University of Virginia Library

She was the guerdon of a mother's years—
The lovely, artless, pure Elvira—tears
Unconscious when she sighed at some sad tale,
Bedewed the manly cheek—and when all wan and pale
Her mien, and red her brimming eye,
The adamantine heart would melt, and spy
The noiseless, but triumphal reign of love,
Whose sway, unable to repel, it did approve.
The extatic flame through each wild trembling nerve
Wrought thrills of rapture, until nought could swerve
The revelling, abstracted gaze—raptured thought
Would sketch in fancy all that charms, but ought
Of its creation, like the crescent's beams
Before the full meridian sun, whose gleams
Illume earth, was lost in bright reality.
On earth a paragon—I saw the nymph
Glide, like the cygnet on translucent lymph;
Or, like a Naiad on the crystal lake,
While from the coral wave each pearly flake
Was glittering in the sunbeams: o'er the lawn
Of roseate flowers, Aurora of the dawn;
Love and the graces chased her airy tread,
And drew their radiance from her deep-blue eye;
Remorseless guile and sensual flatt'rers fled
Her pure cherubic presence, destiny
Had thrown her panoply around her—worth
And innocence, the rather, mused, that all
In man was nature's fairest, noblest birth;
And mortals, like herself, above the thrall
Of reckless and lascivious mirth; yet
Frantic pleasure lingered around her path,
And laid her toils illusive—and beset
The guileless victim with phrenetic wrath;
The viper, unknown, near her bosom lay,
And flung its baneful poison in the heart
Of youth, and innocence and beauty—yea
In the deep core fell misery's barbed dart.

A magic charm enthroned her marble brow,
And raven ringlets, o'er her neck of snow,
Waved in their pride, like aerial fays,
Diana's train in Daphne, whose chaste lays,
Symphonious, breathed the notes of love; she trod
The smiling mead with winning grace—the sod
Shed forth an exquisite perfume beneath
Her dew bespangled foot—and her pure breath
Lent auxiliar fragrance to the breeze of morn;
And O, the damask-rose upon its thorn
Spread not to nature more attractive hues,
Than all her blending charms; Arcadian dews
Fell not more light, nor brighter gilded fields
Where Cytherea roved; honied Hybla yields
Not richer stores; but unobtrusive souls
Sway voiceless in their sphere; the amulet controls
Stern destiny, yet lies beneath the vest,
Whose varied folds enshroud the Druid's breast;
The massive wheels of empire roll, and earth
Obeys the viewless power that guides; their birth
The glorious energies of time and light,
Of worlds, and systems, hierarchy bright,
And sentient animation, owe to Him,
Who dwells in majesty, but far and dim,
Above idea, in unrecounted state;
Yet whose least nod is the decree of Fate.

She loved the bowering arbour, and would gaze
From the flower-twined lattice, when the rays
Of noon delicious grottos crowned, and played
With fervour o'er the full tapestried shade;
And she would catch the last long-lingering beams
Of solar glory, and in waking dreams
With measured, solemn pace, through Paradise
Would rove, enamoured of the laughing skies,
Herself as bright and pure; and swelling strains
Of minstrelsy came floating o'er the plains,
When the gay songsters of the grove did wing
Their bower-ward flight, and dulcet carols sing
Amid the tufted blossoms of the grot,
Nor leave on the parterre a tainting blot.
In sooth, she was a lovely nymph—and wore
A heart, that would beseem a brighter shore,
Where whelming billows break not—and pure truth
And loveliness arrayed the mind of youth
With blissful charms—but forms of earthly mould
Attract to ruin—the fair flower, unrolled,
Too oft is shivered by the ruthless blast—
Nor doth it, like the mimosa twined fast
With every fibre round the unbending stalk,
Shield its own glory, when the tempests walk
Upon the loud tornado; to repel
The dire assault, the harbinger of hell,
The soulless libertine; religion's shield
Must hang around the virgin—she must wield
The dread falchion of virtue—nor despair
If hell's unpeopled, and the tainted air
Is loaded with exulting demons—the hand
Of faith will send the fell, but pow'rless band,
With fury back to their own dungeon—there
To writhe in tenfold hotter flames—and where,
Nor worm shall cease to gnaw, nor fires to burn,
Stern justice doomed their mansion, past return
To glory and to life. Alas! the soul
Of sweet Elvira, formed though in the mould
Of heaven, deigned not piety's control.
She had been nursed in virtue,—had unrolled
The volume graved by Deity—but the wave
Of cool Bethesda had ne'er laved her heart;
And she found no warm bosom for a grave,
But one,—cold,—drear,—forsaken,—far apart.

She loved and was beloved—disease obeyed
Her lenient hand; as bending o'er she stood,
Like some bright angel of cherubic grade,
Heaven's messenger of love to man, the mood
Of feverish, and insensate madness fled,
And quiet sleep, a banquet to the frame
Tortured and scorched, o'er wearied senses sped;
A mother's benison upon the name
Of her attendant child oft caught her ear,
And at each start, and groan, she would attend
The reckless, restless sleeper, and would wear
An unruffling softness as she did bend
O'er her; while the full crystal tear her eye
In sweet, heavenly sympathy bedewed;
And when, with a long-drawn, and heart-fraught sigh,
The parent awoke, and her slow pulse shewed,
The fond caress, and glowing fervour shed
A dazzling beauty o'er each feature bright
With an extatic passion from heaven bred;
And sketched the picture of a child's delight.

She was the portraiture of all that lives,
And banquets in the warmest heart—but charms
All unadorned, and by herself unprized,
For mind vaunts not fair clay—but rather strives
To shield its powers, had flung (alas! love warms
But cankers oft the heart, that is surprized,
And stung to madness, unappeased but by
The ruin of fair name and chastened worth;
For the fell simoom is the lustful eye,
And irreligion teems with stygian birth;)
A fatal fascination round her, and
Engendered deep infernal stores of wrath.
The dread hour came—reason fell—mis'ry's brand
Pierced the heart's recess—and across her path
Flew the red lightning—she was desolate.
The fairest flowers are soonest blighted—chaste
Woman's honour falls—and dies for aye—fate
Drops the black curtain—and the scene is past.