 | The works, in verse and prose, of the late Robert Treat Paine, Jun. Esq |  |
MENANDER TO PHILENIA.
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[During the years 1792 and 1793, Mr. Paine, beside other contributions to that Miscellany, published in the Massachusetts Magazine such pieces, as appearing there under the signature of Menander. As those pieces are addressed to a lady whose title to the first place among our native poetesses is undisputed and indisputable; and as, in order to understand Menander, it is indispensably necessary, that Philenia may be easily consulted, no apology is required for inserting Mrs. Morton's verses in this collection. The first piece of this correspondence, which was originally published in the Massachusetts Mercury of February, 1793, as were also the second and third pieces, alludes to a Poem entitled, “Beacon-Hill,” supposed to be then preparing by Philenia for the press.]
To waft the Patriot's and the Hero's name!
Blest be the Muse, whose soft Orphean breath
Recalls their memories from the realms of death!
And blest Philenia, noblest of the choir,
Whose hallowed hands attune Columbia's lyre!
'Tis thine to bid the deathless laurel bloom,
And shade departed Virtue's sacred tomb;
While pruned by thee, its loftier branches grow,
And yield new honours to the dust below!
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And gild the urn of Freedom's martyred band!
While in thy song, with charms illustrious, shine
Gods, shaped like men, and men, like gods, divine!
Hail, lofty Beacon, hill of Freedom, hail!
Thy torch her herald to the distant vale!
What various scenes, from thy commanding height,
The horizon paint—the turning eye delight!
Loud Ocean here, with undulating roar,
Calls daring souls to worlds unknown before;
While mazing there, like Fancy's wanton child,
Charles curls along, irregular and wild.
Here, Commerce, decked in all the wings of Time,
Courts the fleet breeze, and ranges every clime;
There the gay villa lifts its lofty head,
The social mansion, and the humbler shed.
But nobler honours to thy fame belong,
And owe their splendour to Philenia's song.
Beacon shall live the theme of future lays;
Philenia bids—obsequious Fame obeys.
Beacon shall live, enbalmed in verse sublime,
The new Parnassus of a nobler clime.
No more the fount of Helicon shall boast
Its peerless waters, or its suitor-host;
To thee shall every fabled muse aspire,
And learn new musick from Philenia's lyre.
No more the flying steed the bard shall bear,
Through the wild regions of poetick air;
On nobler gales of verse his wings shall rise,
While Beacon's eagle wafts him through the skies.
'Tis here Philenia's muse begins her flight,
As Heaven elate, extensive as the light:
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And leaves the clouds of vulgar bards behind.
Her tuneful notes, in tones mellifluous flow,
With charms more various, than the coloured bow.
Here, softly sweet, her liquid measures play,
And mildest zephyrs gently sigh away;
There, towering numbers stalk, majestick rise,
Like ocean storm, and lighten like the skies.
While here, the gay Canary charms our ears,
There, the lorn Philomel dissolves in tears.
While here, the deep, grave verse slow loiters on,
There, the blythe lines in swift meanders run.
Thus to each theme responds her echoing lay;
Bold, without rashness; without trifling, gay:
Serene, yet nervous; easy, yet sublime;
With modulation's unaffected chime;
Soft, without weakness; without frenzy, warm;
The varying shade of Nature's varying form.
Let souls, elated by the pomp of praise,
The arch triumphal, or the busto raise;
Bid marble, issuing into life, proclaim
Their bubble greatness in the ear of Fame!
Gay trifles, pictured out on Glory's shore,
Which Time's first rising billow leaves no more!
'Tis thine, Philenia, loveliest muse, to raise
A firmer monument of nobler praise!
Thou shalt survive, when Time shall whelm the bust,
And lay the pyramids of Fame in dust.
Unsoiled by years, shall thy pathetick verse
Melt Memory's eye upon the Patriot's hearse;
And while each distant age and clime admire
The funeral honours of thy epick lyre,
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That you might sing, and raptured ages read?
'Till the last page of Nature's volume blaze,
Shall live the tablet, graven with thy lays!
| The works, in verse and prose, of the late Robert Treat Paine, Jun. Esq | |