The one forsakes ferocity,
And momently grows mild; The other tempers more and more
The artful with the wild.
She humanizes him, and he
Educates him to liberty.
O, say not they must soon be old,
Their limbs prove faint, their breasts feel cold! Yet envy I that sylvan pair
More than my words express,The singular beauty of their lot,
And seeming happiness.
They have not been reduced to share
The painful pleasures of despair;
Their sun declines not in the sky,
Nor are their wishes cast,
Like shadows of the afternoon,
Repining towards the past:
With nought to dread or to repent,
The present yields them full content.
In solitude there is no crime;
Their actions all are free,
And passion lends their way of life
The only dignity;
And how can they have any cares?—
Whose interest contends with theirs?
The world, for all they know of it,
Is theirs:-for them the stars are lit;
For them the earth beneath is green,
The heavens above are bright;
For them the moon doth wax and wane,
And decorate the night;
For them the branches of those trees
Wave music in the vernal breeze;
For them, upon that dancing spray,
The free bird sits and sings,
And glittering insects flit about
Upon delighted wings;
For them that brook, the brakes among,
Murmurs its small and drowsy song;
For them the many-colour'd clouds
Their shapes diversify,
And change at once, like smiles and frowns,
The expression of the sky.
For them, and by them, all is gay,
And fresh and beautiful as they :
The images their minds receive,
Their minds assimilate
To outward forms, imparting thus
The glory of their state.
Could aught be painted otherwise
Than fair, seen through her star-bright eyes? He, too, because she fills his sight,
Each object falsely sees;
The pleasure that he has in her
Makes all things seem to please.
And this is love;-and it is life
They lead, that Indian and his wife.
WE break the glass, whose sacred wine, To some beloved health we drain. Lest future pledges, less divine,
Should e'er the hallow'd toy profane;
And thus I broke a heart that pour'd
Its tide of feelings out for thee,
In draughts, by after-times deplored,
Yet dear to memory.
But still the old, impassion'd ways
And habits of my mind remain,
And still unhappy light displays
Thine image chamber'd in my brain, And still it looks as when the hours
Went by like flights of singing birds, Or that soft chain of spoken flowers, And airy gems--thy words.
I FILL this cup to one made up
Of loveliness alone,
A woman, of her gentle sex
The seeming paragon;
To whom the better elements
And kindly stars have given A form so fair, that, like the air,
"Tis less of earth than heaven.
Her every tone is music's own,
Like those of morning birds,
And something more than melody
Dwells ever in her words;
The coinage of her heart are they,
And from her lips each flows
As one may see the burden'd bee
Forth issue from the rose.
Affections are as thoughts to her,
The measures of her hours;
Her feelings have the fragrancy,
The freshness of young flowers;
And lovely passions, changing oft,
So fill her, she appears
The image of themselves by turns,-
The idol of past years!
Of her bright face one glance will trace
A picture on the brain,
And of her voice in echoing hearts
A sound must long remain;
But memory, such as mine of her,
So very much endears,
When death is nigh my latest sigh
Will not be life's, but hers.
I fill'd this cup to one made up
Of loveliness alone,
A woman, of her gentle sex
The seeming paragon
Her health! and would on earth there stood, Some more of such a frame,
That life might be all poetry,
And weariness a name.
SOUND trumpets, ho!-weigh anchor-loosen sail—
The seaward flying banners chide delay;
As if 't were heaven that breathes this kindly gale,
Our life-like bark beneath it speeds away.
Flit we, a gliding dream, with troublous motion,
Across the slumbers of uneasy ocean;
And furl our canvass by a happier land,
So fraught with emanations from the sun,
That potable gold streams through the sand
Where element should run.
Onward, my friends, to that bright, florid isle,
The jewel of a smoothe and silver sea,
With springs on which perennial summers smile
A power of causing immortality.
For Bimini ;-in its enchanted ground,
The hallow'd fountains we would seek, are found;
Bathed in the waters of those mystic wells,
The frame starts up in renovated truth,
And, freed from Time's deforming spells,
Resumes its proper youth.
Hail, bitter birth!-once more my feelings all
A graven image to themselves shall make,
And, placed upon my heart for pedestal,
That glorious idol long will keep awake
Their natural religion, nor be cast
To earth by Age, the great Iconoclast.
As from Gadara's founts they once could come,
Charm-call'd, from these Love's genii shall arise,
And build their perdurable home,
MIRANDA, in thine eyes.
By Nature wisely gifted, not destroy'd
With golden presents, like the Roman maid,—
A sublunary paradise enjoy'd,
Shall teach thee bliss incapable of shade;-
An Eden ours, nor angry go's, nor men,
Nor star-clad Fates, can take from us again.
Superior to animal decay,
Sun of that perfect heaven, thou'lt calmly see
Stag, raven, phenix, drop away
With human transiency.
Thus rich in being,-beautiful,-adored,
Fear not exhausting pleasure's precious mine;
The wondrous waters we approach, when pour'd
On passion's lees, supply the wasted wine:
Then be thy bosom's tenant prodigal,
And confident of termless carnival.
Like idle yellow leaves afloat on time,
Let others lapse to death's pacific sea,—
We'll fade nor fall, but sport sublime
"A tradition prevailed among the natives of Puerto
Rico, that in the Isle of Bimini, one of the Lucayos,
there was a fountain of such wonderful virtue, as to re-
new the youth and recall the vigour of every person who
In hopes of finding this
bathed in its salutary waters.
grand restorative, Ponce de Leon and his followers,
ranged through the islands, searching with fruitless soli-
citude for the fountain, which was the chief object of
the expedition."-ROBERTSON's America.
The envious years, which steal our pleasures, thou
Mayst call at once, like magic memory, back,
And, as they pass o'er thine unwithering brow,
Efface their footsteps ere they form a track.
Thy bloom with wilful weeping never stain,
Perpetual life must not belong to pain.
For me, this world has not yet been a place
Conscious of joys so great as will be mine,
Because the light has kiss'd no face
Forever fair as thine.
How may this little tablet feign
The features of a face,
Which o'er informs with loveliness,
Its proper share of space;
Or human hands on ivory,
Enable us to see
The charms, that all must wonder at,
Thou work of gods in thee!
But yet, methinks, that sunny smile
Familiar stories tells,
And I should know those placid eyes,
Two shaded crystal wells;
Nor can my soul, the limner's art
Attesting with a sigh,
Forget the blood that deck'd thy cheek,
As rosy clouds the sky.
They could not semble what thou art,
More excellent than fair,
As soft as sleep or pity is,
And pure as mountain-air;
But here are common, earthly hues,
To such an aspect wrought,
That none, save thine, can seem so like
The beautiful of thought.
The song I sing, thy likeness like,
Is painful mimicry
Of something better, which is now
A memory to me,
Who have upon life's frozen sea
Arrived the icy spot,
Where man's magnetic feelings show
Their guiding task forgot.
The sportive hopes, that used to chase
Their shifting shadows on,
Like children playing in the sun,
Are gone-forever gone;
And on a careless, sullen peace,
My double-fronted mind,
Like JANUS when his gates were shut,
Looks forward and behind.
APOLLO placed his harp, of old,
A while upon a stone,
Which has resounded since, when struck,
A breaking harp-string's tone;
And thus my heart, though wholly now,
From early softness free,
If touch'd, will yield the music yet,
It first received of thee.
AND is it gone, that venerable tree,
The old spectator of my infancy?—
It used to stand upon this very spot,
And now almost its absence is forgot.
I knew its mighty strength had known decay,
Its heart, like every old one, shrunk away,
But dreamt not that its frame would fall, ere mine
At all partook my weary soul's decline.
The great reformist, that each day removes
The old, yet never on the old improves,
The dotard, Time, that like a child destroys,
As sport or spleen may prompt, his ancient toys,
And shapes their ruins into something new—
Has planted other playthings where it grew.
The wind pursues an unobstructed course,
Which once among its leaves delay'd perforce;
The harmless Hamadryad, that of yore
Inhabited its bole, subsists no more;
Its roots have long since felt the ruthless plough—
There is no vestige of its glories now!
But in my mind, which doth not soon forget,
That venerable tree is growing yet;
Nourish'd, like those wild plants that feed on air,
By thoughts of years unconversant with care,
And visions such as pass ere man grows wholly
A fiendish thing, or mischief adds to folly.
I still behold it with my fancy's eye,
A vernant record of the days gone by:
I see not the sweet form and face more plain,
Whose memory was a weight upon my brain.
-Dear to my song, and dearer to my soul,
Who knew but half my heart, yet had the whole
Sun of my life, whose presence and whose flight
Its brief day caused, and never-ending night!
Must this delightless verse, which is indeed
The mere wild product of a worthless weed,
(But which, like sunflowers, turns a loving face
Towards the lost light, and scorns its birth and place,)
End with such cold allusion unto you,
To whom, in youth, my very dreams were true?
It must; I have no more of that soft kind,
My age is not the same, nor is my mind.
'Twas eve; the broadly shining sun
Its long, celestial course had run;
The twilight heaven, so soft and blue,
Met earth in tender interview,
E'en as the angel met of yore
His gifted mortal paramour,
Woman, a child of morning then,—
A spirit still, compared with men.
Like happy islands of the sky,
The gleaming clouds reposed on high,
Each fix'd sublime, deprived of motion,
A Delos to the airy ocean.
Upon the stirless shore no breeze
Shook the green drapery of the trees,
Or, rebel to tranquillity,
Awoke a ripple on the sea.
Nor, in a more tumultuous sound,
Were the world's audible breathings drown'd;
The low, strange hum of herbage growing,
The voice of hidden waters flowing,
Made songs of nature, which the ear
Could scarcely be pronounced to hear;
But noise had furl'd its subtle wings,
And moved not through material things,
All which lay calm as they had been
Parts of the painter's mimic scene.
"Twas eve; my thoughts belong to thee,
Thou shape of separate memory!
When, like a stream to lands of flame,
Unto my mind a vision came.
Methought, from human haunts and strife
Remote, we lived a loving life;
Our wedded spirits seem'd to blend
In harmony too sweet to end,
Such concord as the echoes cherish
Fondly, but leave at length to perish.
Wet rain-stars are thy lucid eyes,
The Hyades of earthly skies,
But then upon my heart they shone,
As shines on snow the fervid sun.
And fast went by those moments bright,
Like meteors shooting through the night;
But faster fleeted the wild dream
That clothed them with their transient beam.
Yet love can years to days condense,
And long appear'd that life intense;
It was, to give a better measure
Than time, a century of pleasure.
SHE dwelleth in Elysium; there,
Like Echo, floating in the air;
Feeding on light as feed the flowers,
She fleets away uncounted hours,
Where halcyon Peace, among the bless'd,
Sits brooding o'er her tranquil nest.
She needs no impulse; one she is,
Whom thought supplies with ample bliss:
The fancies fashion'd in her mind
By Heaven, are after its own kind;
Like sky-reflections in a lake,
Whose calm no winds occur to break.
Her memory is purified,
And she seems never to have sigh'd:
She hath forgot the way to weep;
Her being is a joyous sleep;
The mere imagining of pain,
Hath pass'd, and cannot come again.
Except of pleasure most intense
And constant, she hath lost all sense;
Her life is day without a night,
An endless, innocent delight;
No chance her happiness now mars,
Howe'er Fate twine her wreaths of stars.
And palpable and pure, the part
Which pleasure playeth with her heart;
For every joy that seeks the maid,
Foregoes its common painful shade
Like shapes that issue from the grove
Arcadian, dedicate to Jove.
|