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University of Virginia Library

The Poetical Works of James Gates Percival

With a biographical sketch

Percival, James Gates (1795-1856)

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THE DREAM OF A DAY, AND OTHER POEMS. FIRST PUBLISHED IN 1843.

POSTHUMOUS POEMS.

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JUVENILE POEMS.

AN ODE TO MELANCHOLY.

FRAGMENT OF AN ODE TO FANCY.

ODE TO RELIGION.

STAR OF BETHLEHEM.

TRUMPET OF LIBERTY.

[Day-star of Liberty! dawn on our sky]

SONNET TO ITALY.

THE DEATH OF LAWRENCE.

PERRY'S VICTORY ON LAKE ERIE.

[By the spirits of the dead]

[Adieu, my love, my Mary dear!]

HENRY AND MARY.

[Star of my heart! though far away]

[Star of my heart! thy light has gone]

[I thought I loved,—no form of earth]

[Is there a tear that scalds the cheek?]

[To see a dear one close her eyes]

[There is an hour, a heavenly hour]

['T is night,—but yet the moon is high]

THE LAMP OF LOVE.

THE GALLEY SLAVE.

ON THE DEATH OF MISS ---,

[Give me a lonely seat]

[How sweet is the turf on the grave of my friend]

[Rest, O my lyre! till the winter of sorrow]

[She's gone, the idol of my heart]

[When the winter of sorrow's keen tempests are blowing]

[When I roam o'er the fields at the opening of dawn]

[I was once happy and blest]

[Arabia may boast of its coffee-clad mountains]

[Dear little angel of my heart]

[Come, come away, unto the silent grove]

[One evening, when the sky was blue]

[I love the ruddy cheek, that glows]

[Who is that mourner bending o'er yon grave]

[See, how the clear, unsullied streamlet strays]

[I saw a flower of softest hue]

TO THE GENTIANA CRINITA,

[Can I touch my harp again?]

[Give me the lyre of harmony]

[My heart is sad, my harp is still]

[They say, that esteem is a diamond so bright]

['T is morning, and all is gay around]

[Why slumbers thy lyre, which so often resounded]

AN IMPRECATION.

[Methought 'twas in the desert, at the hour]

THE SUICIDE'S GRAVE.

ON MY FATHER'S TOMB.

[See how the floweret blushes in the morn]

[Slow, through the twilight gloom, Valerio's knell]

[Hard is the Poet's fate,—but more severe]

[The last blue hill is fading in the sky]

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I. THE ROSE-BUSH.

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III. THE EYELID.

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[IV. Soft heaving wave, whose pure translucency]

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VII. TO THE GRAVE.

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[VIII. 'T is not the future dread that makes me shun]

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[IX. We think of what we might have been: the stream]

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[X. I too have seen thy ever-pouring flood]

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[XI. My hand is clasped upon my burning brow]

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XII. TO THE PIANO.

THE INTERLUDES OF TASSO'S AMINTA.

[O for a mantling bower hung by the loaded vine]

[High they raised the mast, and spread the white sail to the zephyr]

[The thirsty fields a robe of sadness wear]

[Here mossy fountains pour their cooling wave]

Happy old man! here, 'mid your well-known streams

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[I. Thou, who erst on Ætna's top]

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[II. The cypress, in its dark funereal dress]

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[III. The clouds are black in heaven, the roar of winds]

[Expand your snowy wings, ye swans of Helicon]

[How happy is the pure, good man, whose life]

[We have a body,—and its clamorous calls]

[Youth sees the world before him, and the path]

[The stream of life that flowed on Calvary]

[There is a world of mind, which few can know]

[He spake, and, springing from th' embattled ground]

[Malvacea calls her tribes around her throne]

[In endless contrariety has fled]

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I.
THE ROSE-BUSH.

I would not rob that rose-bush of a flower,—
No! not for all the charms of Mary's smile,
Although she begged the blooming gift the while
With all a lovely woman's softening power:
No! for that glowing shrub at morning's hour,
While bending o'er the bank of yonder isle,
Can with its spangled gems my soul beguile,
Such soothing influence hath a dewy flower.
And, Mary, when I see thee gently bending
O'er yonder monument, where Laura lies,
Where marble-snow and crimson blooms are blending,
Methinks I see an angel in thine eyes,
While heavenly tears, in crystal drops descending,
Tell of our anguish when a sister dies.