University of Virginia Library

Thou purest spirit bestow'd by bounteous Heav'n
To bless the world and dignify the man,
Think not I leave the cool Platonic shade,
Haunt of the God invisible, whose breath
Melts the hoar frost that keen despondence hangs
On pale affliction: In this sacred shade,
Whilst cruel duty fetter'd every sense,
I saw my morning sun ascend with tears,
And sink at eve with heaviness; the night
Came burthen'd with despair; yet unsubdued,
I frown'd indignant on my chains, and tun'd
My rural lay to universal love.
Love, friendship, virtue, to my thought, seem'd one
Trinomial pow'r, and blended to refine
Most highly wrought existence. So we deem
Son, fire, and spirit, the Eternal One.
Destroy one principle, the whole must cease;
The fires of nature tremble out, the world
Grow cold, and apathy so chill mankind,
That order, grace and beauty must expire.
I saw one mighty good, and wished it mine!
Yet who would haunt this grove whence Plato view'd
The hills of immortality, avow'd
One sole creative energy, and felt
Its purest influence, when th'Athenian youths
Were rivals for his love. Did censure, pride,
Contempt, indifference, doubt, or cold reserve
Shed poisons round the consecrated scene?
The sage must love the virtues he implants,
Love e'en the soil that nurses them, refresh
With dews of sympathy like thine, the buds
Of excellence, ere bursting they expand,
To thank him for his care. What then is love?
I am an idiot to its common sense,
If love be not the god whose attributes
Are wand'ring o'er the universe to form
The perfect good and fair: the recumbent sea,
Beneath deep rooted mountains meets his fires,
To move the unweildy, vast chaotic world,
And wake the Titans for the general weal.

Such grandeur works his mighty scenes thro' shades
Where sober contemplation plumes her wings,
And calls her Plato from behind the stars.
Love breathes corrected sentiment, inspires
That high regard, unblemish'd confidence,
And truth serene, which make our bliss below,
By luring virtuous spirits to repose.
I will be dumb, nor dream of that repose;
Deserv'd, but unpossess'd.

These feeble sounds
Give not my soul's rich meaning; or my thought
Rises too boldly o'er the human line
Of alphabets (misused). Why should I wish
For words to form a picture for the world
Too rare? O world! what hast thou in thy sounds
So dear as silent memory when she leads
The shade of the departed? Ask despair
What renovation is, when friendship bends
To kiss her tears away;—but ask her eyes;
The pleasing anguish dwells not on her tongue.
Will friendship stay, when love and virtue fly?
Sooner Leviathan shall pierce the skies,
Roll 'mid the burning chamber of the sun,
And hate the chrystal caverns in the deep!
“Folly” could ne'er o'ertake me. Oft I verge,
When warm'd by fancy, to the farthest bound
My sense of words can bear; but at the extreme
Contemn the sense that chastity throws off.—
“Folly!” Good heaven! have I not climb'd an height
So frightful, e'en from comfort so remote,
That had my judgment reel'd, my foot forgot
Its strenuous print, my inexperienced eye
The wondrous point in view; or my firm soul,
Made early stubborn, her exalted pride,
Though of external poor; the stagnant lake
Of vice beneath, than Cocytus more foul,
Had oped its wave to swallow me, and hide
My frame for ever. This I saw: the year
Ne'er rip'd the corn, or strew'd the yellow leaf,
But some too feeble maid, who in the morn
Ascended with me, lost her hold and fell;
Leaving the glorious plaudit of the wise
To rough laborious spirits. I attained
With wretchedness this summit; hence, look down
On the laps'd ages, towers, and sleeping kings,
Whose heads repose 'mid monarchies engulph'd,
With temples, oracles, long whisp'ring fanes,
Thro' which the mystic meaning aw'd the crowd,
And stoop'd the public spirit to its lore:
There lie vast amphitheatres, where sat
The monarch with his thousands, to behold
How beasts of prey could tear the human heart,
Rich with some lov'd impression.—O forbear,
My muse! turn from the vision, lest thou wake
Emotion, and compare that heart with mine—
There gentle Petrarch sleeps; mild victim long
To that serene despair, which once imbib'd
The soul grows fond of, and withdraws, to give
Her tints of sympathy, ideal grace,
Languishing sentiment, and faithful tear,
To the wild woodland: there she feels enlarg'd,
And far from noise, looks calmly o'er the grave.
Petrarch! hadst thou not liv'd, what mind had dar'd
To own that flame, kindled so near the throne
Of God, it makes man like him? From this height
I see the bleating lamb trot o'er the turf
That covers long descended kingdoms: hear
The tyger roar, where tyrants scourg'd mankind:
On roofs of buried palaces remark
The mole rearing her fabric; learn the hymn
Sweet Philomel sings to the warriors shade—
Far o'er the plain, beneath the midnight moon.
Here I gaze wond'ring at yon motley crowd,
Who eye me through a medium all their own.—
I like them not, their pageantry contemn—
They know not to communicate delight—
But square my compass with a mimic skill.

Bear with me, generous ******, when my soul,
Wing'd with her self-creative pow'r, explores
The utmost limit of her gloomy sphere;
Beholds the fighting monsters of the mind
Afar, and timely flies to this retreat.—
My heart no human institution binds
To hideous Furies which distort the slave
Of vice. Let fall thy sacred precept! Know,
'Tis not to pass the line for ever plac'd
'Mid the platonic system, to revere
Myself, adore in solitude, perform
More social duties, whilst I tune my reed
To Friendship, Virtue, Love, and Heav'n, and Thee.