 | Poems |  |
FRAGMENT OF AN UNFINISHED POEM.
Such scenes as these, New-England, are thy own.
And, oh! perhaps some wandering son of thine
Whose bark upon life's troubled sea is borne
Far from the haven of his native home,
Will oft in meditation's lonely hours
Revert to thy blue hills and valleys green,
Thy cool springs bubbling from the flinty rock,
Thy mellow Autumn waning calmly on,
Clad in its “coat of many colors” fine;
And when December comes wrapp'd in his snows,
Stormy and cold, and white with frosty breath—
Thy fire-side tales, repeated oft, perhaps,
But spiced with better flavor for their age;
Thy dear-loved homes and good old customs dear.
And memory backward points to other days
When from his father's roof he early went,
With benedictions on his youthful head,
And Hope's bright gossamers before his eyes.
But now how changed the “spirit of his dream”!
Sweet days of childhood, ah, how quickly flown!
How silently! Where now those promised joys?
Those phantom dreams of manhood's happiness?
Those budding hopes? Gone with the lapse of years!
As when the laborer on his pallet rests,
In strange chimeras fades his absent mind,
And morning breaks with stern reality
The visions of the night—so have they gone!
And, oh! perhaps some wandering son of thine
Whose bark upon life's troubled sea is borne
Far from the haven of his native home,
Will oft in meditation's lonely hours
Revert to thy blue hills and valleys green,
Thy cool springs bubbling from the flinty rock,
Thy mellow Autumn waning calmly on,
Clad in its “coat of many colors” fine;
And when December comes wrapp'd in his snows,
Stormy and cold, and white with frosty breath—
Thy fire-side tales, repeated oft, perhaps,
But spiced with better flavor for their age;
Thy dear-loved homes and good old customs dear.
And memory backward points to other days
When from his father's roof he early went,
With benedictions on his youthful head,
And Hope's bright gossamers before his eyes.
But now how changed the “spirit of his dream”!
Sweet days of childhood, ah, how quickly flown!
How silently! Where now those promised joys?
Those phantom dreams of manhood's happiness?
Those budding hopes? Gone with the lapse of years!
As when the laborer on his pallet rests,
In strange chimeras fades his absent mind,
And morning breaks with stern reality
The visions of the night—so have they gone!
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Then Fancy fondly beckons from afar
And bids him dream of brighter days to come,
When Fortune once on him shall deign to smile
And bid him welcome to his long-lost home.
Shall then that wished-for welcome never come?
(Future as hope—ah, would 't were half as sure!)
And bids him dream of brighter days to come,
When Fortune once on him shall deign to smile
And bid him welcome to his long-lost home.
Shall then that wished-for welcome never come?
(Future as hope—ah, would 't were half as sure!)
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