, reign the Muse's sire;


But thou wilt sometimes woo her willing lyre!




Earth! hear that song! The strains that softly sweep


From mermaid's shell, across the moonlit deep—


The tones of visions which have only dwelt


In that deep bosom which has wildly felt—


Those notes like far off music from the plain,
{158}

Where grief nor hate can e'er be known again—


That haunt the spirit 'midst this lower sphere,


And wake the dreamer's ever faithful tear—


How die away in saddest silence all


Those strains, O Criticus! when thou dost—"squall!"




Sagacious Criticus! no witling's wit,


Compares with thine, or durst compare with it.




How could Parnassus rise in days of yore,


Ere thou had'st taught the clumsy rocks to soar?


How could the muses in their ambient bower,


In loftiest lays, anticipate thy power!


How could the sparkling Helicon flow free,


How durst it ripple, and not wait for thee?


No business had the Stagyrite to name


The rules of verse; old Homer was to blame,


For laying out too soon the Iliad's plan;


Homer was nothing but a "blind, old man!"


Light, light that Ajax prayed for, now has come,


And poetasters hence may read their doom!




O Grant us, sweetly, Grant, thy gentle roar,


And pigs shall squeal, and asses bray no more![F]




Great Criticus! illustrious lord of song!


To thee a double wreath shall e'er belong:


The Critics' cypress and the Poet's bay


Shall twine in love to deck thy brow for aye;


For far o'er Dunciad's heroes shall thou reign,


And ne'er shalt lose that honored seat again.




And still, while future ages roll along,


Our Southern minstrels to thy court shall throng;


There lowly fall, and humbly beg thee grant
{159}

The sweet reward of their melodious chant;


A verdant laurel for each beaming brow,


To bloom through ages, as it bloometh now—


Or, if thou frown, receive thy chastening rod,


Thou, Bard's Mæcenas, and thou Poet's god!




[F] 16 lines above were written by Prof. E. Longley.




TO MARY.




Now lovely Vesper shows her lamp,


In yonder slowly darkening sky;


It is the hour, when musing here,


I heave for thee the bursting sigh.




Thus, Mary, as yon mournful pall


Of darkness falls on all things round,


Ah! tell me shall the gloom of fate,


My cheerless pathway thus surround?




But, as yon lamp—the lamp of love!


With brilliant smile, relieves the gloom,


Say, shall thy heavenly smile relieve


The darkness of my mortal doom?




Alas! I do not know thy thoughts,


If thou wilt slay, or sweetly save;


Yet I shall love thee fondly still,


Until I rest within the grave.




{160}




SONG OF THE CONVERTED HEATHEN.




The sky to me did never speak,


The sea rolled ever dumb,—


Of him beneath whose wondrous power,


Their mystic forms had come.




The sacred light was curtained back


From my exploring eye,


And I seemed left to grope in night,


And there at last to die.




When lo! upon a day there came


A Man, with placid brow,


Who rent the curtain—and the light


Is gushing on me now.




The sky doth speak to me of God,


The deep and rolling sea


Is ever grandly singing, Lord,


To my bowed soul, of Thee.




Oh! I can see around them now


A radiant light doth shine,


A light that mocks the pencil's pride,


A light that is divine.




{161}




SIN OF THE CHORAL SINGER.




Hark! the organ's solemn peal


Ascends the lofty fane,


To win the soul's repeal,


From everlasting pain:




To waft the voice of praise


To Him who reigns above,


Which blends with burning lays


Of Seraph's holy love.




Hark! the deep-toned, solemn peal!


Again it strikes the air!


My trembling accents steal


To join the anthem there.




I strive to lift my mind


To God's most holy throne;


And, with my thought refined,


To think on Heaven alone.




But earth-born love intrudes


And brings me back to earth;


To dreamy solitudes


My spirit wanders forth:




To walk with one, a youth,


With bright and sunny hair,


Whose words are only truth,


Whose love is heavenly fair.




God! forgive my grievous sin!


God! forgive my erring love!


Write not my sentence in


Thine awful scroll above!
{162}



God! forgive thy creature's love,


Who only loves too well!


Let not that virtue prove


My doleful doom to hell.




But make my passion less—


Its burning purify;


And make it meet to bless


My spirit in the sky.






A PORTRAIT.




In those mild eyes, there is a light


Which dwells not with the evil; and


A calm repose upon thy features, which


Says thou art innocent. Around thee gleaming


There is a robe of more than loveliness,


Of form, and face, and hair: it is the charm


Of most majestic Goodness; which exalts


An earth-born frame into an angel's stature.


Oh! if this world had many like thyself,


It were a heaven for blessed ones to dwell in.




{163}




HALLOWED GROUND.




What bids the soul of man to gaze,


Upon a spot of earth,


As a sun of focal rays?


The spell of human worth!




The spot where human virtue stood,


And struck for holy truth,


Still stirs the world's ecstatic blood,


A thing of mighty youth!




When can the name of Marathon,


Fall powerless, on the soul;


Whilst thoughts of right, or injury, done,


Along its fibres, roll?




Can Waterloo grow trite by time,


Or Yorktown fail to fire,


Man's breast, with hatred most sublime,


To wrong, till time expire?




What hallows thus the hills of Greece,


And flings that light o'er Rome,


Which when her very fragments cease,


Still crowns her history's dome?




'Tis truth's great warfare bravely fought,


That hallows in the core,


A mount—a plain—a barren spot—


With fame which dies no more.




And when can earth forget to glow,


Beside each glorious shrine?


Not till yon stars shall dart below,


And sun shall cease to shine.




{164}




TO SPRING.




Hail, beauteous maiden, gentle spring!


I see thee slowly move,


On lowering wings, on yon green hill


From yon blue fields above.




Hail, beauteous Spring! my bosom swells


With joy to feel thee near,


Thy joyful advent now dispels


The winter, dark and drear.




Hail, beauteous Spring, the meads are green,


The lordly elms rejoice;


Yon river flashes in the light,


The springs send up a voice.




The blue-bird sings thy welcome sweet


From yonder blooming tree,


The redbreast pours his simple note,


A tribute glad, to thee.




The cuckoo comes to join thy train,


With his melodious lay,


Until his song, a rapture! runs


O'er all thy pleasant way.




Hail, heavenly Spring! a thousand throats,


Re-echo with thy praise;


Thou bring'st the time of flowers and light


Of bright and cloudless days.




Hail, beauteous earth! thou art the type


Returning with each year,


To tell us of another land


Whose sky is always clear.
{165}



All hail, bright spring, celestial maid!


Who fill'st my singing heart;


But never tongue or lyre shall speak


The Transport which thou art!






ON HEARING THAT MY LOVE WAS PROUD.




And art thou proud, my darling love?


Thus should it ever be;


For beauty hath, the clearest right,


Of sovereign majesty.




Oh! art thou proud, my darling love!


Then not to do thee wrong,


Thou e'er shalt reign the sole, bright queen,


Within my heart and song.




{166}




TO LIZZIE.




Oh, Lizzie, when I read your card,


Which you had printed in the paper,


Wherein you said your case was hard,


My fancy cut a glorious caper.




I said, that is a prudent fair


Who has the true idea of living,


And would not on the "desert air,"


Her fragrance still be giving.




So I at once resolved to try


So conquer all my vacillation,


And fix my wand'ring heart and eye


On only you, in all creation.




I know that I had often sigh'd


To other ladies quite as pretty,


But then it could not be denied,


To let you pass, would be a pity.




With real pain and much ado,


I cut the other chords that bound me,


And said the ties proposed by you,


Should now be tightly drawn around me.




Farewell, I said, to blooming Nell,


Who is too long my passion trying,


For here is one, whose stanzas tell,


Like me, for marriage she is dying.




I am a student small and neat,


Not twenty-five, and somewhat dashing,


With active limbs and beard complete,


And wear a vest that's slightly flashing.
{167}



My brow is broad, my eye is black,


And quickly changes with my feeling,


And to your own, it flashes back,


The thought their glance was just revealing.




Some gentle blood runs through my veins,


And I suppose you truly know it,


And then, to crown my boastful strains,


The world has sworn I am a poet.




I'd like to wed and with you dwell,


Within some happy rural valley,


Where zephyrs round the lily's bell,


In summer sigh, and faint, and dally.




Now Lizzie! I have written back,


In answer to your publication;


So let us promptly tread the track,


Before the first of next vacation.




I'll get the license; get your dress,


And flowers to make a bride's adorning;


Then let us to the chapel press,


With bridal friends, at early morning.




We shall be happy. So will, too,


Both clerk, and priest, and mantua-maker;


My tailor—ah! a fellow true,


Will say "I'm proud to see you take her."




And then must come the honey moon,


Ah me! that sets me deeply sighing,


You leaning on my heart, whose tune,


To yours is still in love replying.




{168}




MONTICELLO.




'Tis true that when the god-like die,


Their glorious monument


Are earth's great mountains and the sky,


Their names with all things blent—


But, then, some storied heap should show


The grave of worth entombed below.




'Tis true, the pilgrim wandering slow,


O'er sad Achaia's plain,


Will feel his bosom warmly glow,


And memory fire his brain—


Achilles' strength—and Homer's song


Across his breast will roll along.




But, had the Grecian chisel wrought,


No pile above their graves,


Say, could ye point out, save in thought,


Their own, from tombs of slaves?


A crumbling column, only shows


Where Greece's mighty dead repose.




But tombs of men, more wise, more free,


Amid a brighter day,


Are like the mounds ye scarcely see,


And note not by the way.


No Mausoleums climb the skies,


To tell where greater Glory lies.




{169}




YOU TOLD ME THAT YOU LOVED ME.




When summer's rosy twilight fell,


Upon yon river's gentle swell,


Leading the spirit by its song,


As through the land it sweeps along;




We watched the stars, those worlds of love,


That swim yon azure seas above—


We heard each other's heart-pulse beat,


In unison divinely sweet.




Your virgin hand was laid in mine,


I gazed into your spirit's shrine:


We lost the sense of stars and earth,


And of the dancing waters' mirth:




We only saw each other then;


We look'd as if no more again,


And our tumultuous hearts should die,


In that wild dream of ecstasy.




I clasped you to my bosom there,


I played with your dishevell'd hair;


And then the thoughts which long had slept


Within us, waken'd; and we wept.




We wept to think of what had past—


The doubt—the trial—joy at last—


We wept to think of mournful fears—


We wept to hail the future years.




I ceased to shed such happy tears,


I whisper'd comfort in your ears,


I press'd you closer to my heart,


Till mine no more could throb apart.
{170}



But then we smiled, we laughed to feel


The heaven which deep love can reveal;


We laughed that Love had ever bound,


His golden bands our souls around!




Do you not know the boundless bliss


Which follows true love's lightning kiss;


For, in that hour with heaven above,


Your cheeks, your mouth received my love.




And when that deep, blest trance was o'er,


And we could clasp and kiss no more;


Love's dear confessions had been made,


And we no more could be afraid;




When Angels' pens had writ the vow


Which nothing can dissever now;


Our hearts return'd to Nature's face,


To planets, and the waters' race.




All, all was calm; all, all was bright;


The moon was climbing to yon height,


Of Heaven's blue cone, rough round with stars,


With Venus—but no angry Mars.




{171}




THE SONG OF THE SLAIN AT THE BATTLE OF TICONDEROGA.




Farewell to the land which we sought o'er the wave;


We made it our home; it will now be our grave:


Farewell, ye proud mountains, and valleys uneven,


And thou, bright shining Glory, now setting in heaven.




Farewell to our hearthstones, our cherished ones there,


Our wives and our children, now reft of our care:


Farewell, everloved of our souls—nevermore,


Shall we look on your faces—our lifetime is o'er.




We march to the field—'twill be red with our blood,


Which shall make of its soil there a horrible mud;


Where our bones by wild beasts on the desolate plain,


Shall be torn, and be whiten'd by tempest and rain.




We march to the field—and our comrades in war,


Shall shout to the heavens their triumph afar—


And Victory shall perch on our banners on high


And Tyrants fore'er from our country shall fly;




Yet never shall we view that glorious sight—


We sink, with yon sun, in the deathgloom of night;


Farewell to our homes and our country for aye,


We go to our graves, with the setting of day.




Farewell, yes, farewell, Earth, Heavens and all


Which here in the last hour of life we recall:


Farewell! we are doomed to the night of the grave,—


But our mem'ry shall live with the names of the brave.




{172}




TO MY COPY OF SHAKSPEARE WHICH HAD BEEN LOST.




Hast thou come back, my Shakspeare! bard,


Who didst dethrone and drive away those others,


From cold Parnassus, fate that seem'd too hard,


To be inflicted on thy gentle brothers.




Thou didst spare one, left him enthroned fast,


The blind old man of Scio, hoary Homer,


So that of all the harpers first and last,


To call him king, is not a base misnomer.




There on those far and ever whiten'd rocks,


You two sit monarchs of a rich dominion;


But I forgot dark Milton's sacred locks,


Serenely resting from his seraph pinion!




Hast thou come back, great bard, to charm and bless


My heart with many a grand, illusive vision,


And show those gorgeous fields of happiness,


With vistas and with rivers all Elysian?




Stay now with me; no more through all the years,


Wilt thou and I, O glorious friend! be parted;


Or, if e'er so, my overflowing tears,


Will prove that I am grieved, or broken-hearted.




Yes stay, and I shall haste to thy converse,


With full delight, at rosiate morn, calm even,


And I shall dream of rich and golden verse


From angel lyres within the bowers of Heaven.




{173}




I LOVE THEE.




I love thee—oh! I love thee,


With fervor, deep and wild,


Thy beauty's charm most strangely,


My spirit hath beguiled.




I love thee—oh! I love thee,


The Spring's first, freshest flower,


Comes not across my spirit,


With such a holy power.




I love thee—oh! I love thee,


The fibres of my heart


Are closely twined about thee,


As if by magic art.




I see thee—oh! I see thee,


In the sunbeam, in the bud,


In all that's fair in nature,


In all that's bright and good.




I hear thee—oh! I hear thee,


In the melting music-words,


That swell, at joyous morning,


From the woodland choir of birds.




I crave thee—oh! I crave thee,


Thou angel sent from God!


To beautify the pathway,


Which must by me be trod.




I love thee—oh! I love thee!


And, dearest, I implore,


That bliss may still await thee,


On Heaven's far brighter shore.




{174}




ON ——.




A brainless beauty, a would-be coquette,


A brow of marble, but a heart of jet;


An eye that shows no vestige of the deep


And stained thoughts that in her bosom sleep:


By day a vestal, but by night a bawd;


Her ways a riddle, her whole life a fraud;


At church an angel, but at home a shrew,


Cheating her mother, to her sire untrue;


Vain without talent, without merit proud;


By all who see her, still a fool allow'd;


Without all love, with but the show of truth,


She stares and simpers at the scornful youth;


Or ambling loosely on the village street,


While strangers sneer upon the fool they meet:


She lives and moves the true epitome


And climax of all d——mn'd Hypocrisy.


Here I enshrine her, where all time shall see


Her name preserv'd in deathless infamy.




{175}




SERENADE.




Far o'er the landscape green,


The moonlight like a lake,


Lies; 'tis a lovely scene,


To bid my lady wake;


My lady, lady, wake,


Wake, oh! wake!




The night is rich with smells,


Like thoughts from heart of love,


Wafted from flower bells,


On unseen wings above;


My lady, lady, wake,


Wake, oh! wake!




The Nightingale, a wo!


Within the grove complains!—


The stars are coming low


To hear her killing strains!


My lady, lady, wake,


Wake, oh! wake!




O see! my lady, far


Beyond yon western steeps,


The moon, with one white star,


In paly parting, weeps:


My lady, lady, wake,


Wake, oh! wake!




Before the envious day,


Shall gaze upon thy charms;


Come, lady, come away,


And rest lock'd in these arms!


My lady, lady, wake,


Wake, oh! wake!
{176}



Oh lady, see! the moon


Her silver chariot stops,


(A list'ning to my tune,)


On yonder green oak-tops!


My lady, lady, wake,


Wake, oh! wake!




My song can make her pause,


But wake and doff that frown,


Nor man's, nor God's great laws,


Forbid thee to look down:


My lady, lady, wake,


Wake, oh! wake.




{177}




THE OLD MILL WHEEL.




The old mill-wheel, it turns, it turns


Throughout the livelong day,


And flings the current of the stream,


Abroad in glist'ning spray:


That old, black wheel has turn'd for years,


Beside the mossy mill,


That stands, like some old, sacred thing,


Beneath the clay-red hill.




The old mill-wheel, it turns, it turns


Like time's unresting one,


Which day and night, and night and day,


Hath never ceased to run:


The old mill-wheel, an emblem true,


Of Time that ne'er stands still,


I love to see it turning so,


Beside the mossy mill.




The old mill-wheel, it turns, it turns,


As in my childhood's hour;—


As when I bathed beneath its rim,


In its refreshing shower:


But they who were my comrades then,


Are sleeping on the hill,


And now, to them, forever now,


The old Mill-wheel stands still.




{178}




SERENADE.




How sombre is the gloom!


I see no beam of star,


Gleam o'er the garden's bloom,


Or silent wood afar;


So dark the thoughts which shroud


His soul who sings to thee;


Oh lady, cold and proud;


Who scorn'st to think on me;


Lady, lady, wake!


List oh! list.




The firefly lights the night,


A moment and then dies;


The lilacs pine for light,


With sweet and odorous sighs:


So Hope's deceitful beam,


Illumines my despair,


While I still sigh and dream,


With many a sobbing prayer,


Lady, lady, list!


List and smile!




Lo! now the clouds break off,


And heaven once more is free;


The mounts their garments doff,


The mists rise from the sea;


From yonder casement high


She looks, she looks, oh see!


She bends on me her eye


Of heavenly brilliancy:


Lady, lady, dear;


Lady dear!




{179}




VIRGINIA HOME OF HONOR.




Oh, home of honor, native land,


When roaming o'er the sea,


The eye still turns, the heart still yearns,


O dearest home, for thee.


When ranged around the social board,


We bid our sorrows flee,


We own a pride that we are sons,


O dearest home, of thee.




If earth retains one single draught


Of pure and tranquil joy,


Within whose sweet and sparkling wave,


Is mixt no sad alloy;


'Tis here we taste it while we sit,


Beneath our natal tree,


'Tis here it glads our heart of hearts,


O dearest home, with thee.




When we are cast on foreign shores,


Beyond the dark-blue sea,


Sad memory oft returns to weep,


O dearest home, with thee,


And when the knell of death shall come,


And set our spirits free,


Our hearts shall find their sweetest rest,


O dearest home, with thee.




{180}




HYMN TO THE FATHER.




Heavenly father, God of mercy,


Look upon a sinful soul;


For, the waves of sad contrition,


Now above me darkly roll.


Ah! my crimes are dark and grievous,


The huge burthen hard to bear;


All the day and night I'm sighing


Whelm'd in grief and dark despair.




Ah! how deeply I have fallen


From my high and happy state,


Where, enrob'd in thy dear image,


Once, in tranquil peace, I sate.


Black with sores, a loathsome leper,


Lo! I wait before Thy throne;


Cans't thou, Maker, wilt thou heal me,


Make me whole and all thine own?




Oh! Thy grace is freely gushing,


Boundless is Thy wondrous Love;


And for all Thy erring children,


Lord, Thy tender bowels move.


Hail! Supreme, Exhaustless Mercy,


Christ hath freed my soul from sin;


And a holy calm comes o'er me,


And a heavenly peace within.




{181}




O BIRDIE! SPEAK TO ME.




O Birdie! speak to me,


Speak from thy silent grave;


It doth not roll o'er thee,


Death's dark and Stygian wave!


Sweet! speak, I'm sick, to hear


The heaven of thy voice,


Which wont, while life was dear,


To thrill me and rejoice.




Speak, Birdie! speak to me!


Speak from the flowers which bloom,


Beneath the cedar tree


That hides thy dearest tomb!


Speak, angel! speak to me;


I know thou art not dead,


That the dear soul in thee


But, bird-like, upward sped!




Yes! Birdie! speak to me,


Maid most bright, most dear;


Ask, if I'm true to thee,


Ask if my grief's sincere?


Ask if the warm tears roll


From my devoted heart?


O Birdie! then my soul


In peace shall hence depart.




{182}




TO ONE.




I love thee, and my trembling lyre


Will learn no other strain;


I marvel if thy gentle heart


Will ever cease disdain;


I marvel if our future lives,


Will mingle into one,


And glitter like a happy stream,


In an unclouded sun.




I see that mid a wooing throng,


Thou art a central star,


And vying youths, with noble pride,


Have brought their gifts from far:


I only think the smiles thou giv'st,


So freely unto them,


If given to me, would bless me more,


Than thrones or diadem.




I love thee, and this throbbing heart,


From thrall no longer free,


Must heave in joy, or ache with wo,


Till Death's dark hour, for thee.


I feel that I must know thy love,


Or all of life will be


One long, deep wail, one throb of pain,


One speechless agony.




{183}




THE WANDERER.




With none to share my ship with me,


A wand'rer o'er life's stormy sea,


One brilliant star, like lamp of love,


Smiles calmly from its throne above.


Oh! brightly o'er the surging wave,


That lustre shines to bless and save;


And on through billows thund'ring roll,


Conducts me to my heavenly goal.




That star by gracious Love was placed,


To look, in beauty uneffaced,


Over the wildest wrath of storms,


And scatter round its glittering charms:


It is Religion, and its ray


Is fed by angel hands alway:


It beams with beauty so divine,


The wand'rer smiles to see it shine.




Hail, one bright star on all life's main;


Though surf roll high, and cordage strain;


And cowards, ship! may quake for thee;


Thou walk'st victorious o'er the sea.


Oh! proudly, as an ocean-queen,


Thy frame, majestic still is seen—


Until thou rest in heaven at last,


Thy sailing done, thy anchor cast.




{184}




TO BETTIE.




Why, beauteous Bettie, longer shed


Pearly showers of causeless grief,


Why bend down that lovely head,


Like the autumn's rain-wash'd leaf?




Though in weeping, sad distress,


Thy dear charms have lovelier grown,


As drench'd Nature o'er her dress,


Wears the rainbow's splendid zone.




Yet why shed those beaded pearls


From those eyes of softest blue,


And why loose those auburn curls


O'er that sweet neck's damask hue?




Every liquid, falling gem,


Flashing like the diamond's ray,


In an eastern diadem,


Let me kiss them all away.




Then, from out this stormy gloom,


Thy dear smile shall brightly steal;


O'er my heart's enliven'd bloom,


O'er the joy thy thoughts reveal.




Why, beauteous Bettie! longer shed,


Showers of pearls so bright to see?


Bid dark doubt be quickly sped,


I am faithful still to thee.




{185}




BABY SONG.




Rock'd on Mamma's heaving breast,


Heaving like the pearly deep,


Hugg'd to that sweet, honey rest,


Sleep, little baby, sleep,


Baby sleep.




White like the new moon's falling beams,


O'er the wooded, westward steeps,


Falls the white throng of her dreams,


While my baby sleeps,


Oh, she sleeps.




Closed her soft and sparkling eyes,


Oped her mouth like a tulip's cup,


In a starry trance she lies,


Like a bud at night shut up;


Baby sleeps.




Around her scarcely parted lips,


Now a smile—a laughter!—creeps,


Losing all their sad eclipse—


Angels near! while baby sleeps


Deeply sleeps.




Rock'd upon dear Mamma's breast,


Heaving like the wild sea deeps,


Joy hath brought Mamma sweet rest,


While our baby sleeps,


Softly sleeps.




{186}




MY OLD VIRGINIA HOME.




Around my old Virginia home,


My heart forever clings;


Whene'er I hear its name pronounced,


I think a thousand things.


I think how once a little band,


Came to these forest lands;


And struggling long, built this fair home,


And left it to our hands.




I think how our forefathers fought,


To keep it free from chains,


How they rejoic'd at vict'ry won,


With loud, triumphal strains.


My cherish'd old Virginia home,


Tears, tears come to my eyes,


When thinking on thee, loveliest land,


Beneath the boundless skies!




{187}




TAKE THOSE PLEDGES BACK.




Take back those pledges, dearest maid,


Which once I warmly gave,


For then I dreamed I would be free,


And nevermore thy slave.


Yes! take them back once more, for love


Hath made me only thine;


And I should give these gems away,


Whose heart's no longer mine.




'Tis said the heart can often love,


But that can never be;


Though I have bow'd at other shrines,


I never loved but thee.


I feel that thou art dearer far


Than aught this world can give,


And come what may, come grief or joy,


For only thee I live.




Yes! take those pledges back, dear maid,


And let them fondly speak,


The deathless flame that will not fail,


In spring, or winter bleak:


For they have told an honest tale,


That I shall change no more,


Till I shall clasp thy form again


On Heaven's eternal shore.




{188}




SONG.—UNDYING AFFECTION.




I loved thee in my happy youth,


When I was free from guile,


And I have kept that early truth,


And wear as fond a smile:


I've look'd to thee, through every storm


That lower'd upon my way,


Thou say'st my fair and fairy form


Hath made thy rainbow's ray.




I loved thee in that early time,


Life's best and brightest years;


I gave thee in thy manhood's prime,


My changing smiles and tears:


And now when evening shades come o'er


The length'ning path of life,


And we must think of love no more,


I am thy faithful wife.




{189}




FREEDOM'S HOME.




O freedom's home! thy banner streams,


A meteor on the gale;


And I behold the haughty flags


Of Europe fade and pale.


And, crowding on the surging sea,


They cleave the billows bright;


They come to rest beneath its folds,


Attracted by its light.




O freedom's home! forevermore


We'll join our hearts and hands,


To make thee bright with peaceful wealth,


The gem of richest strands:


But, if a tyrant e'er should threat,


This Eden of the free,


Dear home of freedom, we will bleed,


And yield our life for thee.




{190}




NATIVE MOUNTAINS.




Native Mountains! on your summits,


Stream the gleaming floods of day,


While a thousand silver cascades,


Leap within the early ray;


There amid your flowery valleys,


Stands the cot of her I love;


Clamb'ring o'er your rocky summits,


I behold it from above.




Native Mountains! how my bosom


Swells with happiness and pride,


When I gaze upon ye soaring


O'er your vales so green and wide.


All my wishes, all my pleasures,


Still are closely, sweetly bound,


To ye, lofty native Mountains,


With your valleys blooming round.




{191}




THE TRAIN IS COMING.




The train is coming, coming,


It whistles, don't you hear?


I saw the smoking engine,


And soon they will be here.


The train is coming, coming,


It is already here,


I think that handsome Willie,


I'm sure, he'll soon appear.




I've waited long to see him,


And thought the train was slow;


But now I see it stopping,


And Willie's come, I know.


I got, on Sunday morning,


The sweetest billet-doux,


It had a white envelope,


And his initials, too.




I read it, then I started,


To hear the sermon through,


But I could not hear the sermon,


For all that I could do.


For it said that he was coming,


Without mistake to-day,


That he was growing weary


Of things and folks away.




But list! the bell is ringing,


And here is Willie's card;


I'll meet him in the parlor,


For I am quite prepar'd,
{192}

To answer any questions


That Willie now may ask,


And then to serve and love him,


Will be my daily task.






LINES.




Far hath lovely Fanny flown,


O'er the mountains, o'er the sea;


All our peace with her hath gone,


We are wed to misery.




As the rainbow fades away,


As the short-lived spring departs,


Shone she brightly o'er our way,


Fled from our repining hearts.




Yet the rainbow will return,


And the Spring will come once more;


But the fair whose flight we mourn,


Walks on Death's Elysian shore.




{193}




LOVE SONG.




My heart is newly gushing,


With love for thee, with love for thee,


With thoughts as wild and wasteful,


As yonder sea, as yonder sea.




Oh yes! my soul is wretched


With longing pain, with longing pain,


It gives a ceaseless moaning,


Like yonder main, like yonder main.




Thy strange and matchless beauty,


Is like the sea, is like the sea;


Thy face in love or anger,


Is sweet to me, is sweet to me.




Thy maiden soul is precious


As yonder deep, as yonder deep,


Within its glassy clearness,


Bright jewels sleep, bright jewels sleep.




Thy sinless mind resembles


Yon deep, blue sea, yon deep, blue sea;


The glorious things of heaven


Are seen in thee, are seen in thee.




Oh main! as some poor sailor


Is lost in thee, is lost in thee,


My soul is lost in sighing,


No hope for me, no hope for me.




{194}




PARTING SONG.




We meet with smiles, we part in tears;


This is our earthly lot,


We cannot find a place on earth,


Where friends have parted not.


And oh! it is the saddest thought,


That we no more may meet,


That we may see their face no more,


Whose friendship was so sweet.




We meet with smiles, we part in tears,


But Mem'ry long will bring,


Their image in our waking thoughts,


A blest and sacred thing:


And we shall pause amid the crowds,


Where we are strangers now;


And deeply think of what has been,


Till grief will shade our brow.




Till grief will shade our aching brow,


And tears will freely flow,


Till we shall weep, as we have wept,


O'er friends now sleeping low;


For, who may tell, if e'er again,


Those friends shall meet our gaze;


Who've wander'd forth from all our love,


Where Death's dark angel strays?




{195}




THE SONG OF MAY.




To mountains hoar and russet plain,


A joyous sprite, I come again;


With many a sweet and joyous strain,


And break grim winter's icy chain.




From yon blue chambers far above,


On brilliant wings, I lightly move;


I come, and lead the cooing dove,


And all the choir that fill the grove.




To leafy wild, and city's hum,


The queen of joy, I come, I come;


The little rills no more are dumb;


But hail me, as I come, I come.




With breath that glads both land and main,


I come again, I come again!


On hillside, bank, and level plain,


The flowers appear, in beauteous train.




To blooming land and azure main,


Each year I duly come again;


A stranger from yon heavenly plain


Of light and bliss; as poets feign.




{196}




TO MY LYRE.




O harp, with whom my childhood played,


Within that verdant dell,


O'erbower'd by boughs of grateful shade,


I go—Farewell! farewell!




If I have durst to raise thy tone


To sing a theme too high,


Thou, thou must bear the sin alone,


O harp, not I, not I.




For, thou had'st witch'd me with a love


Where reason had no part;


I felt that thou would'st e'en approve,


And fondly heard my heart.




The song hath ended. Silence falls


Round the enchanted dell;


Awhile I heed no more thy calls,


Sweet harp! farewell! farewell!




{197}




YOU ASK WHY I AM LONELY NOW.




You ask why I am lonely now,


In all this brilliant scene,


And why I look on beauty's charms,


With cold, unalter'd mien.




You say that, many a loving heart,


Would joy to be my own,


That none of all the human race,


Should ever live alone.




I'll tell you why I'm lonely now,


If grief will let me speak,


And why I glance on woman's charms


With cold, unalter'd cheek.




'Twas in my boyhood's happy days,


I loved a blue-eyed maid;


The light of heaven o'er that young cheek,


In changeful feeling stray'd!




I loved her with a love as true,


As ever dwelt on earth;


Oh sure my worship was too deep,


Even at that shrine of worth.




She loved me not, that knowledge fell,


Upon me like a blight;


Ah me! I am too fondly weak?


Is this a teardrop bright?




You asked why I am lonely now,


And I the tale have told:


And I shall yet be lonely, till


The grave my heart shall hold.




{198}




OLD HOMESTEAD.




Old homestead! old homestead! what feelings arise!


As now the old homestead greets kindly our eyes;


Old homestead, where oft we were merry or sad;


Each day as it fled, still some witchery had.




The homestead! how dear is its old, friendly look,


Its dun rolling hills, and its slow running brook;


Its time-worn, old gables, and cornice so plain,


Its roof that grew mossy from shadow and rain.




Old homestead! some dwelt with us, loved with us here;


Some smiled at our smile, and they wept at our tear:


Of those some have gone to a far distant land;


And some—where yon cedars like pale mourners stand.




Oh! memories most thrilling, most holy, most dear,


Still cluster around thee, old homestead, fore'er;


Thou hast a deep magic that never can die,


'Till 'neath the green valley, we endlessly lie.




{199}




LOVE SONG.




I love thee, oh! I love thee,


As the sweet bee loves the flower,


As the swallow loves the summer,


As the humming bird the bower;


As the petrel loves the ocean,


As the nightingale the night;


I love, I love thee, dearest!


Thou being good and bright.




I love thee, oh! I love thee,


There's nothing on this earth,


Can feel a deeper fondness,


A flame of purer worth;


The eagle loves its offspring,


Most faithful is the dove;


But thou! thy smallest ringlet,


Has more from me than love.




{200}




SUSIE.




A gentle maid, a dove-like soul,


An eye that knows no ill;


I met her from her rural walk,


Upon yon grassy hill.




Her apron filled with early flowers,


And some were lightly bound


Into a wreath that sweetly lay


Her snowy temples round.




And as I met her on that hill,


At twilight's magic hour,


My spirit felt her loveliness


And own'd her magic power.




And since our meeting on that hill,


I still have fondly thought,


Of what a store of pleasant dreams,


That eve to me hath brought.




{201}




LINES ON PARTING WITH ——.




Since Fate's tyrannical decree,


Sweet friend, dissevers you and me,


Now memory shall vanquish fate,


And yield the bliss we knew so late.




Yes, she a mournful devotee,


From scenes of busy strife shall flee;


To kneel beneath that cherish'd shrine,


Whose every offering is thine.




Oh! sometimes in the lonely hour,


My heart shall own a deeper power,


And tears shall tell, upon my cheek,


The grief that words could never speak.




{202}




BLUE-EYED ELLA.




Oh blue-eyed Ella's face is fair,


And beautiful her braided hair,


As fair the feelings that do speak


Upon her pure and placid cheek.




Oh! blue-eyed Ella's heart is kind


With warm desires by Heav'n refin'd;


Amid this world of crime and ill,


She walks serene and sinless still.




Oh! blue-eyed Ella! keep for me,


A thought from scorn and coldness free;


I fain would ask, I fain would find


A memory in so blest a mind.




{203}




ACROSTIC.




Far hath beauteous Fanny flown,


And sad Nature's drooping eye,


Now declares her pleasure gone,


Newly weeping from the sky.


Yet, when she shall seek again,


Mildest maid! these haunts she loved,


In that hour, will Nature's pain,


(Caus'd by her) be all remov'd.


Here sad Nature shall regain


Increase of the joy she proved,


Ere you fled the flowery plain.




{204}




TO THE MUSE. L'ENVOI.




Dear maid, with whom I, happy, wander'd back,


To roam o'er that now sacred, hallow'd ground,


Where Smith who trod old ocean's stormy track,


The noble state of chivalry did found.




Delightful hours thou mad'st them all, when I


Went musing there with thee, my spirit guide,


I saw the chieftain with his eagle eye,


And all his val'rous comrades, by his side.




I saw the doubtful scene; the hard assay,


The daring crown'd with victory at last;


I saw the ancient forest fall away,


I saw the little empire spreading fast.




And, on through other realms in charmed life,


I follow'd, by thy silver accents led,


So sweet, the summer air with bliss seem'd rife,


And harping angels hover'd o'er my head.




But yet—farewell! with sadden'd, sinking heart,


I turn from all the joys I late have known,


Where from the rushing crowd I oft shall start,


To find myself dejected and alone.




Yet, sometimes thou return, and with those eyes


Bright as an angel's, look on me again,


So I shall feel the wonted raptures rise,


And I shall lose the deaden'd sense of pain!




{205}




J.W. RANDOLPH,


121 MAIN STREET, RICHMOND, VA.


In addition to the largest and best assortment of Law, Medical,
Theological, Classical, School and Miscellaneous Books, in
Virginia, offers for sale the following works on Masonry:




ALLYN'S RITUAL OF FREEMASONRY, with 30 plates; to which is added a key
to the Phi Beta Kappa, the Orange and Odd Fellows Societies, with notes
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THE MYSTIC CIRCLE, AND AMERICAN HAND-BOOK OF MASONRY, with plates; by
G.H. Gray, sen., of Mississippi. 12mo. sheep, $1 50


THE FREEMASON'S MANUAL, a companion for the initiated through all the
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THE VIRGINIA TEXT-BOOK OF ROYAL ARCH MASONRY, with plates; by J. Dove,
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THE FREEMASON'S LIBRARY, AND GENERAL AHIMAN REZON, with plates; by S.
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THE TRUE MASONIC CHART, OR HIEROGLYPHIC MONITOR; by R.W. Jeremy L.
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THE CRAFTSMAN AND FREEMASON'S GUIDE, compiled and arranged from Webb,
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A LEXICON OF FREEMASONRY; by A.G. Mackey, M.D., Author of the Mystic
Tie. 12mo. muslin, $2 00{206} THE FREEMASONS' MONITOR, with additions,
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THE HISTORICAL LAND-MARKS and other Evidences of Freemasonry, explained;
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