I heard, in home's beloved shade, The din the world at distance made; When every night my weary head Sunk on its own unthornèd bed, And, mild as evening's matron hour Looks on the faintly shutting flower, A mother saw our eyelids close, And blessed them into pure repose! Then, haply if a week, a day, I lingered from your arms away, How long the little absence seemed! How bright the look of welcome beamed, As mute you heard, with eager smile, My tales of all that passed the while! Yet now, my Kate, a gloomy sea Rolls wide between that home and me; The moon may thrice be born and die Ere e'en your seal can reach mine eye; And oh! e'en then, that darling seal (Upon whose print I used to feel The breath of home, the cordial air Of loved lips, still freshly there!) Must come, alas! through every fate Of time and distance, cold and late, When the dear hand whose touches filled The leaf with sweetness may be chilled! 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 dyes! 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 hurled 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 rem.embered 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 fies 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 cultured field; And he who came of all bereft, To whom malignant fate had left Nor home nor friends nor country dear, Finds home and friends and country here!
Such is the picture, warmly such, That long the spell of fancy's touch Hath painted to my sanguine eye Of man's new world of liberty! Oh! ask me not if truth will seal The reveries of fancy's zeal, If yet my charmed eyes behold These features of an age of gold- No-yet, alas! no gleaming trace! Never did youth who loved a face From portrait's rosy flattering art Recoil with more regret of heart, To find an owlet eye of gray, Where painting poured the sapphire's ray, Than I have felt, indignant felt, To think the glorious dreams should melt Which oft, in boyhood's witching time, Have rapt me to this wondrous clime! But, courage! yet, my wavering heart! Blame not the temple's meanest part,' Till you have traced the fabric o'er :- As yet, we have beheld no more Than just the porch to freedom's fane, And, though a sable drop may stain The vestibule, 'tis impious sin To doubt there's holiness within! So here I pause-and now, my Kate,
To you (whose simplest ringlet's fate
Norfolk, it must be owned, is an unfavourable specimen of America. The characteristics of Virginia in general are not such as can delight either the politician or the moralist, and at Norfolk they are exhibited in their least attractive form. At the time when we arrived, the yellow fever had not yet disappeared, and every odour that assailed us in the streets very strongly ac counted for its visitation.
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 Το pour the soul in sound along, And turn its every sigh to song! I thought of home, the according lays Respired the breath of happier days; Warmly in every rising note
I felt some dear remembrance float, Till, led by music's fairy chain, I wandered back to home again! Oh! love the song, and let it oft Live on your lip, in warble soft! Say that it tells you, simply well, All I have bid its murmurs tell, Of memory's glow, of dreams that shed The tinge of joy when joy is fled, And all the heart's illusive hoard Of love renewed and friends restored! Now, sweet, adieu!-this artless air, And a few rhymes, in transcript fair, Are all the gifts I yet can boast To send you from Columbia's coast; But when the sun, with warmer smile, Shall light me to my destined isle,† You shall have many a cowslip-bell Where Ariel slept, and many a shell In which the gentle spirit drew From honey flowers the morning dew!
AFTER AN INTERVAL OF ABSENCE,
CONCEALED within the shady wood A mother left her sleeping child, And flew to cull her rustic food, The fruitage of the forest wild.
But storms upon her pathway rise,
The mother roams, astray and weeping;
Far from the weak appealing cries
Of him she left so sweetly sleeping.
A rifling attempt at musical composition accom-anied this epistle.
She hopes, she fears; a light is seen, And gentler blows the night wind's breath; Yet no- 'tis gone-the storms are keen,
The baby may be chilled to death!
Perhaps his little eyes are shaded Dim by death's eternal chill- And yet, perhaps, they are not faded; Life and love may light them still.
Thus, when my soul, with parting sigh, Hung on thy hand's bewildering touch, And, timid, asked that speaking eye,
If parting pained thee half so much:
I thought, and oh forgive the thought! For who, by eyes like thine inspired, Could e'er resist the flattering fault
Of fancying what his soul desired?
Yes-I did think, in Cara's mind,
Though yet to Cara's mind unknown, I left one infant wish behind,
One feeling, which I called my own!
Oh blest! though but in fancy blest, How did I ask of pity's care
To shield and strengthen, in thy breast, The nursling I had cradled there.
And many an hour beguiled by pleasure, And many an hour of sorrow numbering,
I ne'er forgot the new-born treasure
I left within thy bosom slumbering.
Perhaps, indifference has not chilled it, Haply, it yet a throb may give- Yet no-perhaps a doubt has killed it! O Cara-does the infant live?
ON THE DAWNING OF A NEW YEAR'S DAY.
WHEN midnight came to close the year, We sighed to think it thus should take The hours it gave us-hours as dear
As sympathy and love could make Their blessed moments! every sun Saw us, my love, more closely one! But, Cara, when the dawn was nigh Which came another year to shed,
The smile we caught from eye to eye Told us those moments were not fled; Oh, no!- we felt some future sun Should see us still more closely one!
Thus may we ever, side by side, From happy years to happier glide; And still, my Cara, may the sigh
We give to hours that vanish o'er us Be followed by the smiling eye
That Hope shall shed on scenes before us!
TO THE INVISIBLE GIRL.
THEY try to persuade me, my dear little sprite, That you are not a daughter of ether and light, Nor have any concern with those fanciful forms That dance upon rainbows and ride upon storms;
That, in short, you're a woman; your lip and your breast As mortal as ever were tasted or pressed!
But I will not believe them-no, science! to you I have long bid a last and a careless adieu: Still flying from Nature to study her laws, And dulling delight by exploring its cause, You forget how superior, for mortals below,
Is the fiction they dream to the truth that they know. Oh! who that has ever had rapture complete Would ask how we feel it, or why it is sweet; How rays are confused, or how particles fly Through the medium refined of a glance or a sigh?
Is there one who but once would not rather have known it Than written, with Harvey, whole volumes upon it? No, no-but for you, my invisible love,
I will swear you are one of those spirits that rove By the bank where, at twilight, the poet reclines, When the star of the west on his solitude shines, And the magical fingers of fancy have hung Every breeze with a sigh, every leaf with a tongue! Oh! whisper him then, 'tis retirement alone Can hallow his harp or ennoble its tone; Like you, with a veil of seclusion between, His song to the world let him utter unseen, And like you, a legitimate child of the spheres, Escape from the eye to enrapture the ears! Sweet spirit of mystery! how I should love, In the wearisome ways I am fated to rove, To have you for ever invisibly nigh,
Inhaling for ever your song and your sigh!
'Mid the crowds of the world and the murmurs of care.
I might sometimes converse with my nymph of the air,
And turn with disgust from the clamorous crew,
To steal in the pauses one whisper from you.
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