University of Virginia Library

Blue Passaic! o'er thy mirror stream
The queen of heaven in beauty flings
The pearly light of her silver beam,
While the sky-throned spirits from their wings
Drop starry gems in the dark blue flood,
And pensive Eve sits on the shore,
Wooing the embrace of solitude,
And watching the dance on heaven's gemm'd floor
Of the airy shapes who guard young love,
When pure hearts with affection gush,
And trill their songs of bliss above,
When lip meets lip, and beauty's blush
Fires with a brighter flame the breast
Of him who breathes the virgin's breath,
And feels so purely, fondly blest,
He e'en would court the embrace of death!
O Earth! amid thy cheerless gloom
There are sunny spots of bliss supreme,
And if, when the lights of love illume
Those Edens with joy's rosy beam,
We could lie down upon the mead,
And die beholding Paradise
Around, above, within, indeed
'Twere more than heaven to close our eyes,
From which wrung tears so oft have flowed,
And perish in that blissful hour
When every hope hath been bestowed,
And we have drained enjoyment's power.
Like music heard in young love's dream,
The chiming waves come dancing on,
And their spiry cones in the moonlight gleam
Like memory's thoughts of the dead and gone;
And the pebbly beach lies sweetly still,
Beneath the look of the queen of night,
Drinking from music's fount its fill,
And shining amid the pale moonlight
Like budding hopes in blighted bowers
Of soul-lit love, when rapture's eye
Hath closed in death, and sorrow's hours
Link with a dark eternity!

Blue Passaic! on thy verdured shore,
When the world doth sleep, I sit alone,
And the deep blue sky I traverse o'er,
To find where all my hopes have gone;
For I once was full of love and glee,
And felt delight as others do,
And my voice rung loud and merrily,
Ere I saw that pleasure was untrue,
That the melting glance of a fond blue eye,
And the angel smile of a ruby lip,
Were as full of guile as witchery,
And offered to all who loved to sip
The venom that burns in the heart forever;
The quenchless fire that sears the soul,
Whose flame will cease its fury never,
But scorch where'er its billows roll.
Spirits of night! oh, give me back
My innocent hours of boyish mirth,
And blot from my heart the lava track
My thought hath run o'er this dark earth!
My childish spirit but little way
Flowed in its pure and sweet delight,
But, oh, it was a sunlight play
Of gleaming waves, forever bright;
While now on billows of lightning rides
My boundless thought, o'er midnight skies,
And my spirit rolls in the fiery tides
With rending groans and wailing cries.
My birth star was a meteor-flame,
And it wanders and burns fore'er like blood;
Nor hope nor love can its fury tame,
For it dwells in dreadful solitude;
'Tis fated the pure and the good to kill,
And murder the hearts I love the best,
And its comet fire burns fiercely still
O'er every hope of my lonely breast.

O, lovely Passaic! were my heart
As calm and bright as thine azure stream,
In nature's love I would bear a part,
And blend with the light my soul's pure beam!
But ah, I am one by fate oppressed,
The wandering ghost of the harmless child,
And my heart hath died within my breast,
I have so often been beguiled.