Poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

Thy Birthday! yes! the flight of time
Once more hath brought it round,
And something in the shape of rhyme
To greet it must be found—
Meagre that something needs must be,
Yet not, I trust, despised by thee.

If fancy's stream flowed briskly still
As erst in youthful days,
And I with ease could roam at will
Through all her flowery ways,
Small pain 'twould cost a wreath to cull
Which thou would'st deem most beautiful.

But fancy's prime with me is o'er,
My Pegasus grows idle,
And needs the spur, who used to soar,
Despising bit and bridle:
Verse hath indeed become to me
Sore toil and grievous drudgery.

The Muse's service long hath ceased
Its own reward to be,

428

And thou art from the tax released
Which seemed so hard to thee,
Albeit it had, if freely paid,
The surest inspiration made.

I blame thee not, nor love thee less,—
Nay, more each passing year;
And if true love our portion bless,
What need of fancy here?
Let song, once prized, become at last
A faded dream of days long past.

Yet take this lay, a gift of love,
Nor rate it by its worth,
But by the pains with which it strove
And struggled to the birth;
So thou its poverty shall prize
Above youth's richest fantasies.

October 19th, 1858.

429

SONNET.

[O! not in youthful love-notes light and vain]

TO F. H. For February 14th, 1868.

O! not in youthful love-notes light and vain,
Nor ditty of fantastical desire—
(Weak, worthless spells a greybeard's heart to fire,
And thaw to foolish thought his frozen brain):
O! not in such but more befitting strain
Today, dear maiden, doth my song aspire
From thee, whom many love and all admire,
A moment's patient audience to obtain.
In me the lover's and the husband's heart
Are dead and buried: yet past words of thine
(Filial tho' few) parental joy impart
To this poor widow'd, wither'd age of mine,
To which for all that thou hast been and art,
Bless thee!—God bless thee!—gentle Valentine.

TO AUGUSTUS M. SWIFT: NEW YORK.

Nay,—ask not one whose life hath left behind
Our mortal age of threescore years and ten,
To grasp with tremulous clutch the poet's pen,
Taxing his brain reluctant rhyme to find;
Better a barrel-organ's mournful grind,
Discordant, dismal to the ears of men,
Than croak false notes immured in darksome den
Of Eld,—to music deaf, to beauty blind.
Seek rather in thy fair and fervent West,
Where mind and minstrel-art are fresh and young,
Such thought as bubbles up through brain and breast,
In verse attuned aright to pen and tongue;
Leave here the worn-out rhymer to his rest,
His hurdy-gurdy cracked, his dirge unsung.

July 10th, 1870.

430

SONNET.

[Patiently, fond and faithful, many a year]

TO S.A. AND D.R.

Patiently, fond and faithful, many a year
Ye kept your filial watch, O sisters twain,
O'er her for whom, we trust, to die was gain;
As for yourselves, 'tis Christ to linger here,
While she, beyond the reach of grief and fear,
Heart-crushing trouble and life-wasting pain,
Knows that for her, He hath not died in vain,
Nor ye, for her sake, grown to Him less dear.
Grieve (for ye must) while Nature's wound is sore,
But grieve as those who know they sow in tears
To reap in joy.—Your ministries, now o'er,
Of holiest duty have heap'd up a store
Of strength angelic for celestial spheres,
Where both shall watch and work, but weep no more.

August 14th, 1872.