My Mind and its Thoughts, in Sketches, Fragments, and Essays

The following lines being, as their style imports, a production of early youth, are here inserted, not surely for poetic merit, but rather for the grateful sentiment at that period felt, uttered, and inscribed

TO THE KINDEST OF THE KIND.

Truly these childish Lines were not then seen by the individual to whom they were inscribed in very early youth.

Sweet is the garden's breeze that flows,
With health and sweetness from the rose;
Charm'd was the strain Cecilia knew,
And with enrapturing finger drew;
So sweet the breath which kindness moves.
So charms the voice attention loves:
She, with the organ's lifted peal.

Could make a listening Angel feel,
With floating wing from heaven descend,
And o'er her fine attractions bend,
To thee a finer strain is given,
A strain that wins the heart to heaven.

What time the breath of kindness steals
O'er every pang that sorrow feels;
With all affection's hoarded stores,
How rich the balmy whisper pours,
Rich as the spring's first blossom blows,
Warm as the lip of summer glows;
Sweet as the morning's clovered vale,
And healthful as its zephyr'd gale,
More prized than wealth; than worlds more dear;
Still may that whisper loiter near;
Still to this trusting heart reveal,
What only thou—LOVED FRIEND! can'st feel.

In the legends of the saints, it is written that saint Cecilia, the inventress of the organ, drew an angel from heaven by the melody of that divine instrument.

University of Virginia Library

LINES

TO THE BREATH OF KINDNESS.