And while, with eyes of mingling fire,
They listened to each other's vow,
The youth full oft would make the Lyre
A pillow for his angel's brow!
And while the melting words she breathed
On all its echoes wantoned round,
Her hair, amid the strings enwreathed,
Through golden mazes charmed the sound!
Alas! their hearts but little thought,
While thus entranced they listening lay,
That every sound the Lyre was taught
Should linger long, and long betray!
So mingled with its tuneful soul
Were all their tender murmurs grown,
That other sighs unanswered stole,
Nor changed the sweet, the treasured tone.
Unhappy nymph! thy name was sung
To every passing lip that sighed :
The secrets of thy gentle tongue
On every ear in murmurs died!
The fatal Lyre, by Envy's hand
Hung high amid the breezy groves,
To every wanton gale that fanned
Betrayed the mystery of your loves!
Yet, oh! not many a suffering hour,
Thy cup of shame on earth was given:
Benignly came some pitying power,
And took the Lyre and thee to heaven!
There, as thy lover dries the tear
Yet warm from life's malignant wrongs,
Within his arms, thou lov'st to hear
The luckless Lyre's remembered songs!
Still do your happy souls attune
The notes it learned, on earth, to move;
Still breathing o'er the chords, commune
In sympathies of angel love!
TO THE FLYING-FISH.1
WHEN I have seen thy snowy wing
O'er the blue wave at evening spring,
1 It is the opinion of St. Austin, upon Genesis, and I believe of nearly all the Fathers, that birds, like fish, were originally produced from the waters; in defence of which idea they have collected every fanciful circumstance which can tend to prove a kindred similitude between
them: ovyyevεLAV TOLS TETOμEVOLS TρOS Tα VÝKTO. With this thought in our minds when we first see the Flying-Fish, we could almost fancy that we are present at the moment of crea tion, and witness the birth of the first bird from the waves.
And give those scales, of silver white,
So gaily to the eye of light,
As if thy frame were formed to rise,
And live amid the glorious skies;
Oh! it has made me proudly feel,
How like thy wing's impatient zeal
Is the pure soul, that scorns to rest
Upon the world's ignoble breast,
But takes the plume that God has given,
And rises into light and Heaven!
But when I see that wing, so bright,
Grow languid with a moment's flight,
Attempt the paths of air in vain,
And sink into the waves again;
Alas! the flattering pride is o'er;
Like thee, awhile, the soul may soar,
But erring man must blush to think,
Like thee, again, the soul may sink!
Oh virtue! when thy clime I seek,
Let not my spirit's flight be weak:
Let me not, like this feeble thing,
With brine still dropping from its wing,
Just sparkle in the solar glow,
And plunge again to depths below;
But when I leave the grosser throng
With whom my soul hath dwelt so long,
Let me, in that aspiring day,
Cast every lingering stain away,
And, panting for thy purer air,
Fly up at once and fix me there!
FROM NORFOLK, IN VIRGINIA, NOVEMBER 1803.
IN days, my Kate, when life was new,
When, lulled with innocence and you,
I heard, in home's beloved shade,
The din the world at distance made;
When every night my weary head
Sunk on its own unthorned 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 even your seal can reach mine eye;
And oh! even 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 passed:
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 remembered pride.
While Peace, with sunny cheeks of toil,
Walks o'er the frce 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 seaves,
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 wrapt 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 fanc,
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 simplest 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.
1 Such romantic works as The American Farmer's Letters, and the Account of Kentucky, by Imlay, would seduce us into a belief that innocence, peace, and freedom had deserted the rest of the world, for Martha's Vineyard and the banks of the Ohio. The French travellers, too, almost all from revolutionary motives, have contributed their share to the diffusion of this flattering misconception. A visit to the country is, however, quite sufficient to correct even the most enthu siastic prepossession.
2 Norfolk, it must be owned, is a 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 accounted for its visitation.
3 A trifling attempt af musical composition accompanied this Epistle.
'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
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.
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.
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