 | Prose sketches and poems |  |
TO A —.
These lines are to thee; and they come from a heart,
Which hath never to thee spoken aught but the truth,
And which fain would, ere life from its fountains depart,
Speak to thee of the sorrows which clouded its youth.
And think not 't is only to show a fair rhyme,
Or a glittering thought to the eye of the world;
Oh no! 't is a motive more purely sublime;
My wings of ambition forever are furled.
'T is my love, my devotion, which will find a tongue,
And utter its thoughts before life and I sever;
'T is the heart which was bruised, and then wantonly flung
On the shore of life's sea, to be trampled forever.
For its words, and its thoughts, and its feelings have been
Misconceived, misconstrued, and traduced for long years;
And 't would fain, from the general calumny, win
One heart, that might water its grave-sod with tears.
Which hath never to thee spoken aught but the truth,
And which fain would, ere life from its fountains depart,
Speak to thee of the sorrows which clouded its youth.
And think not 't is only to show a fair rhyme,
Or a glittering thought to the eye of the world;
Oh no! 't is a motive more purely sublime;
My wings of ambition forever are furled.
'T is my love, my devotion, which will find a tongue,
And utter its thoughts before life and I sever;
'T is the heart which was bruised, and then wantonly flung
On the shore of life's sea, to be trampled forever.
For its words, and its thoughts, and its feelings have been
Misconceived, misconstrued, and traduced for long years;
And 't would fain, from the general calumny, win
One heart, that might water its grave-sod with tears.
93
For the world, I defy it and dare it; it hath
No power, no terror, no lash, over me;
I ask not the light of its smile in my path,
And its pity or frown might as well urge the sea.
I owe it, and ask it no favor; full well
I have proven its friendship, its mercy, its love;
But thou hast upon me a charm and a spell,
That through life and in death will be able to move.
I would show that the heart which the world hath reviled,
Whose passions have been like the waves of the sea,
Whate'er it hath been—how ungoverned and wild—
Hath been constantly true in devotion to thee.
That devotion to thee, love, hath never been told:
Perhaps 't was unnoticed; the feeling most deep
Has the semblance of something unfeeling and cold;
The grief most o'erwhelming but seldom can weep.
And readier tongues spake their tale in thine ear,
And told thee their love with full many a sigh:
Perhaps thou wast dazzled by that and the tear,
And read not my love in the heart and the eye.
I told not my love—it were cruel to ask
One like thee, with misfortune and sorrow to wed,
To wear away life as an incessant task,
And pillow on Poverty's bosom thy head—
Till I turned from the green and the delicate lanes
Of home, love and joy, which were darkened with gloom,
And shivered, unflinching, the multiplied chains,
Which are woven round all when the heart is in bloom.
Since then, day by day, my lone heart hath decayed,
With a slow, but a certain, and deadly decline;
O'er its waste and its wilderness riseth no blade,
Which may say with its greenness—`Wo! all is not thine.'
And though I must die ere my deity sphere
Be revealed from the storm which holds heaven at will,
I must turn to the place where it ought to appear,
And worship its light till my pulses be still.
It may be that I am to live till my cup
Of affliction be filled and o'erflow at the brim;
Till the mist and the blood from the heart shall rise up,
When its last hope is gone—its last vision is dim;
No power, no terror, no lash, over me;
I ask not the light of its smile in my path,
And its pity or frown might as well urge the sea.
I owe it, and ask it no favor; full well
I have proven its friendship, its mercy, its love;
But thou hast upon me a charm and a spell,
That through life and in death will be able to move.
I would show that the heart which the world hath reviled,
Whose passions have been like the waves of the sea,
Whate'er it hath been—how ungoverned and wild—
Hath been constantly true in devotion to thee.
That devotion to thee, love, hath never been told:
Perhaps 't was unnoticed; the feeling most deep
Has the semblance of something unfeeling and cold;
The grief most o'erwhelming but seldom can weep.
And readier tongues spake their tale in thine ear,
And told thee their love with full many a sigh:
Perhaps thou wast dazzled by that and the tear,
And read not my love in the heart and the eye.
I told not my love—it were cruel to ask
One like thee, with misfortune and sorrow to wed,
To wear away life as an incessant task,
And pillow on Poverty's bosom thy head—
Till I turned from the green and the delicate lanes
Of home, love and joy, which were darkened with gloom,
And shivered, unflinching, the multiplied chains,
Which are woven round all when the heart is in bloom.
Since then, day by day, my lone heart hath decayed,
With a slow, but a certain, and deadly decline;
O'er its waste and its wilderness riseth no blade,
Which may say with its greenness—`Wo! all is not thine.'
And though I must die ere my deity sphere
Be revealed from the storm which holds heaven at will,
I must turn to the place where it ought to appear,
And worship its light till my pulses be still.
It may be that I am to live till my cup
Of affliction be filled and o'erflow at the brim;
Till the mist and the blood from the heart shall rise up,
When its last hope is gone—its last vision is dim;
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Till thou hast become, in thy beauty, the bride
Of some other less wild, and less passionate lover;
Then the beacon is merged in the hungering tide—
Then the heart hath been crushed, and its struggle is over.
Of some other less wild, and less passionate lover;
Then the beacon is merged in the hungering tide—
Then the heart hath been crushed, and its struggle is over.
Arkansas Territory, Feb. 12, 1833.
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