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125

CHARACTERISTIC SONGS.

SUCCESSFUL LOVER.

To these joyful eyes restoring
All thy person's countless charms,
Say, shall fancy, still deploring,
Vex thee with her vain alarms.
Wayward fancy, ever dreaming,
Saw that heaven which circles thee,
For a sordid rival beaming,
With delight's insanity.
Now beheld thee coldly wandering,
Ever changing—still the same—
On some dangerous passion pondering,
Kindled by its transient flame.
Vain the fear, and weak the grieving,
Since those softened eyes declare,
All, in truth that's worth believing,
Lives and speaks devotion there.
Never more that truth suspecting,
All my passioned soul is thine.
And the wondering world neglecting,
Thou, in beauty's blush, art mine.
126

SONG.

DEJECTED WIFE!

Is it for this unwandering mind,
This heart, which only glows for thee,
To mark that cold averted eye,
Where not one blessing beams for me!
Is it for this adoring thought,
Which on thy plighted honour lives,
To wonder at a causeless change,
Yet want the pitying hope it gives?
Is it for me, who many a day,
Have, in that passioned glance of thine,
Read words of truth and lasting love,
To doubt its character divine?
Rather, since all the gods have shed
Their glories round each mental grace,
To bid inferior mortals find
A heaven on that reflecting face;
Submissive as the martyr's zeal,
With suffering heart and patient eye,
When hope's deceptive dream has fled,
Be mine to worship, and to die.
127

TO A BEAUTIFUL INFANT.

Blest Infant! in whose rosy smiles we trace,
The sire's creative thought, the lovely mother's grace,
O'er thee that sire's resplendent mind shall shine,
And all that mother's power to charm be thine;
While thou, reflecting back, to both shalt bring
Youth's fragrant bloom, in life's delicious spring:
Brilliant! and blest! may no dark cloud appear,
To veil the sunshine of the future year.
Kind as thy birth, may partial fortune be;
For all the life of genius breathes in thee.

The father of this fortunate child, Mr. Featherstone Hall, a man of science and profound learning, is said to be a lineal descendant of one of the Scotch heroes; of the great Sir Walter. The beautiful and accomplished mother, daughter to the late Judge Duane, of the S. J. C. of New York, was, and surely is, lovely in person, amiable in heart, and enlightened in understanding; nor shall it be forgotten, that at a period of ill health, and great mental distress, the present writer was indebted to this eloquent beauty for consolations of voice, and refinement of mind and manner, whose tender and unaffected charm has seldom been equalled, and can never be excelled.


LINES TO A LADY, DANCING.

Ethereal Beauty! fairy! say,
Who taught thy tiny feet to play?
Was it, mid moonlight's cheerly glance,
That Oberon, mingling in the dance,
Gave thee his art, and bade thee go,
And charm the gazing world below?
Like his thine elfin footsteps shine,
And all his buoyant grace is thine:
Like his thy strains of music flow,
When falls the cadence warbled low.
No—not the monarch chanced to see,
Nor gave his carols sweet to thee.
But favouring nature did her part,
And graceful made thee as thou art.
128

IMPROMPTU,

FOR A LADY SINGING TO A RIOTOUS AND INSENSIBLE COMPANY.

Enchantress, cease! what though Amphion's song
Could draw the herds and softening wilds along,
No equal power thy carol'd words impart,
To move and melt the vegetating heart;
Though sweet their breathings as his gifted lyre,
They wake no wonder, and no praise inspire!
He, blest musician, poured his soul, and then
Rocks seemed to feel, and brutes appeared as men—
Reversed—the magic of thy charmed strain,
Now falls on men turned rocks or brutes again!

LINES IMPROMPTU,

UPON HEARING AN ELEVATED INDIVIDUAL ACCUSED OF PRIDE, &c. &c.

I love to hear the grovelling mind,
Thy proud unyielding spirit blame,
Where genius, to itself confined,
Disdains the vulgar walks of fame:
But more I love the social scene,
Where as thy haughty virtues bend,
In silent eloquence serene,
The powers of gentleness descend.
129

Most loved, when from thy mental height,
Thou deign'st with lowly voice to cheer
The heart that trembles at thy sight,
And timid, greets thee with a tear!
Even thus the picturing artist throws
O'er the strong lines which nature gives,
That softening shade, whose touch bestows,
The grace that speaks, the charm that lives.
 

These were particularly induced to divert the attention of a very young person, who, having first been terrified into tears, was afterwards soothed into smiles by a severe but kind manner.

133

LINES,

WRITTEN IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE TREMENDOUS GALE AND STORM WHICH PROVED SO GENERALLY DISASTROUS TO LIFE AND ITS POSSESSIONS, ON SEPTEMBER 23, 1815.

SIMPLE ADDRESS TO MY HOME.

Safe on the vale's protected breast,
The portals of my mansion rest.
In trembling tenderness of form,
Outlive the hard and hurrying storm—
While on the firm hill's cultured side,
Is crushed the seat of taste and pride.
To God the powerless poor belong,
He shields the weak, and smites the strong.
Without his will no sparrow falls,
Whose shelter was thy friendly walls.
My home—if quiet dwell with thee—
What are the storms of life to me!
So in the frail ark's tranquil view,
The whirlwinds of the deluge blew;
Hurtless they blew—of heaven the care,
The dove of peace still rested there—
Rested—while ruin's darts were hurled,
To strike the chosen of the world.
As yet from earth no joy shall rise,
Without the atoning sacrifice—
No more thy bordering elms are seen
To fling their arch of darkening green—
And the ripe fruit tree's nectared store,
Shall wave its blooming gold no more.
134

Though not a charm with polish'd grace
Smile on thy changed and cheerless face,
I love thee—that no passion rude,
Profanes thy sacred solitude:—
I love thee, that no envious eye,
Regards thee with a passing sigh!—
I love thee, for the friend sincere
Whose voice of blessing greets me here,
But most—that to thy haunts are given,
That calm, which looks from earth to heaven.
Not for the fair, the firm, the high,
Does pity come with pleading eye;
Thence are thy faded features dear
To me, as nature's vernal year—
And dear thy wasted form to me—
For all I love must change like thee.

LINES,

TO THE SCION OF THE TULIP TREE, SHADING THE RURAL HOME OF MY ANCESTORS.

The Tree which my forefathers planted and reared,
To me, by THE FAME of their virtue's endeared;
Has flourished with them—like them, in their prime,
Exotic—yet genial, in nature and clime:
That tree waves its branches of verdure and bloom,
They, fading, are lost in the deep of the tomb,
Yet dear is the hill, and the grove, and the plain,
Which no more to the PLANTS OF THE MANSION remain,
Plants nursed in thy shadow, all sportive and free,
Or, stretched at thy foot, seemed as blooming as thee.
Those plants all have perished, and strangers are known,
To reap the rich field, which affection had sown.
And yet the young scion, transferred to my care,
As if the quick sense of my fathers were there,
135

Is tender, yet brilliant, in stem and in leaf,
And cheers me in sadness, and soothes me in grief.
For can I forget, as I gaze upon thee,
How many the branches, how mighty the tree.

This may be said to apply literally, and metaphorically; literally, in allusion to that genealogical tree, which every Welsh gentleman is sure to possess, and to preserve; metaphorically, as to the living branches of a family, nearly all lost in the deep of the tomb.


Whence grew the weak form, and the features so pale,
Of BOTH—as WE bend to the merciless gale
Of seasons—by hardness, or elements blown,
To kill the firm hope, but in solitude known.
Of calm to the scene, and of grace to the mind,
If lonely, yet social—if injured, yet kind.

EPISTLE,

TO THEOPHILUS PARSONS,

This great and good man, the ornament of his profession, of his country, and of the world, having, in the highest judicial station, enlightened by his wisdom and instructed by his virtues but for the short term of eight years, was then, by divine will, suddenly called from life, its usefulness, and its honours, before disease or decay had weakened the faculties of his unequalled mind, or touched the kind temper of his feeling heart.

In commemoration of him who cannot die, an obituary delineation will be found on these pages; a delineation inadequate, but expressive of the gratitude which favours and benefits had inspired, and will perpetuate with the existence of memory and mind in the author.

UPON HIS ACCEPTING THE APPOINTMENT OF CHIEF JUSTICE OF THE SUPREME JUDICIAL COURT OF MASSACHUSETTS.

And does that mind, which every mind excels,
Quit the proud path where fame triumphant dwells?
While at her side prolific fortune stands,
And showers her bounty with unsparing hands—
Bids but thy genius ask, and all obey—
Why fling the doubly proffered boon away?
For the dull bench, the inspiring robe disclaim,
False to thyself, to fortune, and to fame!
Thou like an eastern monarch, reign'st alone,
Nor could the aspiring brother reach thy throne,
Or like a giant towering o'er thy kind,
In all the wondrous majesty of mind;
More strong than monarchs—thine the nobler sway
And yielded claim, which kindred souls obey.
But now uncheered by glory's vertic rays,
Tedious and tame will lour thy shadowy days.
Condemned to heed the ever-during plea—
Which endless folly blundering pours on thee.
136

Or stifling all thy gentle heart's desire,
With warning accents, bid the wretch expire!
Even him, whose wrongs awake the generous sigh,
Him, may unseeing justice doom to die!
Lo, then thy fate! with pained and patient ear,
The hard monotony of words to bear,
Misguided error, wandering far from sense,
Pride's pompous boast, and passion's bold pretence
Await thee now—from morn's unwelcome ray,
To the slow shadows of retreating day;—
What though some soaring genius, true to thine,
In mental radiance bid the forum shine,
Deep—fervid, full; with sacred science fraught.
And all the graced pre-eminence of thought,
Forceful as reason in her high career—
Yet falls like music on the astonished ear.
When, as a charm, the fluent strain is found,
To bid enamoured silence hover round,
Calling from thee that smile which seems to speak.
Gives the delighted flush to pass thy cheek.—
More dark will seem the void, his pause supplies,
More bleak the wild that mocks thy searching eyes.
Poor is the mead the uncherished muse can give,
'Tis thine to honour, and thy praise will live.
Still must thou shine, and with unequalled rays
The undying Mansfield of departed days!
Guide of the laws,

This should have been Page 135, Note (2), as fully explained by “The highest judicial station.”

an empire's boon and boast,
Though fortune and her dangerous dream were lost.
137

ODE FOR MUSIC.

INSCRIBED TO GEORGE WASHINGTON, UPON HIS PUBLIC ENTRANCE IN THE TOWN OF BOSTON, DURING HIS PRESIDENCY.

The season sheds its mildest ray,
O'er the blue waves the sunbeams play;
The bending harvest clothes the plain,
The bannered vessels cheer the main;
The ruddy ploughboy quits his toil,
The pallid miser leaves his spoil.
And grateful peans hail the festive year,
Which bids Columbia's guiding chief appear.
Hence disappointment's anxious eye,
And pining envy's lingering sigh,
Let sorrow from the brow be borne,
And every heart forget to mourn,
While smiles of peace their charms display,
To grace this joy-devoted day;
For the GREAT Washington each lyre be strung,
Thy matchless deeds by every bard be sung.
When Freedom raised her drooping head,
And many a suffering hero led;
When every hope to thee resigned,
Were resting on thy glorious mind;
How did that breast, to fear unknown,
And feeling for HER fate alone—
O'er peril's threatening form the falchion wield,
And tread with dauntless step the endangered field.
Not Decius—patriot dear to fame,
Not Cincinnatus' deathless name,—
Not HE, who led the Spartan band,
The saviour of a bleeding land—
138

Could more triumphant worth display,
Nor shine with such unclouded ray,
Of age the hope—of youth the leading star—
The eye of peace—the conquering arm of war.

TRIBUTARY LINES

TO GEN. HENRY LEE.

HERO AND ORATOR, IN THE ANNALS OF HIS COUNTRY; VICTIM OF PERSECUTION THROUGH THE VIOLENCE OF HER PARTY POLITICKS.

Yes! thou wert born beneath the hero's star,
Triumphant leader in a patriot war;
Like Ammon's son, ere manhood's riper grace,
Had nerved the limbs, and stampt the blooming face,
Supreme in arms, a veteran foe thy claim,
Thy daring valour won the prize of fame.
Or at thy country's call, her powers to join;
Where listening senates felt thy voice divine,
As round her GREAT DELIVERER'S trophied bier,
Awakened memory gave the hallowed tear—
Warm from the heart, and glistening with its flame,
Endeared by thee, its best libation came.
Brave was that arm which taught a Briton fear,
And sweet the voice that charmed a nation's ear.
But not the forum, nor the battle, claim
Alone thy homage, and divide thy fame,
For all the graceful charities which blend,
Round social life;—the husband, father, friend—
Are thine—and thine a generous breast that glows
With every worth, the noblest nature knows.
In council honoured, as in arms renown'd,
By fortune followed, and by victory crown'd;
139

Fame is thy own—nor can a muse like mine,
One flower of fragrance with thy chaplet twine.
Blooming and bright, the eternal green shall cheer
The closing winter of each future year,
With thriftiest germ shall blosom unsubdued
By faction's blight, or chill ingratitude!
Mid the full wreath, no bosom'd worm shall feed—
Nor envy shame it with one mingling weed,
This to thy deeds doth PUBLIC VIRTUE give,
That with thy country shall thy glory live!
Bright as her rivers, as her hills sublime,
Shall pierce her clouds, and glitter through her clime;
Like a rich gem adorn the historic page,
Wear through all time, and shine on every age.

TO THE HON. JOHN JAY.

Formed, through the paths of fame to move,
Graced by a grateful people's love—
Whether the helm of state

As a member of the General States Convention.

to guide,
Or bid the storm of war subside,

As one of the Commissioners for establishing the Treaty of Peace.


Or to the clement virtues dear,
From Afric catch the falling tear,

As President of the First American Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade.


Or with a voice whose dulcet strain,
Might charm to peace the phrenzied brain—
O'er the stern courts of law preside,

As Chief Justice of the S. J. Court of the United States.

These Lines were first impelled by the circumstance of the Honourable Mr. Jay's having lost his Election to the Chair of Government, through the manœuvres of an exasperated Party counteracting the Choice of the People—which choice was indisputably established at the next Trial.


Nor seem to lean on mercy's side;
Or in thy soft retirement blest,
Feel all the father warm thy breast—
Thine is high honour's noblest cause,
And thine the summit of applause.
What though a party's fraudful sway
Would rend thy civic crown away,
To thee a nobler hope extends,
For thee, the patriot prayer ascends,
140

On thee, the honoured suffrage falls,
For thee, the sacred people calls;
Yet blushing science quits her strain,
Silenced, and seeking thee, in vain.
So when the midnight's vapoury breath,
In clouds obscures the sylvan heath,
No peals of music cheer the vale,
No floweret scents the freshening gale,
Till the bright sun, with sovereign sway,
Strikes through the gloom, and leads the day.

TO HIS EXCELLENCY JOHN JAY,

GOVERNOR, AND COMMANDER IN CHIEF, OF THE STATE OF NEW-YORK.

While those by falsehood led, with passion blind,
Fall to decay, nor leave a wreck behind,
Thy fame, ILLUSTRIOUS PATRIOT, will endure,
Firm as thy mind, and as thy motive pure;
A grateful country shall thy triumph see,
And all her muses lift their harps to thee.
Loved, praised, and honoured, by no ill subdued,
Thine is the suffrage of the great and good.
Friends of thy life, by kindred perils tried,
In whom the millions of THE WEST confide.
Though with rude blast the breath of envy blow,
Still lives the laurel on thy tranquil brow,
Still with thy genius shall thy virtues shine,
And the best plaudit of A WORLD be thine.
141

SONNET, TO MAJOR GENERAL LINCOLN.

Think not, brave Lincoln, that the rage of time,
Can from thy warrior brow the laurel rend;
Though midst its green the living snows descend,
It still shall flourish with unfading prime.
See the wrapt student at his midnight oil,
Recount thy deeds and lead thee down to fame,
While the young hero kindles at thy name,
Dwells on thy glorious wounds, and boasts thy toil.
How o'er red Carolina's arid plain,
Thine was to brave the dog-star's striking glow,
And thine to lead bleak winters hardy train,
O'er Pelham's stormy heights—through Athol's vales of snow;
There, first in danger, forced thy fearless way,
Here, at thy feet, subdued rebellion lay.

SONNET TO THE FULL SUMMER MOON.

Thou silent traveller, of the glance benign,
Who from yon crystal car on high,
Shedd'st the full lustre of thy moving eye,
While the touched hills and vales, reflective shine.
142

I love the wanderings of thy varied beam,
What time the pale west bends thy silver wire—
Till in the gorgeous east, thou bidst the sun retire,
Mingling warm

for warm read moist.

blushes with his parting gleam.
He draws his crimsoned curtain round the main,
And, from the moist earth drinks refreshing dews
Thou gently bending o'er the child of pain,
Canst charm the sadness of the mourning muse.
He, the proud emblem of oppressive power;
Thou, the mild sovereign of the pitying hour!
144

SONNET TO ADVERSITY.

“For all I thank thee,—most for the severe.”—

Neglected Nymph, that with unheeded sigh,
Turn'st thy white cheek to every striking gale—
While the base crew with wounding taunts assail
And frowning wealth averts his wintry eye:
Yet the rich virtues follow in thy train,
Thine is compassion's tear, submission's calm;
Consoling Hope, Religion's heavenly balm,
And mild philosophy's instructive strain:
And thine the plaintive poet's touching song,
That moves to melody the chords of care,
145

Pouring forgiveness o'er the cureless wrong,
To heal the wounded spirit of despair.
Ah! may I ne'er forget thy voice divine,
But bless the hour that made its precepts mine.
150

STANZAS TO AARON BURR.

LATE VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. NOW UNDER IMPRISONMENT, AND TRIAL FOR HIGH TREASON. WRITTEN WHILE THE TRIAL WAS PENDING, BUT NEVER BEFORE PUBLISHED.

Thou wonder of the Atlantic shore,
Whose deeds a million hearts appal;
Thy fate shall pity's eye deplore,
Or vengeance for thy ruin call.
Thou man of soul! whose feeble form
Seems as a leaf the gales defy,
Though scattered in sedition's storm,
Yet borne by glorious hope on high.
Such did the youthful Ammon seem,
And such does Europe's scourge

Napoleon Bonaparte, at that period the scourge and destroyer of southern Europe.

The following, extracted from a recently published work, has only to substitute the name of Napoleon Bonaparte for that of the Roman, and the similitude is complete.

“Aaron Burr, the Julius Cesar of America, was the most astonishing man of his age; a man that inspired spirit into every thing material or immaterial with which he came in contact; a man who went about working treason, tampering with the bravest and stoutest hearts of our country, in the light of heaven, with an audacity unlike any thing ever seen in the history of disaffection setting our laws at defiance— mocking at our strength—doing that, which now he has failed, has been called madness; yet for which all the talent, the learning, and the power of the country were unable to punish him! A man, that poured his spirit of revolt, like a flood of fire, into every heart that he came near—disturbing the oldest and most cautious of our veterans; one that seemed to put himself, life and name, into the power of every human creature that he approached; yet with all this seeming, he was never in the power of mortal man, as Wilkinson and Eaton can shew; a man that suffered the legal wisdom of the whole country to array itself against him, without trembling, and then, just put out enough of his own strength and no more, to defeat and shame them.

“Since the time of the Roman, there has never been a man upon this earth so like Julius Cesar, as Aaron Burr.”

appear,
As, of the sun, a vertic beam,
The brightest in the golden year.
Nature, who many a gift bestowed,
The strong herculean limbs denied,
But gave, a mind, where genius glowed,
A soul, to valour's self allied.
Ambition, as her curse was seen,
Thy every blessing to annoy;
To blight thy laurels tender green;
The banner of thy fame destroy.
151

Ambition by the bard defined
“Ambition first sprung from your blest abodes,
“The glorious fault of Angels and of Gods.”

The fault of god-like hearts alone.
Like fortune in her frenzy, blind,
Here gives a prison, there a throne.
171

LINES TO MRS. MONTGOMERY.

WIDOW OF THE HERO WHO FELL BEFORE THE WALLS OF QUEBEC.

Widow of him, a nation's boast,
In life's meridian summer lost;
Beloved of him, an empire's pride,
With whom an hero's genius died.
Montgomery, o'er whose tranquil brow,
Collected honours seem to flow.
Yet not to thy illustrious name,
Thy lineal, thy connubial fame,
172

Do the instructed muses raise,
Their tribute of unflattering praise.
To thee, the great Creator gave,
Each boon that fortune's children crave—
Gave taste, and talent, formed to charm,
The judgment clear, the temper calm,
The soul sublime, the generous breast,
Where all the kindred mercies rest;
That when with soft and timid eye,
The child of grief and penury—
From the bold front of insult turns,
And life's appalling lesson learns.
Thy tender accent, nature taught,
Steals from her sense the torturing thought,
How once her youth attractive shone,
And friends, and fortune were her own.
These all are thine—and rank and name,
But more than these thy virtues claim,
Those winning virtues which impart,
The cultured mind, the feeling heart.
While yet a nation's vows proclaim,
How dear her lost Montgomery's fame:
Yet to that fame, new honours

See the national monument erected over the relicks of General Montgomery at New York, in 1819.

give,
And bid them with her freedom live;
Nor till that freedom feels decay,
Shall their least lustre fade away.
Still the ne'er parted pang will turn,
To HIM who fills yon gifted urn;
As if but yester's mournful eve,
Had taught the severed heart to grieve.
While yet thy country's pitying praise,
Would the remembering marble raise,
While yet her people's graceful tear,
Is sparkling on the glorious bier,
Shall not thy griefs some solace find,
In DEEDS that move a nation's mind?
Deeds, through the earth's bright orbit known,
Making that nation's BOAST thy own!
176

STANZAS,

INSCRIBED TO THE ORATOR OF THE CENTURY.

These Stanzas were written at the immediate moment of reading the address of the orator to the pilgrims, upon the completion of the second century of their establishment on the Rock of Plymouth.

Tullius, when on thy serious ear,
Descends, of praise the untutored strain,
When, at thy word, the admiring tear
Pours homage, seldom pour'd in vain;
Canst thou, in modest wisdom, calm
Mindless of what the million say,
Turn from its gaze the speaking charm
Of eyes, that meet no kindred ray.
Hast thou, when Plenty's crowded shell
Was pour'd for thee, and sought thy care,
Disdain'd within HER courts to dwell
If bounty were not inmate there?
Let others on the brow confer
Wreaths to immortal genius due,
Thee—would the simplest muse prefer
In feelings—more than genius—true.
For thou, with pity's holy flame,
Hast warmed the charities benign,
Scorning of sordid care the claim,
Hast made the richest virtues thine.
To thee the gem of fame is given,
Thine is the grateful heart's regard,
The blessing—and the prayer to heaven
For thee—are more than earth's reward.
182

STANZAS,

TO A RECENTLY UNITED HUSBAND.

In vain, upon that hand reclined,
I call each plighted worth my own,
Or rising to thy sovereign mind,
Say that it reigns for me alone.
Since, subject to its ardent sway,
How many hearts were left to weep,
To find the granted wish decay,
And the triumphant passion sleep?
Such were, of love the transient flame,
Which by the kindling senses led,
To every new attraction came,
And from the known endearment fled.
Unlike the gentle care that flows,
With all the blest affections give,
Unlike the generous hope that knows
But for a kinder self to live.
Was theirs the tender glance to speak
Timid, through many a sparkling tear,
The ever changing hue of cheek,
Its flush of joy—its chill of fear?
Or theirs the full expanded thought,
By taste and moral sense refined—
Each moment with instruction fraught,
The tutored elegance of mind?
Be mine the sacred truth that dwells
On ONE, by kindred virtues known,
183

And mine, the chastened glance, which tells
That sacred truth to HIM alone.
No sordid hope's insidious guise,
No venal pleasure's serpent twine,
Invite those soul-illumined eyes,
And blend this feeling heart with thine.

CONCILIATION.

Graced be the hour when severed friends unite,
And loved the voice, whose softened tones endear,
Where the eye melting in its morning light,
Dispels the cloud, and glistens through a tear
When the heart freed from doubt's entangling wile,
Nor joys, nor sorrows, but with pensive care,
Speaks to the wedded heart, in sigh, or smile,
And feels its questioned kindness answer there.
While the regretful silence seems to plead,
No more the timid hand its pledge denies;
No more shall hurried steps, in scorn proceed,
Nor anger flash from quick averted eyes.
Steeled was the breast, that with a felon's heart,
Could, of confiding truth, its hope bereave;
Bid those whom heaven had joined, in madness part,
Grieving to live—and living but to grieve.
Reproach, with flushing cheek, and phrenzied brow,
Sullen suspicion's cold regardless stare,
Whence is thy sway—and where that midnight now,
Which search'd the soul, and struck its horrors there
Truth came—and as the Saviour's glance adored.
Fell on the sealed eye, with opening ray;
184

Her guiding light on darkest error poured,
Gives mind to man, and clears its gloom away.
Gives him to know, in blessing, to be blest,
One friend, his joys—his portioned griefs to share,
To find his refuge, in ONE sheltering breast,
Source of his hope—and partner of his care.
185

INSCRIPTION.

FOUND AT CHANTILLY, ON AN ALTAR OF WHITE MARBLE, IN THE ISLAND OF LOVE, A BEAUTIFUL SPOT IN THE GARDENS SURROUNDING THE CHATEAU, BELONGING TO THE PRINCE OF CONDE.

N'offront qu'on cœur a la beautè,
Aussi nud que LA Verite;
Sans ailes comme LA Constance—
Sans armes comme l'Innocence!
Tel fut l'Amour dans le siecle d'or,
On ne le trouve plus, mais on le chercher encore.

[_]

THUS PARAPHRASED, AT THE REQUEST OF A YOUNG FRIEND.

Here at Beauty's graceful shrine,
Thy devoted heart resign,
186

Let the willing offering be
Unwinged as changeless Constancy.
Like Truth unrobed to every sense,
—Unarmed as infant Innocence.
Such by fabling bards wer'e told,
Love appeared in age of gold,
Such no more—the God, we find,
Always courted—never kind.
For now the wanton child is seen,
With veiling vesture, fraudful mien,
Around his philtered arrow flings,
And cleaves the air with truant wings.
194

STANZAS.

WRITTEN ON A SOCIAL VISIT TO THE RETIRED PATRIOT, JOHN ADAMS, LATE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.

Blest Patriot! in life's evening hour,
Seen like the sacred sun's decline,
Sublime, as when with sovereign power,
The noon of glorious deeds was thine.
Still bless'd amid thy graced retreat,
To win the speaking glance of praise,
To feel that love with homage sweet,
The tribute of thy virtue pays.
Bless'd, that to wound thy wearied ear,
No flatterer comes, with traitor mind,
But honour, as thy soul sincere,
And friendship, like thine accent kind.
How bless'd o'er ocean's yielding tides,
Thy nation's victor-flag to see,
Exulting—as her navy rides,
To claim the glorious birth from thee.
And blest that truths unerring page,
Shall ALL thy great achievements give,
Memorials of a nobler age,
In IMMORTALITY to live.
198

STANZAS.

I like—it is my choice to live unseen—
Unsought—by all whom busy eyes admire,
To watch the brightening germ, the deepening green,
And from the glare of vertic wealth retire.
I like the gracious spring—the summer gay—
The autumn, in his every bounty kind,
The social winter's unpretending day,
The kindly converse, and the modest mind.
What is to me the city's revel throng,
I love the sighing of the solemn grove,
The soft half warble of the twilight song,
The fragrant eve's reflective calm, I love.
199

If friends have passed, and sorrows found their place,
And the hurt mind laments its lone career,
If lost of life the sunshine and the grace,
Yet may one tender gleam of hope appear.
Where the crushed thought can find a voice, and where
Some healthful pleasure on the sick heart rise
Some living loveliness—some buried care,
Warm the cold cheek, and light the languid eyes!
201

THE AFRICAN CHIEF.

Taken in arms, fighting for his freedom, and inhumanly butchered by his conquerors! This affecting event was fully delineated in the various Gazettes of that period.

See how the black ship cleaves the main,
High bounding o'er the dark blue wave,
Remurmuring with the groans of pain,
Deep freighted with the princely slave!
Did all the Gods of Afric sleep,
Forgetful of their guardian love,
When the white tyrants of the deep,
Betrayed him in the palmy grove.
A Chief of Gambia's golden shore,
Whose arm the band of warriors led,
Or more—the lord of generous power,
By whom the foodless poor were fed.
Does not the voice of reason cry,
Claim the first right that nature gave,
From the red scourge of bondage fly,
Nor deign to live a burdened slave.
Has not his suffering offspring clung,
Desponding round his fettered knee;
On his worn shoulder, weeping hung,
And urged one effort to be free!
His wife by nameless wrongs subdued,
His bosom's friend to death resigned;
The flinty path-way drenched in blood;
He saw with cold and phrenzied mind.
Strong in despair, then sought the plain,
To heaven was raised his stedfast eye,
Resolved to burst the crushing chain,
Or mid the battle's blast to die.
202

First of his race, he led the band,
Guardless of danger, hurling round,
Till by his red avenging hand,
Full many a despot stained the ground.
When erst Messenia's

The Messenians being conquered by the Spartans, and agreeably to the custom of the age, the miserable remnant led into slavery, under these circumstances were so inhumanly oppressed, that rising, and united in arms, they seized upon a Spartan fortress, and after innumerable injuries, inflicted and reciprocated, finally obtained their freedom.

sons oppressed,
Flew desperate to the sanguine field,
With iron cloathed each injured breast,
And saw the cruel Spartan yield.
Did not the soul to heaven allied,
With the proud heart as greatly swell,
As when the Roman Decius died,
Or when the Grecian victim fell.
Do later deeds quick rapture raise,
The boon Batavia's William won,
Paoli's time-enduring praise,
Or the yet greater Washington!
If these exalt thy sacred zeal,
To hate oppression's mad controul,
For bleeding Afric learn to feel,
Whose Chieftain claimed a kindred soul.
Ah, mourn the last disastrous hour,
Lift the full eye of bootless grief,
While victory treads the sultry shore,
And tears from hope the captive Chief.
While the hard race of pallid hue,
Unpracticed in the power to feel,
Resign him to the murderous crew,
The horrors of the quivering wheel.
203

Let sorrow bathe each blushing cheek,
Bend piteous o'er the tortured slave,
Whose wrongs compassion cannot speak,
Whose only refuge was the grave.
 

Leonidas.

210

CHARACTERISTIC PORTRAIT.

DELINEATED FROM THE LIFE BY AN INVISIBLE SPIRIT, FOR A MAN OF WORTH AND GENIUS, INSCRIBED TO THE SAME.

The above delineation was intended for a diplomatic character, recently returned to the retirement of his own country, with a determination, it was said, not again to employ his splendid talents in her public service, either at home or abroad.

It is also proper to add, even as it is true—that though originally intended for the public papers, this was never printed until now. The possible impropriety which might have been attached to the motives of the author, had she been traced and discovered, restraining her temerity.

In vain thy worth would every praise disclaim,
And live unhallowed by the voice of fame,
With graces that might folly's self disarm,
With sense to give deformity a charm,
With science, in such simple garb arrayed,
It seems of reason but the softening shade.
Of noble nature, generous, just and bold,
Unbribed by pleasure, unallured by gold.
Firm—but yet feeling. With a voice whose strain
Flows as it falls, and cannot flow in vain;
Since the fine cadence of expression seems,
Warmed by the speaking eye's electric beams,
211

That eye, whose varying powers such truth convey,
So dark, yet brilliant, so serene, yet gay.
Its glance so gentle, with such strength combined,
It seems the moving index of the mind,
Where all the meeting rays of genius shine,
And touch the lips to eloquence divine.
With every grace and every worth thy own,
To thee—unconscious of those gifts—alone,
The tribute of this humble lay will seem,
As the charm'd fiction of a poet's dream.
Or careless read, and thrown with ease aside,
Ne'er to thy generous self in thought applied.
Nor would the artist, rising round thy name,
Snatch the vain homage of a transient fame.
Ne'er wilt thou know what timid hand essays,
To sketch thy features, and reflect their praise.
Enough for me, that every glowing line,
Trace the bright semblance of a form like thine!
True to the life thy modest merit give,
Then rest unhonoured, and unnoticed live.
Thee, fame will follow, nor with scorn repay,
The growing honours of thy future day.
Nor yet to shades with stealing step retire,
To veil those powers which bid A WORLD admire.
213

STANZAS

TO GILBERT STUART,

ON HIS INTENDED PORTRAIT OF MRS. H. THE BEAUTIFUL WIFE OF ONE OF THE NAVAL HEROES OF THE U. S.

Stuart! I charge thy genius, try
To catch the enchantment of that eye.
Let HER, the fairest of the fair,
The myrtle wreath of beauty wear,
While round HER HAPPY HERO'S brow,
The laurels of a nation flow.
Be thy creative thought obey'd,
And call to life the featured shade.
Scarce touch the cheek with dawning red,
Soft as the leaf from roses shed;
214

But for the deeper lip prepare,
The rubied bud which ripens there.
That neck with clustering curls entwine,
Make all its pearly treasures thine.
Since never to thy critic eyes,
May there an earthly equal rise.
I charge thy genius, let it be,
Reflecting HER, and speaking THEE.

PROPHECY,

INSCRIBED TO COMMODORE JOHN RODGERS, OF THE AMERICAN NAVY.

This prophecy was literally fulfilled by the energy of arm, and of mind, victoriously displayed in the heroic defence by Commodore Rodgers, of the city of Baltimore.

Intrepid Veteran of the wave,
Rodgers! whose fame could terror bring
To them, the boldest of the brave,
The chosen of their Patriarch king.
Veteran! ere time's imperious sway,
Has brought the high meridian hour,
Or changed one jetty lock to grey,
Or touched thee with his withering power.
Attend, for thou art glory's son,
Born mid the battle's blaze to shine,
And known, when danger's deed is done,
To make the mildest mercies thine.
Hear what the poet-prophet knows,
Triumph is thine, and added fame,
Even ere the annual summer glows,
The deadly contest meets thy claim.
215

The green Atlantic felt thy sway,
As erst from dawn to fading light,
Thy hero helm's impetuous way,
Pursued the foe's elusive flight.
That green Atlantic is thy field,
There, though redoubling hosts assail;
The Ocean's Lord to thee shall yield,
And thee humane in victory, hail.

NAVAL SONG,

FOR THE PUBLIC DINNER, GIVEN IN HONOUR OF THE VICTORY OF COMMODORE PERRY, ON LAKE ERIE

Hail to the youth! whose arm achieved,
All that the patriot muse believed;
When led by valour's noblest aim
To reap the harvest field of fame.
Or like the nation's eaglet rise,
To suns that gleam in arctic skies.
Powerful of pinion, soaring wide,
Beyond the broad Atlantic tide,
To where bleak Erie's winter star,
Brings tempest to the front of war.
There glory met thee—victory there
Entwined the wreath thy temples wear,
And there the Briton, nobly brave,
His tributary honours gave.
Honours, of worth the gift and claim,
Great as the GRACEFUL CONQUEROR'S NAME.
Bless'd as his mild preserving power,
And generous as his Glory's hour.
216

DIRGE.

FOR THE PUBLIC FUNERAL OF CAPTAIN LAWRENCE.

Victim of a Nation's wrong!
Gallant sailor!—sufferer dear!
To thy pallid brow belong
Wreaths, impearled by victory's tear.
When the battle's blast begun,
Were thy living features seen,
Glorious as the risen sun,
As his parting ray serene.
All of heart and temper kind;
All of soul that seems divine,
Worthy of a hero's mind,
In a hero's form were thine.
Must we on thy hearse bestow,
Tears that speak a nation's grief,
While that nation's peans flow,
Grateful to her Victor chief.
As in Freedom's cause to die,
Was thy life's adoring prayer,
In her trophied earth to lie,
By the slain who slumber there.
Never o'er her warrior's grave,
May a nation's memory sleep,
Glory that outlives the brave,
Tears of angels there shall weep.
217

ODE,

INSCRIBED TO MAJOR GENERAL BROWN, CONQUEROR OF THE NORTH.

Graced by that brow's transcendant height,
Will the full wreath of glory flow;
Like Erie's vernal waters bright,
And stainless as his winter's snow.
Glory, that with triumphant tread,
Thee, and thy youthful warriors led.
What to a nation's heart so dear,
As he, who for her fame would die,
What calls a nation's generous tear,
Like HIM, who bleeds in victory!

Ere recovered from his dangerous wounds, Major General Brown was seen returning to war and to victory.


Each sacred wound, to her a gem,
More prized than England's diadem.
Nor ever, on that brow sublime,
Can the fine wreath, or fall, or fade;
But brightening with the breath of time,
Be green as Erie's fragrant shade,
When, breaking on the BORDER WAR,
Was seen to soar thy leading star.
Thine was to prove the Briton brave,
As the fell Indian's might to try,
Niagara's giant dome to save,
Or mid his thunder's dirge to die:
And where the Minstrel-Harp is known,
Thee shall the muses make their own.
218

SONG,

FOR THE PUBLIC CELEBRATION OF THE NATIONAL PEACE.

Tune—Rule Britannia.
Not for the blood-polluted car
Wake the triumphant song of fame,
But for the Chief who spares the war,
Touched by a suffering people's claim.
Hail Columbia! Columbia blest and free,
The Star of Empire leads to thee.
Let the rich laurel's baneful green
Bright on the warrior's front appear,
But olive in HIS path be seen,
Whose genius gives the prosperous year.
Hail Columbia! Columbia blest and free,
The Star of Empire breaks on thee.
Diffused around the sacred skies,
The electric ray of hope extends,
On every wing of commerce flies,
And to the earth's green lap descends.
Hail Columbia! Columbia blest and free,
The Star of Empire beams on thee.
Empire, that travels wide and far,
Sheds her last glories on THE WEST—
Born mid the morning realms of war,
She loves the peaceful evening best.
Hail Columbia! Columbia blest and free,
The Star of Empire rests on thee!
Then let the pledge of Freedom pass,
While every Patriot bosom glows,
219

And o'er the elevated glass
The amber of the vintage flows.
Hail Columbia! Columbia blest and free,
The Star of Empire falls with thee!

It will probably be perceived that the chorus of the above song, is in allusion to Bishop Berkley's prophecy:—

“Westward the course of Empire bends its way,
“The four first acts already past,
“The fifth shall close the drama of the day,
“Time's noblest offspring is the last.”

THE STAR GAZER.

Ah! say ye bright inhabitants on high!
Ye planetary travellers of the sky!
When the world-wearied sufferers sink to rest,
Is their's the mansion of your sparkling breast?
Will there the voice of pity pour its balm,
And her kind eye illume its heavenly charm?
Will soul meet soul, though forced on earth to part,
And wake with whispered wish the dreaming heart?
Shall life's poor pilgrim doom'd with grief to roam,
Find in your trembling rays a tranquil home,
Till the last trump vibrates its kindling call,
And the Immortal Mind encircles all?

The atrocious Lord Rochester was converted to Christianity by Bishop Burnet; at the time, and during the sufferings of an incurable decline of constitution. Upon which occasion, the horrors of his wretched mind, and the reproaches of his awakened conscience, seem property to illustrate the contrast of religious trust and error.

The younger Lord Lyttleton died as he had lived, wretched in principles, miserable in conduct, hopeless in sickness, and appalled in death; which was accelerated by the famous dream of the lady, and the bird, &c. &c. and most probably made more immediate by the proud and painful suppression of his desperate feelings, occasioning one of the ventricles of the heart to burst, by which he expired.


232

MORTAL AND IMMORTAL.

ADDRESSED TO ONE UNDER THE SOLICITUDE OF DOUBT.

Yes! Man is mortal! round that open brow,
Which, like the arch of promise, heaven reflected,
Speaks THE ETERNAL MIND; even there, the dull
Cold dews of death will hover, and those eyes,
Whose lustre seems an ever living ray
Of loveliness, and glory, soft pleading
With look of eloquence, they too must fade
And falter, languid in extinguished beauty.
That voice, which like the harp of angels, thrills
With no earthly strain, shall cease to vibrate,
Or age—oblivious age—more hard than death,
Shedding its late destruction, will chill
The heart's fine fervour, even round the rare
And radiant gem of genius, droop
With an uncheerly shade, mouldering to dust
And dark annihilation—age, in whose hour
Man, the blest image of benignant heaven,
He, whose majestic front and powerful form,
Looked a descended God, the good, the wise,
Shall rest unhallowed; with every featured charm
That waked the gaze, or warmed the pulse of passion,
Lost, and delightless—save, where unquiet,
Still the phantom memory comes musing,
Or hovering as a dream o'er past existence.
Thus speaks
The fading world—not thus the plighted friend,
Who, won and valued at life's blushing dawn,
Still while its setting sun, through many a cloud,
Gleams o'er the furrowed path, will love its slow
And mild declining, and still gaze enamoured
233

On the parting lustre, ere calm it sink
Beneath time's boundless ocean.
Shall ye
Not rest together? and together rise
On other worlds with renovated beams,
Unsevered, undiminished?
Grows the heart sad in cold doubt pondering
O'er life's vain promise—death's dread mystery?
Yet say! THOU SON OF IMMORTALITY!
Lives there not ONE, whom thy charmed thought can claim,
One ever faithful friend? whom the hard earth,
With poor adversity's unpitied wrongs,
And envy's blighting breath, and falsehood's wile,
And flattery's vain allurement, ne'er knew
To change, nor triumphed to divide—neither
Shall death disjoin—but rather to some star's
Enlightening orb, where the All seeing eye
Beams blessings infinite—adoring still,
The re-united spirit will ascend,
Waked by the kindling voice of seraphim.
Of God and loved are they, the true in heart,
Those solitary wanderers of the earth,
On whom were closed her haunts of happiness;
But their's the heritage and home of heaven,
With full oblivion of the ills they bore,
Patient and plaintless, from a sinning world,
Which on the guileless sufferer flings its glance,
And calls perdition, justice.
234

THE SABBATH.

AT A DISTANCE FROM MY HOME, AND MY CHURCH.

These lines were ocasioned by the sarcastic question of a fellow traveller, “Can you worship out of the pale of your own church?”

I stay not for the house of prayer,
For God is glorious every where,
In the lone wild his power is known,
As in high Heaven's surrounded throne.
And yet that house of prayer is dear
To those who have no portion here,
Dear in contrition's thoughtful sigh,
And dear in praise, the adoring eye,
Most dear the absolving word divine,
Which falls on faults and griefs like mine!
Ah! may those pleading griefs atone,
For every fault that life has known!
The organ's choral peal to hear,
Or the slow fall, soft-warbling clear,
Till the soul feels her God is near;
And, with the Diapason's note,
The songs of angels seem to float,
Or the rich voice—ne'er pour'd in vain,
If heaven sublime the mortal strain.
These would I claim on bended knee,
And in the Christian's worship see
The Christian's hope extend to me.
Nor while the holy Pastor's prayer
Proclaims the peace of God is there,
May the disturbing world betray
That hope—nor fright that peace away.
 

Confession,

Absolution,

and Pastoral blessing of the protestant Episcopal Church.

235

LINES

TO A BELOVED AND REVERED MINISTER OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH.

What e'er of hope's religious calm I know,
To thee, Director of my thoughts, I owe,
Thee—sacred shepherd of a pastoral care,
Won to thy praise, as wakened by thy prayer.
When doomed to feel of grief the feared excess,
And lost the dream of earthly happiness,
I saw thee from thine height of mind descend,
And in the sorrowing suppliant, know the friend.
That voice, which, like a missioned angel's strain,
Ne'er pours the fine, and favouring thought in vain;
Thought, born of wisdom—but as pity kind,
Profound, yet lucid—forceful, yet refined.
That thought—that voice—when sorrows full control
Had, like a wintery tempest, chilled the soul,
Could, like the vernal morning's gentle ray,
Bring the calm promise of restoring day.
Calm—but not brilliant—joys no more shall rise,
But mournful seasons gleam through weeping skies,
While thou—and heaven—a holier light bestow,
To guide the sufferer through her path of woe.
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