To make the eye's enchantment clearer,
To give the cheek one rose-bud more,
And bid that flushing lip be dearer,
Which had been, oh! so dear before!
But, whither means the Muse to roam?
"Tis time to call the wanderer home.
Who could have ever thought to search her
Up in the clouds with Father Kircher?
So, health and love to all your mansion!
Long may the bowl that pleasures bloom in,
The flow of heart, the soul's expansion,
Mirth and song your board illumine!
Fare you well-remember too,
When cups are flowing to the brim, That here is one who drinks to you, And, oh!-as warmly drink to him.
WRITTEN IN A STORM AT SEA.
On! there's a holy calm profound
In awe like this, that ne'er was given
To rapture's thrill;
"Tis as a solemn voice from heaven,
And the soul, listening to the sound,
Lies mute and still!
'Tis true, it talks of danger nigh,
Of slumbering with the dead to-morrow
In the cold deep,
Where pleasure's throb or tears of sorrow
No more shall wake the heart or eye,
But all must sleep!
Well!-there are some, thou stormy bed,
To whom thy sleep would be a treasure;
Oh! most to him,
Whose lip hath drain'd life's cup of pleasure,
Nor left one honey drop to shed
Round misery's brim.
Yes he can smile serene at death:
Kind Heaven! do thou but chase the weeping
Of friends who love him;
Tell them that he lies calmly sleeping
Where sorrow's sting or envy's breath
No more shall move him.
NAY, tempt me not to love again,
There was a time when love was sweet; Dear Nea! had I known thee then,
Our souls had not been slow to meet!
But, oh! this weary heart hath run,
So many a time, the rounds of pain,
Not ev'n for thee, thou lovely one!
Would I endure such pangs again.
If there be climes, where never yet
The print of beauty's foot was set,
Where man may pass his loveless nights,
Unfever'd by her false delights,
Thither my wounded soul would fly,
Where rosy cheek or radiant eye
Should bring no more their bliss, their pain,
Or fetter me to earth again!
Dear absent girl! whose eyes of light,
Though little priz'd when all my own,
Now float before me, soft and bright
As when they first enamouring shone!
How many hours were idly past,
As if such bliss must ever last,
Unmindful of the fleeting day,
Have I dissolv'd life's dream away!
O bloom of time profusely shed!
O moments! simply, vainly fled,
Yet sweetly too-for love perfum'd
The flame which thus my life consum'd;
And brilliant was the chain of flowers,
In which he led my victim-hours!
Say, Nea dear! could'st thou, like her,
When warm to feel and quick to err,
Of loving fond, of roving fonder,
My thoughtless soul might wish to wander,
Could'st thou, like her, the wish reclaim,
Endearing still, reproaching never,
Till all my heart should burn with shame,
And be thy own more fix'd than ever?
When the dear hand, whose touches fill'd
The leaf with sweetness, may be chill'd!
But hence, that gloomy thought! at last,
Beloved Kate! the waves are past:
I tread on earth securely now,
And the green cedar's living bough
Breathes more refreshment to my eyes
Than could a Claude's divinest dies!
At length I touch the happy sphere
To liberty and virtue dear,
Where man looks up, and proud to claim
His rank within the social frame,
Sees a grand system round him roll,
Himself its centre, sun and soul!
Far from the shocks of Europe; far
From every wild, elliptic star
That, shooting with a devious fire,
Kindled by Heaven's avenging ire,
So oft hath into Chaos hurl'd
The systems of the ancient world!
The warrior here, in arms no more,
Thinks of the toil, the conflict o'er,
And glorying in the rights they won
For hearth and altar, sire and son,
Smiles on the dusky webs that hide
His sleeping sword's remember'd pride!
While peace, with sunny cheeks of toil,
Walks o'er the free, unlorded soil,
Effacing with her splendid share
The drops that war had sprinkled there!
Thrice happy land! where he who flies
From the dark ills of other skies,
From scorn, or want's unnerving woes,
May shelter him in proud repose!
Hope sings along the yellow sand
His welcome to a patriot land;
The mighty wood, with pomp, receives
The stranger, in its world of leaves,
Which soon their barren glory yield
To the warm shed and cultur'd field;
And he, who came, of all bereft,
To whom malignant fate had left
Nor home nor friends nor country dear,
Finds home and friends and country here!
Such is the picture, warmly such,
That long the spell of fancy's touch
Hath painted to my sanguine eye
Of man's new world of liberty!
Oh! ask me not, if truth will seal
The reveries of fancy's zeal,
If yet, my charmed eyes behold
These features of an age of gold-
No-yet, alas! no gleaming trace!
Never did youth, who lov'd a face
From portrait's rosy, flattering art,
Recoil with more regret of heart,
To find an owlet eye of grey,
Where painting pour'd the sapphire's ray,
Than I have felt, indignant felt,
To think the glorious dreams should melt,
Which oft, in boyhood's witching time,
Have rapt me to this wond'rous clime!
But, courage! yet, my wavering heart!
Blame not the temple's meanest part,
Till you have trac'd the fabric o'er :-
As yet, we have beheld no more
Than just the porch to Freedom's fane,
And, though a sable drop may stain
The vestibule, 'tis impious sin
To doubt there's holiness within!
So here I pause-and now, my Kate,
To you (whose simplest ringlet's fate
Can claim more interest in my soul
Than all the Powers from pole to pole)
One word at parting; in the tone
Most sweet to you, and most my own.
The simple notes I send you here,*
Though rude and wild, would still be dear,
If you but knew the trance of thought,
In which my mind their murmurs caught.
'Twas one of those enchanting dreams,
That lull me oft, when music seems
To pour the soul in sound along,
And turn its every sigh to song!
I thought of home, the according lays
Respir'd the breath of happier days;
Warmly in every rising note
I felt some dear remembrance float,
Till, led by Music's fairy chain,
I wander'd back to home again!
Oh! love the song, and let it oft
* A trifling attempt at musical composition accompanied this epistle.
Live on your lip, in warble soft!
Say that it tells you, simply well,
All I have bid its murmurs tell,
Of memory's glow, of dreams that shed
The tinge of joy when joy is fled,
And all the heart's illusive hoard
Of love renew'd and friends restor❜d!
Now, sweet, adieu !-this artless air,
And a few rhymes, in transcript fair,
Are all the gifts I yet can boast
To send you from Columbia's coast;
But when the sun, with warmer smile,
Shall light me to my destin'd isle,'
You shall have many a cowslip-bell
Where Ariel slept, and many a shell,
In which the gentle spirit drew
From honey flowers the morning dew!
THE LAKE OF THE DISMAL SWAMP.
WRITTEN AT NORFOLK, IN VIRGINIA.
"They tell of a young man who lost his mind upon the death of a girl he loved, and who, suddenly disappearing from his friends, was never afterwards heard of. As he had frequently said in his ravings, that the girl was not dead, but gone to the Dismal Swamp, it is supposed he had wandered into that dreary wilderness, and had died of hunger or been lost in some of its dreadful morasses." s."-Anon.
"La poesie a ses monstres comme la nature."—D'Alembert.
"THEY made her a grave, too cold and damp
For a soul so warm and true;
And she's gone to the Lake of the Dismal Swamp,t
Where, all night long, by a fire-fly lamp,
She paddles her white canoe.
"And her fire-fly lamp I soon shall see,
And her paddle I soon shall here;
Long and loving our life shall be,
And I'll hide the maid in a cypress tree,
When the footstep of death is near!"
Away to the Dismal Swamp he speeds-
His path was rugged and sore,
The Great Dismal Swamp is ten or twelve miles distant from Norfolk, and the lake in the middle of it (about seven miles long) is called Drummond's Pond
|