And, soon as night shall close the eye
Of heaven's young wanderer in the west; When seers are gazing on the sky,
To find their future orbs of rest; Then shall I take my trembling way, Unseen but to those worlds above, And, led by thy mysterious ray,
Glide to the pillow of my love.
Calm be her sleep, the gentle dear!
Nor let her dream of bliss so near;
Till o'er her cheek she thrilling feel
My sighs of fire in murmurs steal,
And I shall lift the locks, that flow
Unbraided o'er her lids of snow,
And softly kiss those sealèd eyes,
And wake her into sweet surprise!
Or, if she dream, oh! let her dream
Of those delights we both have known
And felt so truly that they seem
Formed to be felt by us alone!
And I shall mark her kindling cheek,
Shall see her bosom warmly move,
And hear her faintly, lowly speak
The murmured sounds so dear to love!
Oh! I shall gaze, till e'en the sigh
That wafts her very soul be nigh,
And when the nymph is all but blest,
Sink in her arms and share the rest!
Sweet Lais! what an age of bliss
In that one moment waits for me!
O sages!-think on joy like this,
And where's your boast of apathy!
Τουτο δε τι εστι το ποτον; πλανη, εφη.
THEY say that Love had once a book
(The urchin likes to copy you)
Where all who came the pencil took,
And wrote, like us, a line or two.
"Twas Innocence, the maid divine,
Who kept this volume bright and fair,
And saw that no unhallowed line
Or thought profane should enter there.
And sweetly did the pages fill
With fond device and loving lore, And every leaf she turned was still
More bright than that she turned before!
Beneath the touch of Hope, how soft,
How light the magic pencil ran!
Till Fear would come, alas! as oft,
And trembling close what Hope began.
A tear or two had dropped from Grief,
And Jealousy would, now and then,
Ruffle in haste some snowy leaf,
Which Love had still to smooth again!
But oh! there was a blooming boy,
Who often turned the pages o'er,
And wrote therein such words of joy
As all who read still sighed for more!
And Pleasure was this spirit's name;
And though so soft his voice and look,
Yet Innocence, whene'er he came,
Would tremble for her spotless book!
For still she saw his playful fingers
Filled with sweets and wanton toys,
And well she knew the stain that lingers
After sweets from wanton boys!
And so it chanced, one luckless night
He let his honey goblet fall
O'er the dear book, so pure, so white,
And sullied lines and marge and all !
In vain he sought, with eager lip,
The honey from the leaf to drink,
For still the more the boy would sip,
The deeper still the blot would sink!
Oh! it would make you weep to see
The traces of this honey flood
Steal o'er a page where Modesty
Had freshly drawn a rose's bud!
And Fancy's emblems lost their glow,
And Hope's sweet lines were all defaced, And Love himself could scarcely know What Love himself had lately traced!
At length the urchin Pleasure fled,
(For how, alas! could Pleasure stay?)
And Love, while many a tear he shed,
In blushes flung the book away!
The index now alone remains,
Of all the pages spoiled by Pleasure,
And though it bears some honey stains,
Yet Memory counts the leaf a treasure!
And oft, they say, she scans it o'er,
And oft, by this memorial aided,
Brings back the pages now no more,
And thinks of lines that long are faded!
I know not if this tale be true,
But thus the simple facts are stated;
And I refer their truth to you,
Since Love and you are near related!
TO THOMAS HUME, ESQ., M.D.
From the city of Washington.
Διηγήσομαι διηγηματα ίσως άπιστα, κοινωνα ὧν πεπονθα οὐκ ἔχων.
Xenophont. Ephes. Ephesiac. lib v.
'TIS evening now; the heats and cares of day
In twilight dews are calmly wept away.
The lover now, beneath the western star,
Sighs through the medium of his sweet cigar,
And fills the ears of some consenting she
With puffs and vows, with smoke and constancy!
The weary statesman for repose hath fled
From halls of council to his negro's shed,
Where blest he woos some black Aspasia's grace,
And dreams of freedom in his slave's embrace !
In fancy now, beneath the twilight gloom,
Come, let me lead thee o'er this modern Rome!
Where tribunes rule, where dusky Davi bow,
And what was Goose-Creek once is Tiber now!
This famed metropolis, where fancy sees
Squares in morasses, obelisks in trees;
Which travelling fools and gazetteers adorn
With shrines unbuilt and heroes yet unborn,
Though nought but wood and Jefferson they see
Where streets should run and sages ought to be!
And look, how soft in yonder radiant wave,
The dying sun prepares his golden grave!-
O great Potowmac! O you banks of shade!
You mighty scenes, in Nature's morning made,
While still, in rich magnificence of prime,
She poured her wonders, lavishly sublime,
Nor yet had learned to stoop, with humbler care,
From grand to soft, from wonderful to fair!
Say, where your towering hills, your boundless floods,
Your rich savannas and majestic woods,
Where bards should meditate and heroes rove,
And woman charm, and man deserve her love?
Oh! was a world so bright but born to grace
Its own half-organized, half-minded race
Of weak barbarians, swarming o'er its breast,
Like vermin, gendered on the lion's crest?
Were none but brutes to call that soil their home,
Where none but demi-gods should dare to roam?
Or worse, thou mighty world! oh! doubly worse,
Did Heaven design thy lordly land to nurse
The motley dregs of every distant clime,
Each blast of anarchy and taint of crime,
Which Europe shakes from her perturbed sphere,
In full malignity to rankle here?
But hush!-observe that little mount of pines,
Where the breeze murmurs and the fire-fly shines.
There let thy fancy raise, in bold relief,
The sculptured image of that veteran chief
Who lost the rebel's in the hero's name,
And stept o'er prostrate loyalty to fame;
Beneath whose sword Columbia's patriot train
Cast off their monarch, that their mob might reign!
How shall we rank thee upon glory's page?
Thou more than soldier and just less than sage!
Too formed for peace to act a conqueror's part,
Too trained in camps to learn a statesman's art,
Nature designed thee for a hero's mould,
But, ere she cast thee, let the stuff grow cold!
While warmer souls command, nay, make their fate, Thy fate made thee, and forced thee to be great. Yet Fortune, who so oft, so blindly sheds Her brightest halo round the weakest heads, Found thee undazzled, tranquil as before, Proud to be useful, scorning to be more; Less prompt at glory's than at duty's claim, Renown the meed, but self-applause the aim. All thou hast been reflects less fame on thee, Far less, than all thou hast forborne to be!
Now turn thine eye where faint the moonlight falls On yonder dome-and in those princely halls,
If thou canst hate, as oh! that soul must hate
Which loves the virtuous and reveres the great,
If thou canst loathe and execrate with me
That Gallic garbage of philosophy,
That nauseous slaver of these frantic times,
With which false liberty dilutes her crimes !
If thou hast got, within thy free-born breast,
One pulse that beats more proudly than the rest,
With honest scorn for that inglorious soul
Which creeps and winds beneath a mob's control,
Which courts the rabble's smile, the rabble's nod,
And makes, like Egypt, every beast its god!
There, in those walls—but, burning tongue, forbear!
Rank must be reverenced, e'en the rank that's there :
So here I pause-and now, my Hume! we part;
But oh! full oft, in magic dreams of heart,
Thus let us meet, and mingle converse dear
By Thames at home, or by Potowmac here!
O'er lake and marsh, through fevers and through fogs,
Midst bears and yankees, democrats and frogs,
Thy foot shall follow me, thy heart and eyes
With me shall wonder, and with me despise!
While I, as oft, in witching thought shall rove
To thee, to friendship, and that land I love,
Where, like the air that fans her fields of green
Her freedom spreads, unfevered and serene;
Where sovereign man can condescend to see
The throne and laws more sovereign still than he!
My love and I, the other day,
Within a myrtle arbour lay,
When near us, from a rosy bed,
A little Snake put forth its head.
See," said the maid, with laughing eyes→→→
"Yonder the fatal emblem lies!
Who could expect such hidden harm
Beneath the rose's velvet charm?"
Never did moral thought occur
In more unlucky hour than this;
For oh! I just was leading her
To talk of love and think of bliss.
I rose to kill the snake, but she
In pity prayed it might not be.
"No," said the girl-and many a spark
Flashed from her eyelid as she said it— "Under the rose, or in the dark,
One might, perhaps, have cause to dread it;
But when its wicked eyes appear,
And when we know for what they wink so,
One must be very simple, dear,
To let it sting one-don't you think so?"
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