Mind, mind alone, without whose quickening ray,
The world's a wilderness and man but clay,
Mind, mind alone, in barren, still repose,
Nor blooms, nor rises, nor expands, nor flows!
Take Christians, mohawks, democrats, and all
From the rude wigwam to the congress-hall,
From man the savage, whether slaved or free,
To man the civilized, less tame than he !
'Tis one dull chaos, one unfertile strife,
Betwixt half-polished and half-barbarous life;
Where every ill the ancient world can brew
Is mixed with every grossness of the new;
Where all corrupts, though little can entice,
And nothing's known of luxury but vice!
Is this the region, then, is this the clime
For golden fancy? for those dreams sublime
Which all their miracles of light reveal
To heads that meditate and hearts that feel?
No, no-the muse of inspiration plays
O'er every scene; she walks the forest maze,
And climbs the mountain; every blooming spot
Burns with her step, yet man regards it not!
She whispers round, her words are in the air,
But lost, unheard, they linger freezing there,
Without one breath of soul, divinely strong,
One ray of heart to thaw them into song!
Yet, yet forgive me, O you sacred few!
Whom late by Delaware's green banks I knew;
Whom, known and loved through many a social eve,
'Twas bliss to live with, and 'twas pain to leave!*
Less dearly welcome were the lines of lore
The exile saw upon the sandy shore,
When his lone heart but faintly hoped to find
One print of man, one blessed stamp of mind!
Less dearly welcome than the liberal zeal,
The strength to reason and the warmth to feel,
The manly polish and the illumined taste,
Which, 'mid the melancholy, heartless waste
My foot has wandered, O you sacred few!
I found by Delaware's green banks with you.
Long may you hate the Gallic dross that runs
O'er your fair country, and corrupts its sons;
In the society of Mr. Dennie and his friends, at Philadelphia, I passed the few agreeable moments which my tour through the States afforded me. Mr. Dennie has succeeded in diffusing through this elegant little circle that love for good literature and sound politics which he feels so zealously himself, and which is so very rarely the characteristic of his countrymen. They will not, I trust, accuse me of illiberality for the picture which I have given of the ignorance and corruption that surround them. If I did not hate as I ought the rabble to which they are opposed, I could not value as I do the spirit with which they defy it; and in learning from them what Americans can be, I but see with the more indignation what Americans are.
Long love the arts, the glories which adorn
Those fields of freedom where your sires were born. Oh! if America can yet be great,
If neither chained by choice, nor damned by fate
To the mob-mania which imbrutes her now,
She yet can raise the bright but temperate brow
Of single majesty, can grandly place
An empire's pillar upon freedom's base,
Nor fear the mighty shaft will feebler prove
For the fair capital that flowers above !--
If yet, released from all that vulgar throng,
So vain of dulness and so pleased with wrong,
Who hourly teach her, like themselves, to hide
Folly in froth, and barrenness in pride,
She yet can rise, can wreathe the Attic charms
Of soft refinement round the pomp of arms,
And see her poets flash the fires of song,
To light her warriors' thunderbolts along!-
It is to you, to souls that favouring Heaven
Has made like yours, the glorious task is given.
Oh! but for such, Columbia's days were done;
Rank without ripeness, quickened without sun,
Crude at the surface, rotten at the core,
Her fruits would fall, before her spring were o'er!
Believe me, Spencer, while I winged the hours Where Schuylkill undulates through banks of flowers, Though few the days, the happy evenings few, So warm with heart, so rich with mind they flew, That my full soul forgot its wish to roam, And rested there, as in a dream of home! And looks I met, like looks I loved before, And voices too, which as they trembled o'er The chord of memory, found full many a tone Of kindness there in concord with their own! Oh! we had nights of that communion free, That flush of heart, which I have known with thee So oft, so warmly; nights of mirth and mind, Of whims that taught, and follies that refined! When shall we both renew them? when, restored To the pure feast and intellectual board, Shall I once more enjoy with thee and thine Those whims that teach, those follies that refine? Even now, as, wandering upon Erie's shore, I hear Niagara's distant cataract roar,
sigh for England-oh! these weary feet Have many a mile to journey, ere we meet !
OH! fair as heaven and chaste as light!
Did Nature mould thee al' so bright,
That thou shouldst ever learn to weep
O'er languid virtue's fatal sleep,
O'er shame extinguished, honour fled,
Peace lost, heart withered, feeling dead?
No, no! a star was born with thee,
Which sheds eternal purity!
Thou hast, within those sainted eyes,
So fair a transcript of the skies,
In lines of fire such heavenly lore,
That man should read them and adore!
Yet have I known a gentle maid
Whose early charms were just arrayed
In Nature's loveliness like thine,
And wore that clear celestial sign
Which seems to mark the brow that's fair
For destiny's peculiar care;
Whose bosom, too, was once a zone,
Where the bright gem of virtue shone ;
Whose eyes were talismans of fire
Against the spell of man's desire ;-
Yet, hapless girl, in one sad hour,
Her charms have shed their radiant flower;
The gem has been beguiled away;
Her eyes have lost their chastening ray;
The simple fear, the guiltless shame,
The smiles that from reflection came,
All, all have fled, and left her mind
A faded monument behind!
Like some wave-beaten, mouldering stone,
To memory raised by hands unknown,
Which, many a wintry hour, has stood
Beside the ford of Tyra's flood,
To tell the traveller, as he crossed,
That there some lovèd friend was lost!
Oh! 'twas a sight I wept to see-
Heaven keep the lost one's fate from thee!
"TIS time, I feel, to leave thee now,
While yet my soul is something free; While yet those dangerous eyes allow
One moment's thought to stray from thee!
Oh! thou art every instant dearer
Every chance that brings me nigh thee Brings my ruin nearer, nearer,
I am lost, unless I fly thee!
Nay, if thou dost not scorn and hate me,
Wish me not so soon to fall;
Duties, fame, and hopes await me,—
Oh! that eye would blast them all!
Yes, yes, it would-for thou'rt as cold
As ever yet allured or swayed,
And wouldst without a sigh behold
The ruin which thyself had made!
Yet-could I think that, truly fond,
That eye but once would smile on me, Good Heaven! how much, how far beyond Fame, duty, hope, that smile would be!
Oh! but to win it, night and day,
Inglorious at thy feet reclined,
I'd sigh my dreams of fame away,
The world for thee forgot, resigned:
But no, no, no-farewell-we part,
Never to meet, no, never, never--
O woman! what a mind and heart
Thy coldness has undone for ever!
FROM THE HIGH-PRIEST OF APOLLO TO A VIRGIN OF DELPHI.
"WHO is the maid, with golden hair,
With eyes of fire and feet of air,
Whose harp around my altar swells,
The sweetest of a thousand shells?"
'Twas thus the deity who treads
The arch of heaven, and grandly sheds
Day from his eyelids-thus he spoke,
As through my cell his glories broke.
"Who is the maid, with golden hair,
With eyes of fire and feet of air,
Whose harp around my altar swells,
The sweetest of a thousand shells?
Aphelia is the Delphic fair,
With eyes of fire and golden hair,
Aphelia's are the airy feet,
And ners the harp divinely sweet;
For foot so light has never trod
The laurelled caverns of the god,
Nor harp so soft has ever given
1 strain to earth or sigh to heaven!
"Then tell the virgin to unfold,
In looser pomp, her locks of gold,
And bid those eyes with fonder fire
Be kindled for a god's desire;
Since he who lights the path of years-
Even from the fount of morning's tears,
To where his setting splendours burn
Upon the western sea-maid's urn-
Cannot, in all his course, behold
Such eyes of fire, such hair of gold!
Tell her, he comes, in blissful pride,
His lip yet sparkling with the tide
That mantles in Olympian bowls,
The nectar of eternal souls!
For her, for her he quits the skies,
And to her kiss from nectar flies.
Oh! he would hide his wreath of rays,
And leave the world to pine for days,
Might he but pass the hours of shade
Imbosomed by his Delphic maid;
She more than earthly woman blest,
He more than god on woman's breast."
There is a cave beneath the steep,
Where living rills of crystal weep
O'er herbage of the loveliest hue
That ever spring begemmed with dew.
There oft the green bank's glossy tint
Is brightened by the amorous print
Of many a faun and naiad's form,
That still upon the dew is warm,
When virgins come, at peep of day,
To kiss the sod where lovers lay.
"There, there," the god, impassioned, said,
"Soon as the twilight tinge is fled,
And the dim orb of lunar souls
Along its shadowy pathway rolls—
There shall we find our bridal bed;
And ne'er did rosy rapture spread,
Not even in Jove's voluptuous bowers
A bridal bed so blest as ours!
"Tell the imperial god, who reigns
Sublime in oriental fanes,
Whose towering turrets paint their pride
Upon Euphrates' pregnant tide;
Tell him, when to his midnight loves
In mystic majesty he moves,
Lighted by many an odorous fire,
And hymned by all Chaldæa's choir-
Oh! tell the godhead to confess,
The pompous joy delights him less
(Even though his mighty arms enfold
A priestess on a couch of gold)
Than when, in love's unholier prank,
By moonlight cave or rustic bank,
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