Specimens of American poetry :: :: University of Virginia Library

Spirit of freedom, hail!—
Whether thy steps are in the sunny vale,
Where peace and happiness reside
With innocence and thee, or glide
To caverns deep and vestal fountains,
'Mid the stern solitude of mountains,
Where airy voices still prolong
From cliff to cliff thy jocund song,—
We woo thy presence: Thou wilt smile upon
The full heart's tribute to thy favorite Son,
Who held communion with thee, and unfurl'd
In light thy sacred charter to the world.

We feel thy influence, Power divine,
Whose angel smile can make the desert shine;
For thou hast left thy mountain's brow,
And art with men no stranger now.
Where'er thy joyous train is seen
Disporting with the merry hours,
Nature laughs out, in brighter green,
And wreathes her brow with fairy flowers:
Pleasure waves her rosy wand,—
Plenty opens wide her hand,—
On Rapture's wings,
To heaven the choral anthem springs,—
And all around, above, below,
Exult and mingle, as they glow,
In such harmonious ecstacies as play'd,
When earth was new, in Eden's light and shade.

But not in peaceful scenes alone
Thy steps appear,—thy power is known.
Hark!—the trump!—its thrilling sound
Echoes on every wind,
And man awakes, for ages bound
In leaden lethargy of mind:
He wakes to life!—earth's teeming plains
Rejoice in his control;
He wakes to strength!—and bursts the chains
Whose rust was in his soul;
He wakes to liberty!—and walks abroad
All disenthrall'd, the image of his God.

See, on the Andes' fronts of snow
The battle-fires of Freedom glow,
Where triumph hails the children of the sun,
Beneath the banner of their Washington.

309

Go on, victorious Bolivar!
Oh! fail not—faint not—in the war
Waged for the liberty of nations!
Go on, resistless as the earthquake's shock,
When all your everlasting mountains rock
Upon their deep foundations.

And Greece,—the golden clime of light and song,
Where infant genius first awoke
To arts and arms and godlike story,—
Wept for her fallen sons in bondage long:
She weeps no more;—Those sons have broke
Their fetters,—spurn the slavish yoke,
And emulate their fathers' glory.
The Crescent wanes before the car
Of liberty's ascending Star,
And Freedom's banners wave upon
The ruins of the Parthenon.
The clash of arms rings in the air,
As erst it rung at Marathon;—
Let songs of triumph echo there!
Be free! ye Greeks, or, failing, die
In the last trench of liberty.
Ye hail the name of Washington; pursue
The path of glory he has mark'd for you.
But should your recreant limbs submit once more
To hug the soil your fathers ruled before
Like gods on earth,—if o'er their hallow'd graves
Again their craven sons shall creep as slaves,
When shall another Byron sing and bleed
For you!—oh, when for you another Webster plead!

Ye christian kings and potentates,
Whose sacrilegious leagues have twined
Oppression's links around your States,
Say, do ye idly hope to bind
The fearless heart and thinking mind?
When ye can hush the tempest of the deep,
Make the volcano in its cavern sleep,
Or stop the hymning spheres, ye may control,
With sceptred hand, the mighty march of soul.

But what are ye? and whence your power
Above the prostrate world to tower,
And lord it all alone?
What god—what fiend—has e'er decreed,
That one shall reign, while millions bleed

310

To prop the tyrant's throne?
Gaze on the ocean, ye would sway:—
If from its tranquil breast, the day
Shine out in beams as bright and fair
As if the heavens were resting there,
Ye, in its mirror surface, may
See that ye are but men;
But should the angry storm-winds pour
Its chainless surges to the shore,
Like Canute, ye may then
A fearful lesson learn, ye ne'er would know,—
The weakness of a tyrant's power,—how low
His pride is brought, when, like that troubled sea,
Men rise in chainless might, determined to be free.

And they will rise who lowly kneel,
Crush'd by oppression's iron heel,
They yet will rise,—in such a change as sweeps
The face of nature, when the lightning leaps
From the dark cloud of night,
While heaven's eternal pillars reel afar,
As o'er them rolls the Thunderer's flaming car,—
And in the majesty and might
That freedom gives, my country, follow thee,
In thy career of strength and glorious liberty.

Immortal Washington! to thee they pour
A grateful tribute on thy natal hour,
Who strike the lyre to liberty, and twine
Wreathes for her triumphs,—for they all are thine,
Woo'd by thy virtues to the haunts of men,
From mountain precipice and rugged glen,
She bade thee vindicate the rights of man,
And in her peerless march, 't was thine to lead the van.

Though no imperial Mausoleum rise,
To point the stranger where the hero lies,
He sleeps in glory. To his humble tomb,—
The shrine of freedom,—pious pilgrims come,
To pay the heart-felt homage, and to share
The sacred influence that reposes there.
Say, ye blest spirits of the good and brave,
Were tears of holier feeling ever shed
On the proud marble of the regal dead,
Than gush'd at Vernon's rude and lonely grave,
When from your starry thrones, ye saw the Son
He loved and honor'd, weep for Washington!

311

As fade the rainbow hues of day,
Earth's gorgeous pageants pass away:
Its temples, arches, monuments, must fall;
For Time's oblivious hand is on them all.
The proudest kings will end their toil,
To slumber with the humble dead,—
Earth's conquerors mingle with the soil,
That groan'd beneath their iron tread,
And all the trophies of their power and guilt,
Sink to oblivion with the blood they spilt.
But still the everlasting voice of fame
Shall swell, in anthems to the Patriot's name,
Who toil'd—who lived—to bless mankind, and hurl'd
Oppression from the throne,
Where long she sway'd, remorseless and alone,
Her scorpion sceptre o'er a shrinking world.
And though no sculptured marble guards his dust,
Nor mouldering urn receives the hallow'd trust,
For him a prouder mausoleum towers,
That Time but strengthens with his storms and showers,—
The land he saved, the empire of the Free,—
Thy broad and steadfast throne, Triumphant Liberty!

ADDRESS TO THE MERMAID.

What have we here? a man or a fish? a fish; he smells like a fish: a very ancient and fish-like smell!—A strange fish!—I shall laugh myself to death at this PUPPY-HEADED monster—a most scurvy monster!

Shakspeare.

Art thou indeed, what thou would'st seem to be,
Imprison'd in that curious box of thine,
A veritable daughter of the sea,
Like Aphrodité born in foam and brine?
Though, I must say, were such the queen of Love,
I marvel greatly at the taste of Jove.

But thou, perhaps, some ages since, wast fair,
The envy of all mermaids far around;
Then that bald pate of thine with azure hair,
That undulated with the waves, was crown'd;
Thou art, howe'er, a mermaid's mummy now,
And with a wig should'st hide that wrinkled brow.

Hast thou e'er sported in the coral bowers,
That deep beneath the Indian waters grow,

312

Where gems bud forth, and wave the sea-green flowers,
With graceful motion, as the currents flow?
For there the tempests have no power, that sweep
With madness o'er the surface of the deep.

Perchance 't was thy delight, in former times,
To rest by moon-light on the ocean-rocks,
And to the hum of waters chant thy rhymes,
Or with those fingers curl thy humid locks;
Then wo to any luckless bark for aye,
Whose pilot listen'd to thy treacherous lay.

Is it not glorious to behold the gems,
That shine like stars in ocean's crystal caves?—
The groves, where emeralds bud on amber stems,
Moving harmonious with the rocking waves?—
And all the gorgeous mysteries, that sleep
Beneath the endless waters of the deep?

There, we may guess, the Nereids delight
To build their garnish'd grottoes, fair to see,
With domes of living diamonds, that as bright
Shine out, as suns in the immensity
Of heaven, while all their ruby pavements blush,
As through their clefts the shouting waters rush

There shells of pleasant forms and nameless hues
To alabaster columns cling; and there
Such flowers spring up, as never drank the dews,
Nor breathed the freshness of the upper air;
But fairer, lovelier far, their tints that glow
On the pure sand, like rainbow hues on snow.

And mighty Argosies, that moved in pride,
Like living things, along the troubled deep,
Lie many a fathom now beneath the tide;
And gallant chiefs, and fearless sailors sleep,
In kingly state, on beds of pearl and gold,
Who for a biscuit had their birthrights sold.

Oh! could'st thou tell,—if thou indeed hast seen,
“For in those eyes there is no speculation,”—
The wonders hid beneath the ocean green,
T' would mad the knowing ones with admiration,
And many a learned bachelor would swear
That thou, in spite of all thy teeth, art fair!

313

But why should I ask questions of a thing,
That hears not, sees not, knows not,—only grins?
And grin you may, so long as quarters ring,
For, says the adage, “let him laugh that wins!
Being a siren, well may you entice
The unwary once,—you cannot cheat me twice.

Would I possess'd a charm to ope the cell
Of glass, when thou art fasten'd like a reel
Within a bottle: I could never tell
How this got in; but could my fingers feel
That scaly skin of thine, there 's “a shrewd doubt”
'T would be no puzzle why you'll not come out.

But go in peace, thou thing of “shreds and patches”—
Go not, howe'er, where Doctor Mitchill is;
For he will mangle thee, if he but catches
A glimpse of thy uncouth and monkey phiz,
And then will swear, in spite of thy long tail,
Thou art no more a fish than was his whale!

Exhibited in this country some years since.