University of Virginia Library

SONNETS.

PRE-EXISTENCE.

TO HELENA.

ON SEEING A DAGUERREOTYPE BY GABRIEL HARRISON, REPRESENTING “HELENA” AS THE GODDESS OF THE ART.

Well may the sun be sire of one like thee,
Impersonation of celestial grace!
Less of divine and bright was in the face
Of new-born Venus rising from the sea.
Daughter of Light! upon thy breast appears
A star less radiant than thy lifted gaze
That seems to pierce the distance veiled in haze,
And read the riddle of the coming years.
The musing bard, in inspiration's hour,
A glimpse of nobler features never caught—
Blending the charm of deep, prophetic thought
With beauty's wild and overmastering power.
Fair pictures crowd the galleries of old,
But boast no shape of such a lustrous mould.

TO A BOUQUET OF FLOWERS.

Ye, Flowers, together bound of various dyes,
Were beauty's own:—did not the sun-lit bow
Of promise quit its station in the skies,
And break to pieces in the meadows low
Where grew ye, daughters of the morn—to each
A different shade imparting, from the blue
Of summer Ocean to the faint red hue
That paints the shell upon his whitened beach?
Oh! would that fairy ministers with dew
Could fill once more your withered cup, or rain
Bathe with refreshing drops your life again;
But the hoar frost is lying where ye grew,
And howls the storm—and with your lifeless stems
Will zephyrs sport no more, ye vegetable gems!

AN ARROW-HEAD.

Crossing yon field an arrow-head I found
Shaped from the flinty rock with wondrous art;
No other trace upon the furrowed ground,
Though patiently I broke the clods apart,
Was visible of ancient Indian rule—
When the grim forest, to its dusky heart,
Thrilled with the whoop of war and hunter's shout,
Frighting the wild-duck from her rushy pool,
And from green lair the trooping antler'd herd,
Faint impress leaving, like the passing bird:
Thus are the tracks of nations blotted out,
Save when the world, erst trod by them, is stirred
By other races—giving to the light
Some yellow crumbling bone, or implement of fight.

ON A CASCADE NEAR WYOMING.

A brook, the woody mountain's bounding child,
With a deep murmur in its silvery flow,
Falls, in its journey over rocks up-piled,
On the green carpet of the glen below.
Above the cascade aged hemlocks throw
Their mossy branches, flecked with drops of spray,
Like warders old that watch around bestow,
Stationed on rocky battlements of gray.
In haunts like these, when baffled in the fight
That drenched a groaning land with crimson showers,
The sturdy champions of the true and right
Have gathered to repair their wasted powers:
And rousing hymns of God and Freedom heard,
Sung by the tumbling wave and tameless bird.

JOHN AUGUSTUS SHEA.

Another voice is hushed—another lyre
Hangs on a dead and leafless bough, unstrung;
Of wrongs that curse humanity he sung;
But changed to ashes is his heart of fire.
Far from the luckless Isle that gave him birth,
Wrapped in the raiment of the grave he lies:
Though Freedom there no more finds home and hearth,
Dying he thought of her green fields and skies—
Before his fading sight, in dim array,
Shades of the martyred and the mighty passed,
And light unearthly round the minstrel cast,
A harbinger of everlasting day;
They came to guide his spirit to a land
That knows nor broken heart nor fettered hand.

TO F. G. H.

Wake, sleeping bard! too long bedimming rust
Has rested on the chords of thy rich shell—
Wake, sleeping bard, and people mount and dell
With deathless beings of the mind!—from dust
The gifted men of olden time call up,
And speak to them when Night is on her throne,
Learning the secrets of a world unknown:
Oh! raise once more the bright, enchanted cup
Of romance to thy thirsting lip and drink,
And in the chain of inspiration be
A dazzling, proud, imperishable link:
Let thy rapt muse, emerging from thick gloom,
Fairer than Venus rising from the sea,
For epic flight her wing majestically plume.

TO A LONG-SILENT SISTER OF SONG.

Where art thou, wood-dove of Hesperian climes,
The sweetest minstrel of our unshorn bowers?
In dreams, methinks, I faintly hear at times
An echo of thy silver-sounding rhymes;
Alas! that blight should fall on fairest flowers,
Eternal silence on angelic lips;
That tender, starry eyes should know eclipse,
And mourning love breathe farewell to the hours!
Speak! has the grave closed on thee evermore,
Daughter of Music?—hath thy golden lute,
With dust upon its broken strings, grown mute;
Thy fancy, rainbow-hued, forgot to soar?
To hush thy warbling is a grievous wrong—
Come back! come back to sunlight and to song!

THE SHADOW OF A GRIEF.

The substance, not the shadow of a grief,
Embitters my existence:—though, perchance,
From the green bowers of ever-bright romance
My feeble hand has plucked one laurel leaf.
Few are the souls on earth that sympathize
With toilers who outwatch the stars of night
In searching for the beautiful, while blight
Dims many a hope—still unattained the prize.
Oh! ever welcome is the prayer of one,
Like thee, endowed with “faculty divine,”
And if a charm to ward off ill were mine,
Thy day of joy would know no setting sun;
By sorrow never would thy head be bowed—
Darkened the sky above thee by no cloud.

WILLIAM P. HAWES.

Well may we cherish a sad thought of thee,
Oh, Hawes! called hence ere finished was thy task;
Where can we find a soul so full of glee—
Wit with so fine and keen an edge, I ask?
The subtle essence of true genius lurks
Both in thy tuneful prose and careless lays;
Pervaded by rich humor are thy works,
Like that which on the page of Elia plays
Too soon wert thou arrested in thy course,
Cut down at noon on life's great battle-field.
Well may we mourn when such a fount is sealed,
By death untimely frozen at its source!
Those who with thee the wreath of friendship twined,
Should not forget the loved ones left behind.

TO A CHIMNEY-SWEEPER.

Poor son of Afric! in the deepest cell
Of thy swart bosom mirth has taken root—
Thy calling is a lofty one, and soot
Accords with thy complexion passing well.
Thou art an actor, and thy “ching-e-ring,”
While standing on the top of chimney dark,
All grinningly, like Jim Crow at the Park,
In gravity unlocks the comic spring.
By way of flues to win a station high
Bespeaketh true originality.
Thou canst not twice thy coat the same way don,
For collar, sleeve, and back are partly gone,
And Time, who is not partial to the graces,
Hath run his dagger through in many places.

NIGHT.

Oh, night! I love thee, as a weary child
Loves the maternal breast on which it leans!
Day hath its golden pomp—its bustling scenes;
But richer gifts are thine:—the turmoil wild
Of a proud heart thy low, sad voice hath stilled,
Until its throb is gentler than the swell
Of a light billow—and its chamber filled
With cloudless light, with calm unspeakable:
Thy hand a curtain lifteth, and I see
One who first taught my heart with love to thrill,
Though long ago her lip of song grew still:—
A strange, mysterious power belongs to thee,
To morning, noon, and twilight-time unknown;
For the dead gather round thy starry throne.

EMMA GILLINGHAM BOSTWICK.

Sing on! unrivalled warbler! never more
Will mortal ear be blessed by such a strain—
Its sweet, enamored echo will remain
Until the fever of this life is o'er.
Such notes were heard in Eden, ere its bowers
Were sullied by the clinging taint of sin—
When all was pure the human heart within,
And sunshine lay upon unfading flowers.
I would not for a blest hereafter pray—
A Heaven for which the troubled spirit longs—
If, in its halls, I could not hear alway
Enchanting, thrilling music like thy songs.
Sing on! thou bird of melody! and fill
My heart with rapture till its pulse is still.

OH, SHE WAS YOUNG!

Oh! she was young, and beautiful and good,
But called away, while age toils faintly on—
Gone to the voiceless land of shadows—gone
In the bright morning of her womanhood.
Cheered by the blue-bird's warble of delight,
Spring-time, the tender twilight of the year,
With bursting bud and sprouting grass is here,
And nature breathes of resurrection bright:
It seems unmeet that one so fair should die,
When sounds are heard so charming to the ear,
And sights beheld so pleasant to the eye:
Hush, vain regrets! a land of fadeless bloom
Is now her home—its passage-way, the tomb.

WITHDRAW NOT YET THAT LOOK.

Withdraw not yet that look of wildering sweetness,
Or gloom will follow, as dull night the day—
Time hath a golden wing of wondrous fleetness,
When thou art near to banish grief away.
The pressure of thy snowy hand in mine
Sends an electric shiver through my frame—
Full freely would I barter wealth and fame,
Could I but gain thy love, and intertwine
Our fates together:—dim are gems compared
With light that flashes in thy soul-lit eye;
A prism would a palace seem if shared
With thee, thou star of my idolatry!
Whose radiant glances sway the troubled soul
As moonlight spells old Ocean's pulse control.