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All that the stinted heart demands,

Enough for nature's primal debt,
I bear with me away.

Nor more-

The happy may have many wants,
But Misery is a sage, and scants
Our nature to the claims of clay:
The rest is yours,---and by each band
Which your enwoven laws command.
But, from you doth the bond require
Consent to one-my last-desire.
The last at least, confest to you,

Or heard within that happy shore,
To me,-ah, if to memory too!

A haunt no more!

Hear me !-all earth-all earthly life
Hath in it a mysterious gerb!
Where'er thou look'st, behold it rife!
It stirs the still heart of the herb;
In every breath of air it enters;
In every drop of dew it centres;

It glows upon you with the light;
Dreams thro' the quickening hush of night;
No wave so deep but there it lurketh;
No clod so still but there it worketh;
Nerve to whate'er your sense is seeing;
Heart to this Universal Being;

From whence-to which--the mighty flood
Of Things-to Nature's veins the blood-
Arise-return-involved-unsleeping-
In one eternal orbit keeping!

What is this spirit ?--what this rife
Essence?" The principle of LIFE?"
So earth may call it--but above,
Thy God and Nature's named it-LOVE!
Thou canst not mar it in the tree!

Thou canst not mar it in the flower!

But o'er it, in the human breast,

Thou hast a power!

Yet use that fearful power,

and see

What fruit will spring from love supprest! The Nature thou hast wronged, will be

In evil and in wrath redrest!

Love checked-comes thought congealed and sour;
The pinched heart doth itself devour;
The blood grows sluggish; and Desire
Creeps into Envy ;-all beside
Enjoy-and hate-nor hell hath ire
Like that their joys in him inspire,
To whom the joy's denied!

Bar love---and bann the light and air !

Love shut from out the unwholesome mind,

And the mind stagnates into night!
And all the blessings of our kind
Flit o'er the vision, but to find
The very senses dumb and blind!

All savage climes confess this truth!
They war not with its voice!--the youth
Singles the maid his heart prefers,
And all that heart must gain is hers!
Go man!--look round thy quiet home!
Go look upon thy child-

If o'er that face a cloud hath come--
Where once the sunshine smil'd ;-
If in the cheeks' blent roses, grief
Hath gnawed the damask from the leaf,
If her lip tremble when she greets thee,
If her step falter when she meets thee,
If, when you speak of joy, her cold
And calm look mock the smile of old,
If other's woe and other's weal
Less than she felt, she seem to feel,
If virtue's praise, which once her eye
Flash'd when she heard---fall heedlessly
Upon her shut and deafened heart;—
If sorrow scarcely seem to sting,
So buried is the dart,

If only when you touch one string,
To life the senses start---

THEN tremble your own work to see!
Tremble to think one human will
Can o'er another's bliss or bane

Hold such overwhelming destiny!
Tremble to think not only pain
And woe and death---you can ordain
To your own flesh; but darker still
The change from heavenly thought to ill!
From the warm heart and genial feeling,
To the shut breast condensed, congealing!
From the pure stream whose waters laught
Joy-freshness-health-around to waft,
To that all lock'd and lifeless ice,
The veriest element of vice!

Go-fall upon thy daughter's neck,
And thank Heaven's mercy that the wreck
Is not yet wholly done!

Rejoice, that yet 'tis thine to make

Her life as lovely as it seemed,
When first Emotion learned to take
The hues that Fancy dreamed.
Go!-seek for him whose love hath won

The heart, that thou alone canst bless,
Go-glad this desert earth has one,
When thou her sire from earth art gone,

To make thy daughter's happiness!

And that what Sternness marred before,

'Tis given to Mercy to restore!

I know in your--a severy-clime,
Wealth's want is deemed the sternest crime,
I know, and have for this provided-
The gold I leave to thee is thine,
That those twin souls its lack divided,
Its gain may let thee join!
This is the compact !--if the moon

Ere thrice it wanes, their bridal see
Then thine the precious dust will be,
To thee, not them, the glittering boon;
Because I know this yellow spell
Works with a twofold miracle.

Reject or grasp it, still it rules,

If woo'd by knaves, or spurned by fools!
To me 'tis nought-yet that refined

Dim mist with which its shadows blind
The vision of all mental eyes-

Which ye---sweet Europe's dupes--call wise,

Might make these lovers rather choose

Hope, peace, life, soul itself to lose--

Than bow the stiff-necked pride to take
What I, without a sigh, forsake!

Out on your bow'd and narrow souls!
All--all alike one pest controls!

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