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 remember'd songs! Still do your happy souls attune
The notes it learn'd, on earth, to move; Still breathing o'er the chords, commune In sympathies of angel love!
TO THE FLYING-FISH.
WHEN I have seen thy snowy wing
O'er the blue wave at evening spring,
And give those scales, of silver white,
So gaily to the eye of light,
As if thy frame were form'd 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 soat
But erring man must blush to think,
Like thee, again, the soul may sink!
O 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, lull'd 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 bless'd them into pure repose!
Then, haply if a week, a day,
I linger'd from your arms away,
How long the little absence seem'd!
How bright the look of welcome beam'd,
As mute you heard, with eager smile,
My tales of all that pass'd 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 fill'd
The leaf with sweetness may be chill'd!
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 hurl'd
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 remember'd 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 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 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 grey,
Where painting pour'd 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
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,2
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
To pour the soul in sound along,
And turn its every sigh to song!
I thought of home, th' 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 wander'd 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 renew'd and friends restored!
Now, sweet, adieu!-this artless air,
And a few rhymes, in transcript fair,3
Are all the gifts I yet can boast
To send you from Columbia's coast;
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 attracave 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.
2 A trifling attempt at musical composition accompanied this epistle. 3 The poems which immediately follow.
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.
CONCEAL'D 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 chill'd 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, ask'd that speaking eye,
If parting pain'd 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 call'd 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.
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