[Poems by Whittier in] A Study of Whittier's Apprenticeship as a Poet

And this is death! the beamless eye—
The cold and faded brow:
I've seen our boy in slumber lie,
But oh! 'twas not as now.
For then his young lip wore a smile,
And health was on his cheek,
And bright and lovely all the while,
He seemed of joy to speak.

He is not here—the soul hath sought
Its native home in Heaven;
And when or how it matters not,
That dust to dust is given!
Cold let the turf above him lie,
The flowers around him spring,
For even to a mother's eye
This sight no joy can bring.

And let him 'neath his altar lie,
His joy in life was there;
'Tis hallowed by his memory,
And sanctified with prayer,
And when his fate shall be our own,
And earthly toil shall cease,
Beneath that consecrated stone,
May we, too, sleep in peace.

Stanzas 1, 7, 8 Haverhill Gazette, January 26, 1826

THE EXECUTION OF LOUIS XVI

He clung to hope e'en at the hour
Appointed for his doom,
Its generous but deceitful power
Shone o'er his spirit's gloom.
When, on the scaffold, hope had flown,
No terrors then to him were known.

114

Calmly and with a steadfast eye
He gazed on that death scene,
The block, the axe, the headsman nigh,
On whose ill-boding mien,
A reckless, sullen hatred writ,
Revealed a heart for murder fit.

He sought to speak—the numbers round
Beheld the sign he made,
Each voice was hushed and stilled each sound,
An awful silence laid
On the dark crowds that rolled before,
Like ocean waves with ceaseless roar.

He spoke, the trumpet's deafening yell,
The drums discordant roar,
In cruel murmurs round him fell,
And he was heard no more,
In vain the anxious crowd pressed nigh—
They only came to see him die.

His last, his only hope was crushed
In vain he sought to speak,
Despair upon his spirit rushed,
And tears upon his cheek.
His pride, his energy was gone,
And thrice he wildly cried, “Undone.”

Ah! he had hoped by his appeal
To rouse a nation's pride
To bid the loyal grasp the steel,
And hasten to his side.
That hope was past, the headsman stood
Impatient for the scene of blood.

He bent him to the fearful block
With horror-glaring eye,
His neck was bared to meet the stroke,
The axe was lifted high.
The shuddering crowd with straining eyes,
Looked on the place of sacrifice.

The pale priest spoke, “Ascend to Heaven,
St. Louis' royal son.”

115

He ceased—the fatal blow was given,
The deed abhorred was done.
The bleeding head was lifted high
And “Vive la nation” rose the cry.

But fury flashed from many an eye,
That saw the deed of guilt,
And many a hand unconsciously
Grasped on the dagger's hilt.
Stearn vengeance until then supprest,
Flamed high in many a loyal breast.

Unhallowed deed! Columbia well
May shed, with grief endued,
O'er him who thus despairing fell,
The tear of gratitude.
He was her friend in danger's hour,
Her bulwark, 'gainst a tyrant's power.

Haverhill Gazette, January 6, 1827

MICAH IV, 3

A time shall come, when strife shall fail,
Its terrors all shall die;
And warriors, linked in battle mail
No longer shall defy.
The trumpet's sound, the clarion's breath,
Shall rouse no more to scenes of death.

The war-tried spear, the crimson blade,
Once lifted to destroy,
The cause of industry shall aid,
And heighten human joy.
The sword that flashed with baleful glare,
Shall form the scythe and plowman's share.

He who on fields with slaughter red,
Looked round with tearless eye,
And urged his war-horse o'er the dead
With fiendish apathy,
Shall cast his blood-bought spoils away,
And turn to mild angelic sway.

116

Thrice happy hour! haste on thy way,
Thou, whose untiring flight,
Hast left the scenes of earlier day,
Wrapt in oblivion's night,
And bring the glorious moment nigh,
When peace shall reign and strife shall die.

Haverhill Gazette, January 13, 1827

THE RESTORATION

Baruch, Chapter V

Put off, O fair Salem! thy garments of mourning,
The robe which in days of affliction was thine;
Again in thy strength and thy splendor returning,
Again the pure light of thine altars shall shine.
For a garment around thee,
Be righteousness worn;
Let the gemmed crown of glory
Thy temples adorn.

Arise, O fair city! the brightness of Heaven
Shall scatter the gloom that envelopes thy name;
To crown all thy honors, to thee shall be given
Mild-spirited peace, and unchangeable fame.
The beams of thy glory
Shall lighten the earth,
And men of all nations
Shall bow to thy worth.

Arise! look around! see thy sons without number,
Enraptured, draw near from the east and the west!
In thy blissful retreat shall the worn spirit slumber,
The mourner rejoice, and the weary find rest.
From hate and oppression
Thy sons shall return;
In the land of the stranger
No longer to mourn.

Each hill shall sink low in the vale it frowned over,
And level the path of thy childhood shall be;
Safe shall they pass, for the arm of Jehovah
Shall screen them from harm as they hasten to thee,

117

To the home of their fathers,
The weary shall come,
And the foe shall no longer
Compel them to roam.

Haverhill Gazette, January 27, 1827

LINES

On the death of Martha Jane, daughter of Nathan Chase, aged three years and three months.

Rest happy child! thy transient day
To sorrow's wasting pangs unknown,
Like some bright vision passed away,
Scarce witnessed ere forever flown.

Thy life was innocent—unmixed
With vice or passion's mad control—
'Twas past, ere earth-born guilt had fixed
Its sinful blight upon thy soul.

Departed one! affection's sigh
Must whisper round thy memory's shrine,
And teardrops dim the anxious eye
That oft so fondly gazed on thine.

But oh! let those who mourn thy doom,
Whose hearts with deep-felt griefs are riven,
Inspired by hope, beyond thy tomb,
Look up confidingly to Heaven.

Haverhill Gazette, January 27, 1827

THE EVE OF BATTLE

From “Recollections of a Soldier,” an unpublished poem

The sun had set, the winds were still,
And night drew round the camp-crowned hill
Her misty mantle—o'er the sky
Unnumbered beacons burst to view,
And slow the heavy clouds passed by,
Deep tinged with evening's sombre hue.

118

I wandered forth.—The tented grounds
No longer shook with war-like sounds.
The soldier's arm was nerveless now;
The frown of hate had left his brow,
And night restored with gentle sway
Those spirits, which the toils of day
Had broken, and the charm of sleep,
Oblivious, spirit-soothing, deep,
With magic power had chased away
The terrors of the coming fray.

The moon shone out above a cloud,
That veiled awhile her silvering ray;
Her brightness pierced its dusky shroud,
And rolled the scattered gloom away.
I saw the foeman's banners gleam
In moonlight o'er a neighboring height—
Proud banners! which were soon to stream
High o'er the thunder-cloud of fight.
I saw their watchful sentries glide,
Where, far along the rude hillside,
Couched on their arms, the foemen lay,
All waiting for the dawn of day,
When, rousing from the thrall of sleep,
The mad'ning trumpet-call should sweep
Aside each thought that dared to stray
From martial feat, and battle-bray;
When, mingling in the throng of fight,
The gleaming spear and axe of might,
The fiery crest, the bowing plume,
The flashing eye and brow of gloom
Should rouse the warrior's sternest power,
To meet the horrors of the hour.

There is a solemn power in night,
To day's bright imagery unknown,
When, gliding to the memory's sight,
The visions of the past are shown.
O, never from my mind will be
Erased the memory of that hour,
When dreams of glory's pageantry
Gave place to thoughts of softer power.

119

I thought of those with whom I passed
Youth's golden hour! when fancy cast
Her sun-bright radiance on my way,
When hope, too, lent its powerful ray.
I thought of her I left behind
When, to her fond affection blind,
I hastened to the scene of death,
To win a name in slaughter's path!
O, these were thoughts which well might wean
A heart like mine from battle's scene.

Haverhill Gazette, February 3, 1827

HOPE

Gay visions of hope! be ye near on the day
When the phantoms of sorrow encumber my way;
And when memory lingers with sorrowing eye,
To gaze on the wrecks of the past, be ye nigh—
Still point to the future, and promise me joy
Which grief cannot darken, nor mem'ry alloy.

Bright sunshine of hope! let thy gladdening ray
Chase the darkness of wo from life's varying way;
Let the gloom of regret from thy radiance depart,
And no longer o'er shadow the joys of my heart.
Let thy light-giving glories beam evermore there,
To free it from all the dull mists of despair.

Star of hope! though the night of misfortune should fall
On the dreams of my spirit, and darken them all,
Though adversity stretch her dark wings on my path
And pour on my head all her vials of wrath—
To lighten my woes, when all else is denied,
Be thou the fair beacon my footsteps to guide.

Haverhill Gazette, February 10, 1827

THE SUN

“Thy years must have an end. Thou wilt sleep in thy clouds careless of the voice of the morning.”

Ossian

Thou sun, whose earth-pervading rays,
Light of the world! hath shone,

120

Since first thy night-dissolving blaze
Was o'er thy darkness thrown—

O, ever till the tide of time
Shall cease its troubled flow,
The light, the joy of every clime,
Shall be thy peerless glow.

Thou hast seen earth's generations fall,
Her mightiest pass away;
Thou hast lighted up the grassy pall,
Where her sons of glory lay.

The gates of Thebes, the gilded towers
That told of Trojan pride,
That met thy beam in morning hours,
And flashed its radiance wide,

They are fallen now—and thou hast seen
Their ruins melt away;
Thou hast marked the ivy's shroud of green,
Steal o'er their slow decay.

Yet thou shalt sink like those—thy light
Will vanish from on high,
No more to chase the shadowy night,
Or paint the evening sky.

But man, whose works—whose mortal form
In awful ruin lies,
Beyond the earth's dissolving storm,
And death's pale realm shall rise.

A holier and a brighter day
Than thine, O Sun, shall dawn
Upon his soul, when thy quenched ray
Has ceased to hail the morn.

Haverhill Gazette, February 17, 1827

CHARLES EDWARD AFTER THE BATTLE OF CULLODEN

[_]

(Tune: “The Young Troubadour”)

God save the young Chieftain! he wanders alone,
Forever cast out from his kingdom and throne;

121

Yet proud is the sorrow, and manly the tear
That falls for the hero—the young Chevalier.

The march of his armies was gallant and proud,
As they covered the hills like a sun-gilded cloud;
The glance of the banner, the broadsword and spear,
Flashed light on the path of the young Chevalier.

The heart of his country beat high at his call,
And the chiefs and the clansmen came fast from the hall
The eye of the aged was bright with a tear
As he prayed for the arms of the young Chevalier.

For when their wild war cry arose on the air,
The voice and the fire of past ages were there;
And their souls were of flame as the moment came near
To bleed for the king—and the young Chevalier.

A dark change of spirit came over them soon!
It struck to their souls like a midnight at noon;
Away from the battle dispersed like the deer
They fled from their fame and the young Chevalier.

He sighed for the shame of his friends who had fled;
He sighed for the living and envied the dead;
Who, fallen like the leaves on the grave of the year,
Had breathed their last sigh for the young Chevalier.

God save the young Chieftain! while far and unknown
He flies from his country, his kingdom and throne;
The heart of the loyal is bleeding to hear
The fame and the fall of the young Chevalier.

Boston Statesman, February 17, 1827

THE SONG OF PEACE

“The battle ceased along the plain, for the bards had sung the song of peace.”

Ossian

O, joy was in the well-known strain,
Poured from that minstrel throng,
As o'er the corse-encumbered plain,
Their high and holy song

122

Came, on the rushing breezes borne,
The messenger of peace,
To still the din of the battle horn,
And bid the carnage cease.

Hushed was the strife, controlled
By that peace-proclaiming strain,
The parted waves of the battle rolled
From off the reeking plain.

O, potent was the sound,
That called the warrior back
From the strength of his hard-gained ground,
And the routed foemen's track.

O, soothing to the ear
Of the wounded, crushed and low,
Were the tones that stayed the lifted spear,
And the fiercely falling blow.

Ye bards, whose visions swell
The glories of our age,
Say, have your mighty lays no spell
To calm the warrior's rage?

No! 'tis not this you seek—
No meed for this you claim!
'Tis yours, in glowing terms to speak
Of the warrior's deathless name.

Ye tell of the fame that falls
Around the mighty dead,
Who, following glory's trumpet-calls,
In the throng of strife hath bled.

Heaven-hallowed peace! to thee,
A bard to fame unknown,
Would dedicate his minstrelsy,
And thy sweet influence own.

And O! had he the power of song
Which loftier spirits feel,
The joys that to thy sway belong,
His visions should reveal.

Haverhill Gazette, February 24, 1827

123

THE WANDERER'S RETURN

He had roamed, where over flood and vale
Helvetia's mountains frowned,
Their dark sides clothed in rocky mail,
Their hoary summits crowned
With snows unknown to earthly stain—
Assailed by summer suns in vain.

He had seen the sunlight gild the towers
And ancient hills of Rome;
He had listened in Iberia's bowers
To the muleteer's song of home;
He had seen the silvering moonlight play
Where Venice on her islands lay.

He had seen the flowery laurel wave
O'er Virgil's place of rest,
And the torrents of the deep Rhone lave
The banks that Petrarch pressed—
He had wandered in the orange grove
Where that love bard had sung of love.

Each scene had charms—each o'er his soul
Enchanting visions brought,
And dreams of yore by moments stole
Upon his raptured thought,
Where mouldering tower, or classic clime,
Unclosed the scroll of olden time.

But deeper far were rapture's thrills,
And purer the delight!
When, safe from all a wanderer's ills,
The joy-inspiring sight
Of home's green vales, its streams and bowers,
Called back the dreams of childhood's hours.

Haverhill Gazette, March 3, 1827

TO SARAH

The hour in which we met has come again,
When one more year is added to our woes,
One other wearied round of deadening pain
With darkened tide, still grimly onward flows.

124

Though friends are gone, though weeds grow o'er the grave
Of those who loved us when our hopes were green—
Though tempests round our young sweet flowers rave,
To cause a curse that they should e'er have been,

Yet still we are, and still we yet must be,
Poor breathing monuments of love and wrong,
Bright chilly icebergs on a summer sea,
Which melt beneath the sunbeam of a song.

And why is woe our unavailing lot?
Why stays the arrow from the bow of Fate?
Oh! could this world but say that we are not,
And that our space of life is desolate—

And could we soar from this relentless sphere,
To untried worlds, which may be yet more chill,
The change were pleasure, though the damning tear
Should flow more deeply from its shore of ill.

But worlds like this were never made for thee,
Thou never could'st have once been formed to die,
There is a spirit-stirring ecstasy,
Within thy soul, formed for eternity.

The lingering sickness and the mouldering wane,
Which hover o'er our fairest jubilee,
Depicted on thy face in living pain,
Were never made, my dearest one, for thee.

Then let us haste from this unhallowed scene,
To that which ne'er can rival this in woe;
Where chilling death can never intervene
With fears like those, alas, which now we know—

Oh! be it ever ill or blessedness,
If but beside thee there is still delight
To watch o'er thee in joy or in distress,
So thou wilt never wing from me thy flight.

Boston Statesman, March 8, 1827

125

THE QUAKER

Who comes with his hat-brim resembling the wing
Of the bird which old Sinbad the mariner saw?
Such hats must be surely admirable things,
The wearer to shield from the elements' war.

And his coat! view it and you ever will know it;
In its roundabout fashion how oddly it suits!
His vest with long pocket flaps hanging below it,
With drab-colored breeches and old-fashioned boots!

Me, from such strange beings may Providence save—
I tell you, Horatio, he seems to my view,
Like one of our ancestors crept from his grave,
The fashions prevailing in old times to shew;

For I'm certain no rational man would have crowded
Himself into notice exciting our gaze
When in such unseemly habiliments shrouded;
Save one of the gentry of primitive days.

Beware, my good friend, and revile not too rashly
A person you know not, because of his dress;
For, believe me, the man you have pictured so harshly,
Does many a noble endowment possess.

True, he has not decked out his humble exterior
In those fast varying fashions of vanity born—
To such idle allurements his mind is superior
'Tis his mind, not his person he seeks to adorn.

He stands in the vortex of folly and fashion,
A mark for the sneers of the vulgar and rude,
Yet beholding them all with the eye of compassion,
And lamenting that pride was their reason subdued.

Then let him pass on with his broad slouching hat,
His roundabout coat and his boots of old fashion;
Since his heart is adorned, notwithstanding all that,
With the bright gems of meekness, of truth and compassion.

Haverhill Gazette, March 17, 1827

126

HAROUN

By the ruins of Palmyra (From “Haroun,” an unfinished poem)

Time-mouldered ruins! still ye wear
A semblance of your ancient pride!
E'en now your moss-grown columns bear
A grandeur which the wasting tide
Of thronging years could not efface;
Although in their o'erwhelming wave,
Has sunk each record that might trace
The name and power of those who gave
Such splendor to the desert plain,
When, bursting through the twilight's dun,
Tall tower and marble-columned fane,
Was lighted by Arabia's sun.

Pillar and column! ivy wrapt,
Scathed by the desert's blasting storms,
Full many a son of pride has slept
For ages neath your wasted forms.
They sleep forgotten—you alone,
Despite of time, remain to tell
That here ambition's toils were known—
That here a city rose and fell.

They are no more—stern Time has thrown
The shroud of years their memories o'er,
Their glorious deeds no longer known,
Awake the voice of praise no more.

Glory and fame! oh what are they,
But meteor gleams whose flowing light,
Illumine a moment life's dark way,
And leave it wrapt in deeper night.

Haverhill Gazette, March 24, 1827

127

TO SARAH

Thou once didst doubt, my lovely one,
My faith and truth as though they were
Like wintry clouds unshone upon
By love, which once was flashing there—
But all was cold within my breast,
As is the frozen lake at rest.

But no reproach—nay, not a sigh,
Was borne upon thy honied breath;
A lone despair was in thine eye,
Foretelling all of woe, of death.
Thy frame was bending as the rose
Droops at a summer evening's close.

And couldst thou smile, aye, when the dart
Was quivering in thy fond heart's blood:
Oh, couldst thou see thy dreams depart,
Chased by my black ingratitude;
And yet love on in tenderness,
The author of thy deep distress.

Yet thou art undeceived at last,
For sunny days again are thine;
Those clouds that threatened us are past,
And thou, pure lovely one, art mine.
Come care—the many wrinkled brow
Has naught of peril for me now.

Fair one—whose soul is purity,
Looks on this world, as though 'twere given,
By a behest of Deity,
But as a resting place toward heaven—
What offering worthy of thy shrine,
Could come from this poor heart of mine.

There is a deep response—it wells
From that bright fount, that bubbling sea,
Of Conscience, which within me smiles
And speaks,—“Let me be worthy thee.”

Boston Statesman, March 27, 1827

128

PSALM 137

Euphrates' stormy tide
Rolled hoarsely murmuring on,
We sat upon its sounding side,
And thought of moments gone.
Remembrance of our home was nigh,
Of Salem's shrines we thought—
Tears glistened in each captive's eye,
With mournful wildness fraught.
The warrior's sigh, the matron's wail
Was mingled in the passion gale.

Unstrung on willow trees,
That o'er the waters flung
Their shadows varied by the breeze,
Our tuneless harps were hung,
And scornful foes, exulting o'er
Our nation's nameless wrongs,
Bade us awake their chords once more,
With Zion's holy songs,
With strains that erst were wont to fill
The altars on her hallowed hill.

How could we raise the song
Within the stranger's land?
Could we the sacred notes prolong
Amidst a pagan band?
O Salem! if I thee forget,
If Zion's holy hill
Depart from my remembrance, let
My hand forget its skill,
To touch the harp with sweetness strong,
And deathless silence chain my tongue.

Haverhill Gazette, April 1, 1827

THE LYRE

“There is a living spirit in the lyre.”
Montgomery

Grant me the spirit of the Lyre,
And skill to touch its tuneful strings;
Breathe on my soul a poet's fire,
And fancy's pure imaginings:

129

Then let the storms of fortune fall,
In darkness round the dawning day,
Let torturing memory lift the pall
Of gone-by years, discovering all
The joys which time hath swept away.

Oh! I will smile amid the storm,
If laurels of the lyre adorn
My brow, though penury rear her form,
And proud ones dart the glance of scorn.

The breathings of the minstrel's lyre
Remain when he who gave them birth,
And touched their strains with living fire,
Has passed beyond the thrall of earth.
And far their quenchless beacon glow,
On time's oblivious tide appears,
In all their mournful forms to show
The wrecks that throng its course, and throw
A light upon the tomb of years.

Minstrels of power! your deathless lays,
First roused my heart with rapture high,
And kindled in that heart a blaze,
Partaking of your energy.
High masters of the Lyre! what though
Between us ocean's surges roll,
They cannot check the rapturous flow
Of joys that worldlings never know—
The pure communion of the soul.

Haverhill Gazette, April 21, 1827

UPON THE INSANE HOSPITAL

(From Miss C. G. A's. Album)

Oh who that feel the arrow of despair
Rankling within the heart's blood-gushing core
Would not with rapture hail that soothing care
Which plucked the dart, and bid it pain no more.

130

But there are ills, so shapeless, undefined,
Which come in bitter wakings and in dreams,
Pouring their burning waters o'er the mind,
In scorching floods, like Etna's lava streams.
The tale is true—look at yon haggard thing,
Which starts in horror at the sea-bird's cry—
Who sees a demon in each flitting wing
Which thought may brush across his memory.
Alas “his wits are lost”—frail memory's glass,
With all his hopes and visionings are broken—
All of his bye-gone joys are but a mass
Of present ill—himself the living token.
Within thy walls, bright monument of good,
The scattered links of Reason oft are joined—
Then take this humble meed of gratitude
It comes from thy blessed votary, the mind.

Boston Statesman, May 10, 1827

LINES

Written after reading Lord Byron's description of a tempest among the Alps.

“Most glorious night!
Thou wert not sent for slumber—let me be
A sharer in thy fierce and far delight—
A portion of the tempest and of thee.”

Bard of the lofty spirit! thou,
When sternly burst the midnight storm
On many a darkened Alpine brow,
And Jura's cloud-enveloped form,
Could'st smile amid the lightning's glare,
And listen with intense delight,
When thunders shook the mountain air,
And storm-winds swept the caverned height!

Thine was a spirit that might well
Rejoice at nature's wildest mood;
And when the tempest fiercely fell
Amid that frowning solitude,
Hold converse with the appalling scene,
Invoke the genius of the storm,
And with a high and dauntless mien,
Confront his lightning-withered form.

131

Oh! what to thee were sunny rills,
Or flower-gemmed green, or stainless sky,
The light mist wreathing on thy hills,
Or morn's or sunset's pageantry?
The midnight tempest was thy choice,
For 'twas an emblem of thy soul—
The sweeping torrent's awful voice,
The thunder's long-repeated roll,

Could find an echo in thy breast.
The scowling clouds that hung around
Time-hallowed Jura's storm-proof crest,
And clothed its peaks in gloom profound,
Had less of darkness than the night
Which gathered round thy mental eye—
A darkness fraught with power to blight
The noblest charms of poesy.

Haverhill Gazette, May 19, 1827

A TWILIGHT SONG

Listen, Love to me
While night's dew is falling—
Softly from yon tree,
Thine own bird is calling—
Yes, hear him trill,
No song of ill,
'Tis love, love, alone;
Then listen, Love to me,
Under this oaken tree,
Ere yet his notes are gone.

The pearl's purest beam
Is when the moonlight gleam,
Shines on the gem;
And thy glowing eyes
Where bright pleasure lies
Will rival them;
Then turn on me thy glance,
And whisper words of bliss;
Make brighter visions dance,
Make mine, true happiness.

132

Spirits now are seen,
Twining greenest wreaths;
Hark! from yonder glen,
Music's love note breathes.
Speak! lovely one, and wake
Hopes that cannot die;
Speak! beauteous one, and take,
A full heart's ecstasy.

Boston Statesman, May 22, 1827

TO SARAH

The bird of land when far at sea
Looks wishful toward the shore;
The skiff, its oars pulls fearfully
When night the sky is o'er.

The wanderer in a distant clime,
Will think oft of his cot,
Remembering where the matin chime
Pealed out, “Forget me not.”

The last lone one whom madness binds,
Within its burning chain,
Sometimes will feel sweet reason winds
Blow o'er its scorched plain.

The flower, the sun, the garnished skies
Their seasons ever keep—
Thus my relentless destinies
Have doomed me still to weep.

For thou and bliss are still away,
And clouds make life a night—
There comes no hope with its pale ray
To give me thee and light.

Dearest! when comes the stilly eve
When stars are quivering high
Let fancy this dear vision weave
That thine own love is nigh.

Let the soft breeze as it sweeps on,
Reveal this truth to thee;
That, though thou art awhile alone,
Alone thou canst not be—

133

For the heart that feels, and the tear that steals,
Though now in distance hidden—
In the twilight hour, in love's own bower,
Are with thee though unbidden.

Then blame not him whom fate has riven
From thee a passing while,
But weep that he has lost a heaven
When absent from thy smile.

Boston Statesman, June 2, 1827

JOB III, 19

“The small and great are there, and the servant is free from his master.”

Drear place of dreamless solitude! to thee
Earth's generations pass. The small, the great,
The mighty monarch, and the meanest slave
Unceremonious mix their equal dust
Within thy gloom-wrapt mansions. One has known
The world's high honors—servitude and pain
Have been the other's lot; but in the grave,—
Stern leveller of mortal dignity,—
They now are equals. Ye that seek for fame,
To shed its halo round your last abode!
The grave hath hearts, which oft as yours hath swelled
At fulsome adulation—at the applause
Of wondering thousands; these forgotten lie,
Oblivioned in the labyrinth of years,
Which envious time hath on their memory heaped.
So shall it be with you—awhile may fame,
Faint and in whispers round your place of rest
Tell of departed greatness—time at length
Shall silence that small voice—at length shall bring
The monument, that ostentatiously
Rears its tall head, emblazoned with the name
And deeds of him, who 'neath its base returneth
Unto original dust, as low as is
That wasted form, and shall amalgamate
Its crumbling ruins with the dust it honoured.

Haverhill Gazette, June 2, 1827

134

FRIENDSHIP

“What is friendship but a name?”

'Tis but a name—a poet's dream,
A shadowy form to fancy nigh,
But faithless as the meteor's gleam,
Flung o'er a dark and scowling sky.
Yet, Friendship! there is in thy name
A mystic charm—our dreams of thee
Are all too bright, too pure to claim
A kindred with reality.

[OMITTED]

Alas, for life! it ne'er can know
So much of pure and heavenly bliss,
And Friendship's high and sacred glow,
Must fade before man's selfishness!
A word can burst the strongest tie
That friendship twines around her heart,
One haughty look, one cold reply,
Can bid its brightest dreams depart.

Stanzas 1 and 7 Haverhill Gazette, June 9, 1827

THE SEAMAN'S FUNERAL

'Twas midnight—and the waters slept
Beneath the light the pale moon gave,
And wreathless was the mist that wrapt
The tranquil bosom of the wave.
The ocean wind was chained—its breath
Scarce moved the pennon's drooping fold,
All seemed to suit the scene of death
That bowed the spirits of the bold.

They raised the form of him they loved,
To bear it to its lowly home;
Each generous seaman's heart was moved,
Each aspect wore the shade of gloom,
As slowly down the vessel's side,
They lowered the life-deserted clay,
To meet the chill and noiseless tide,
That opened to receive its prey.

[OMITTED]

135

And there is naught to mark his grave;
The moonlight falls as sweetly there—
As lightly rolls the sparkling wave,
As gayly melts the mist in air,
As if no funeral's dull array
Had e'er disturbed its solitude—
As if no mortal relics lay
Beneath the cold, unconscious flood.

Yet calm he rests, as those who sleep
Beneath the green earth's flowery sod,
Although his mansion, chill and deep,
Shall ne'er by weeping friends be trod.
And though no stone with sculptured line,
His name, his birth, his fortune tells,
Pure at affection's living shrine,
The memory of the seaman dwells.

Stanzas 1, 2, 6, 7 Haverhill Gazette, June 16, 1827

LINES

Written after reading “The Warrior's Song” published in the Memorial of 1827

Grasp! warrior, grasp the baleful steel,
Thy banner to the sunlight fling,
Haste! let thy charger's iron heel,
On mail-clad bosoms ring;
When blood-red fields are lost and won,
Shall dreadless spirits stay?
Go! beauty's hand shall wave thee on,
And point thy daring way.

[OMITTED]

And what though glory's sunlight fall,
When thou are gone, upon thy name,
Can death's impervious prison wall
Re-echo to the voice of fame?
Can stately tread of warlike men,
Or peal of funeral gun—
Give rapture to thy spirit, when
Its earthly power is done?

136

Or can thy slumbers be like those,
Which mild and peaceful spirits have?
When, 'neath the monument that throws
Its shadow o'er a nation's grave;
Thy form is laid—not so, thy guilt
Shall bid death's calmness fly—
The blood thy reckless blade has spilt,
Shall send from earth its cry.

Stanzas 1, 6, 7 Haverhill Gazette, June 23, 1827

THE RUIN

Dark relic of an age gone by!
Whose mossy towers and columns grey,
Reared up against the evening sky,
Seem mighty even in decay!
The moon looks on the ragged walls,
But lights no warrior's glancing crest,
There's night and silence in those halls,
Where gauntlet hand and mailed breast
Flashed back the torches' midnight glow;
Where minstrel honors well were sought,
Where warriors at the red wine's flow,
Their dangers and their toils forgot.

Helming a rock which looks in scorn
O'er ocean's darkly heaving flood,
Thy beauty, not thy grandeur gone,
Thou standest in thy solitude
The representative of years
Long sunk in time's oblivious tide—
How solemn, at this hour, appears
Thy wreck of loftiness and pride!

Thy lords of high renown have passed
With all their power and wealth away,
And darkly now thy ruins cast
Their shadows where the mighty lay;
Beneath whose proud and mighty tread
Thy stony floors have ceased to ring
Thy beacon tower has ceased to shed
A lustre o'er their marshalling

137

Of fearless bands. The hand of death
Hath chained their eagle spirits down,
And glory has not left a wreath,
The memory of the dead to crown.

Dark-dealing men! 'twas theirs to wield
Oppressions unrelenting brand,
The power was theirs, their hearts were steeled,
And vainly groaned an injured land.
And, crumbled ruin—can I mourn
To see thy splendor thus decayed?
Or can I wish those days return
Which saw thee guard a tyrant's head?
No—for the peasant's lowly shed
Has more endearing charms for me,
Since there has peace her blessings spread,
And there is truth and liberty.

Haverhill Gazette, July 7, 1827

THE CONVENT

Mansion of solitude and gloom!
Dark prison of the soul!
The living's cold and sunless tomb,
Where bigotry's control
Binds down the heart and chills its powers
Of gratitude and love,
And where life's dull and dreary hours
In sullen sameness move.
I feel no reverence while I gaze
Upon its hoary walls:
What, though they speak of other days—
There issue from thy halls
E'en now, a sad, a mournful tone—
'Tis stealing on the air;
The wasting sigh, th' unheeded moan,
Are wildly mingling there.

Oh! man, a spirit to shed
A happy influence round,
To hope, to love, to virtue dead,
These dark abodes have bound.

138

To be denied the interchange
Of pure affection's spell,
To find all objects cold and strange,
To bid e'en hope farewell.
To render life (which is at best
A sorrowful sojourn)
A vale where nought but shadows rest,
And where the eye can turn
On nought but objects veiled in night,
And horrible as those
Unearthly visions of affright,
Salvator's scenery shows!

Can this be faith? must all that soothes
Life's stern and rugged way,
All that delights and all that soothes
Our transitory day,
Give place to darkness and despair,
To chilling hopelessness?
Ah, surely no!—True faith should wear
A brighter garb than this—
The flowery plain, the glorious sky,
The stream that wanders free,
The snow-browed mountain, rude and high,
The wild and trackless sea,
Each hath a holier, purer shrine,
To hearts of feeling given—
Each breathes an influence all divine,
A tone that speaks of Heaven.

Deeply the organ's notes may roll,
These stately halls among,
The solemn cowl, and sable stole,
May sweep in pride along.
The lifted cross, the taper dim,
The clouds of incense shed,
The altar round,—the funeral hymn,
Low chanted o'er the dead,
May all be here,—But what are they
Compared to nature's shrine?
The empty forms—the vain array,
The ostentatious sign,

139

Are mockeries all; but those who meet
In thankfulness and love,
With earth's green verdure 'neath their feet,
The tranquil heaven above
Where for the organ's lofty swell,
The sounding breeze is given,
Such, such have felt that earth could tell,
Of purity and heaven.

Haverhill Gazette, July 14, 1827

LIFE'S PLEASURES

[_]

(Preceded by the editorial note given below)

The following lines are from the pen of genius—from a young man who has given many decided proofs in the Haverhill paper of a talent that only needs the trimming hand of care to make it shine one of the brightest lights in our poetical firmament. The writings of Bernard Barton have shown that a Quaker's plainness and simplicity are not inconsistent with “thoughts that breathe and words that burn,” and we hope to see from this writer another confirmation of this truth. Indeed a decidedly good poetical talent is so rare, that we hail it under any auspices, with the full conviction that it belongs to the community to encourage and assist its progress. We urge our correspondent to continue the good work, always remembering that toil and skill are almost synonyms; and assuring him that we shall rejoice to receive his contributions.

Life hath its hour of joy—there falls,
No gloom on childhood's sunny brow,
No care that bows—no bond that thralls
The heart, can life's gay morning know.
But oh! for childhood's sunny hours
In vain the heart in after years
Shall seek—when withered by the blight
Of disappointment—when the cares
Of life are crowding on the mind,
When by fate's faithless phantom led
In search of joy, it mourns to find
The promised bliss forever fled.

140

Life hath its hour of golden dreams,
Of confidence and vows of truth—
When fancy with his brightest beams
Has lighted up the path of youth;
But soon or late a time must come
When dreams of youth must pass away,
And sorrow cast its veil of gloom
Before its bright and cheering ray;
The noblest feelings of the heart,
Of pure and deep affection born
From the chilled bosom shall depart,
Withered by cold neglect and scorn.

Life hath its hour of Love—it brings
A strange compound of hopes and fears;—
Brightest of Life's imaginings
Is Love in youth's unclouded years;
But oh! how oft its charm hath passed
Like visions of the night away,
Swept o'er by disappointment's blast
Leaving the heart in dread decay;—
The fondest and the loveliest form
That e'er hath known love's rapturous spell
Has sunk beneath the wasting storm
That on its true affections fell.

Life hath its bliss—the bliss that flows
From consciousness of having done
Our duty, at life's weary close,
When slowly sinks existence' sun;
When we can look around and see
No dark accusing spirit near,
When from the bond of earth set free
The weary soul hath joy to hear
Its summons to a brighter clime,
Where earthly woes no entrance find,
And when the dreary hours of time
Are left with all their cares behind.

Boston Statesman, July 21, 1827

141

NIGHT

“Hath mortal eyes these glories seen,
Yet turned to such a world as ours.”
De Leon's “Noche Serena”

Blest lights of Heaven—celestial gems
Of pure and fadeless glow,
Beaming like golden diadems
On evening's dusky brow!
There is a soul-enchanting spell,
A power in each mild ray
Ye shed abroad o'er night, to quell
The stormy cares of day.

I've seen the glorious morning burst
The dim array of night.
I've seen the sunlight when it first
Glanced over tower and height,
I've seen a flood of glory flung
By sunset o'er the sky,
When every cloud in air that hung,
Received the gorgeous dye.

But thou, O dim and moonless night!
I love thee more than all
Of morning's earth-rejoicing light,
Or evening's glorious fall!
Inspired by thee, I drain the cup
Of wild imaginings,
I love thee, for thou bearest up
My mind from earthly things.

There is no sound on hill or heath
The forest hath no tone—
And silent flows the stream beneath
The dark oaks that have grown
Above its banks—there is a deep,
Fixed quietness around
'Tis nature's hour of calm and sleep
And O! it is profound.

[OMITTED]

Let others seek the gay sunshine,
The pomp and glare of day;

142

The tranquil hours of night be mine,
For then can fancy stray
Unchecked by aught of earthly things
And inspiration's glow
Can lend my mind mysterious wings
To fly from every wo.

O starry host! bright page thou'rt writ
By an Almighty hand
Glory like thine alone is fit
To speak of God's command.
Roll on! roll on! ye stars of night,
'Till doubting mortals own
That in your paths of stainless light
Eternal power is shown.

Stanzas 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8 Haverhill Gazette, July 21, 1827

[Yes! brightly does the sunlight fall]

[_]

The Indians supposed the White Mountains to be the residence of supernatural beings, and therefore never ventured to ascend them. This curious tradition is preserved in Josselyn's New England.

Yes! brightly does the sunlight fall
On yonder mountain's naked brow—
Its splintered peaks and columns tall,
Are touched with morning's earliest glow.
There's music in the leafy shroud
That wraps in green its giant form,
There's rainbow glories in the cloud
That wreaths around its summit proud,
Dim relic of the recent storm.

Far down the cliffs, by tempest riven,
The chainless mountain streams are rolled,
Freed from the gloom which night had given,
Their flashing waves are touched with gold.
My son—I see thine eagle eye
Is fixed upon the gorgeous scene—
I see thou hast aspirings high,
To climb yon pillars of the sky,
Where mortal foot hath never been.

143

But go thou not—thy pathway there,
Is fraught with dark and nameless ills;
The dreadless spirits of the air
The demons of the clouded hills
There hold communion. When in wrath,
The tempest stoops o'er yon grey peaks,
Their dark forms shade the lightning's path,
And mid the whirlwind blast of death,
Is heard their wild, unearthly shrieks.

O! I could tell to thee a tale,
My gallant sires have often told,
When bending downwards to the vale,
The clouds of coming tempest rolled
From those veiled heights. 'Twas of a young
And dauntless chief, who ne'er had turned
From where the sound of conflict rung
Where knives were drawn, and bows were strong,
His fiery soul with rapture burned.

It was a glorious hour like this—
The sun had flung his veil aside,
And lightened with his mounting kiss
The hoary mountain's brows of pride
The chieftain saw the night shades roll
From off the crags and melt away,
And then a mighty purpose stole
Upon his proud, unconquered soul,
And none his stern resolve could stay.

“I'll seek,” he cried, “that frowning steep,
I'll meet the demons of the air—
Let coward souls from danger keep,
'Tis mine to snatch new triumphs there!”
The ancients of our tribe were near,
They sought to check his youthful pride—
They hold him many a tale of fear,
Of spectral hand and shadowy spear,
Seen dimly on the mountain's side.

He scorned them all—he grasped his spear
As one whose purpose none might stay—
He called his brethren, slaves to fear,
And proudly took his daring way,

144

Up the dark heights, whose forest veiled
His form from many an anxious eye.
Three times the light of morning hailed
Those rugged peaks by man unscaled,
And thrice the sunset streaked the sky.

Then when the light of day had passed,
Clouds gathered on the mountain's brow—
Deep thunders rolled, and fierce and fast
The lightning flung its lurid glow,
Breaking the mountain's solitude
Was heard full many a fearful cry—
And spectral forms in darkness stood
Above the rushing mountain flood,
And waved their shadowy arms on high.

The storm retired—the sunlight fell
In beauty on the hills again,
Where not a trace was left to tell
Of desolation's midnight reign.
But he—the youthful chieftain came
To view his anxious friends no more—
And oh! a blight passed o'er his fame,
And none dared whisper of the name
They hailed so joyously before.

His was an effort all too stern,
Too fraught with ills for man to try—
And hence, my son, I bade thee turn
From yon grey peaks thy kindling eye.
When music from their woods is heard,
When light clouds o'er their summits come,
Think on the fate of him who dared
The voice of age to disregard,
And seek thou not the spirits' home.

Haverhill Gazette, July 28, 1827

TO THE SUN

I love thee in thy dying hour,
For then thou speak'st of death to me;
And when thou light'st the coral bower
Which rises 'neath the waveless sea,

145

I love thee more, for thou dost thine
On things like this poor heart of mine.

I love thee, Sun—when thou dost come,
Fresh from thy sleep, to chase the mist
Which hovered like a fearful gnome,
On mountain tops thy beams have kissed.
For then thy glow is on the grave
Of her I loved—where wild flowers wave.

Shine on—and may thy glory pour
Its tide full soon upon the place
Which marks that my career is o'er,
With all its woe—its bitterness—
And then, sweet Ellen, I shall be
Above yon stars, at peace with thee.

I love thee, Sun,—thy daily course
Assists the flagging wings of Time;
Thou wast of him the cause, the source,
To cheer his way through every clime.
Oh Sun! thou canst not cheer my gloom,
Unless thy ray rests on my tomb.

Boston Statesman, August 4, 1827

HALCYON DAYS

Were there no halcyon days? oh yes,
There were in hours gone by,
When cherubs of pure happiness
Came laughing up the sky
Like Naiads from the deep, deep sea,
They came in loveliness to me.

Oh youth—thy perfumed waving plumes,
Are torn by life's rude blast;
And when they've beat on earth's cold tomb
Their beauty all has passed;—
The smile which once was in thine eye
Becomes thy tear, adversity.

146

But yet, sweet memory, thy store
Preserves infantile hours,
And throws a sacred incense o'er
Their lonely withered bowers.
Still I can sing to halcyon days,
E'en now, one little air of praise.

My mother! and that witching eve
When God and nature smiled,
When thou, my long-lost Genevive,
Warbled that song so wild!
Aye—they will come and prove to me
The world was not all misery.

Those days when 'neath the forest oak,
I dreamed ambition's dream,
Whispered this heart could not be broke,
While Hope held out one beam;—
Oh it is sweet to be deceived,
E'en in the hour when most bereaved.

But, halcyon days, I envy ye,
That once did visit me;
Gone is your joyous revelry,
Beyond life's bitter sea;
But as the prophet did of old,
I grasp your parting mantle's fold.

New youth will come in other spheres,
And then again we'll meet;
Forgotten when these bitter tears,—
This world's unkind deceit:
And we will shout with gladness there
Where comes not ill or black despair.

Like friends whom Fortune's arm hath driven
Apart to distant lands,
We'll meet beneath a milder heaven,
In pristine Friendship's bands,—
And there mid those resplendent rays
We'll sing together, Halcyon days.

Boston Statesman, August 4, 1827

147

POEM

I could not weep—I could not weep—
The fount had ceased to flow.
Then came that dull, that stilly sleep,
The dead alone can know,—
I felt like those whose stiff repose
Rests 'neath the weight of Alpine snows.

The Asphaltitian lake is rife
With Death's own offerings—
I would that this poor unblessed life
Were like those painless things.
But agony and I are living
Both unforgiven and unforgiving.

Tomorrow's sun comes from the sea
On joyous hearts,—not mine,
Ambition weaves her witchery,
But not my brows to twine.
The sun has no enlivening ray
That wreath long since has passed away.

Lonely as rocks by ocean lashed
Come life's rude waves to me,
Rudely as ships on coral dashed,
Strikes worldly courtesy.
Yet the calm shall come when not a breath
Shall enter the house of withering death.

Yet winter has its bonny spring,
And why not one for me?
It comes, it comes in blossoming,
Sweet Helen, from thine eye.
Aye, we will laugh at Death awhile,
For life and hope are in thy smile.

Boston Statesman, August 11, 1827

A CALM AT SEA

I would not rest so still on those dark waters,
Where yonder bark upheaves her milky sail,
Like a white crag from out the glassy deep;
For it would seem as if the pulse of mind,

148

Had stopped its course, and man by Fate was fixed,
A living dead one, who to think or feel,
Must ever think or feel the same dull thoughts;
A monument undying of dead life.
And yet those are who thus do gaze on things,
Until the tide of Time will bear them off
And then, poor leaden souls, they slowly sink
And the blue waters cover them.
A ship at rest! An image of despair.
Around it silence, yet within its hulk,
A consciousness of ill—of fettered restlessness;
Bound like a victim at the stake to die,
Who bears the torment, yet seems not to feel.
And thus it is with man whose frame is chained
To this poor earth, by the frail bonds of life,
When Hope points out another better sphere,
Where are forgotten all the pains of this.
He waits, a ship at rest, for some blest breeze,
To waft him onward to the port of heaven.

Boston Statesman, August 11, 1827

TO “ROY” (N. P. Willis)

On reading “Misanthropic Hours, No. 2”

Yes! I have dwelt upon thy lays
With glowing heart—my humble praise
Unsparingly to thee was given;
For I believed that thou wast one,
The muse's pure and sunlit heaven,
With cloudless splendor shone upon.
And little did I deem the lyre
Which could so feelingly portray
The anguish of the royal sire,
And conquering Jephthah's deep dismay—
The lyre that brought that bitter hour,
When Jesus in the garden knelt,
Before me with a strength and power
To make my stubborn feelings melt,
So soon would leave its lofty tone—
The spell of power—the winning lay,
And voice of charity disown—
Feelings, which I am proud to say

149

Are mine—In truth I ne'er have known
That “hollow painted pageantry”
Such as thy scornful lays have shown
Creation's fairest work to be,
The “glowing lip,” the “icy heart,”
The “heaven and earth together flung,”
The levity which hath no part
With nobler feelings, and the tongue
Of trifling converse. These may be
Perhaps with truth to some applied.
But, should one form of vanity
Give thee occasion to deride
That sex, without whose softening charms,
Man's gloomy soul were desolate—
That sex, whose tenderness disarms
The woes that on life's journey wait.

I've seen the form of woman bend
When man's would not. I've seen her eye
Uplifted as she knelt to send
Her pure and stainless thoughts on high.
I've seen her bending o'er the bed,
With troubled brow and glistening eye
Where sickness bowed the sufferer's head,
And quenched the strong man's energy.
I've seen her hand of kindness deal
Raiment and food to mourners, whom
Man's scorn and pride had made to feel
The anguish of the wanderer's doom,
I've seen her to the starry sky—
The wooded cliff and torrent fall,
In rapture raise her kindling eye,
And grateful bless the God of all.

Hast thou forgotten her who smoothed
The pillow of thy infancy?
The voice that erst thy slumbers soothed—
Is not that shrined in memory?
Was not a mother's holy love
Around thee in thy childish mirth?
And did it not appear above
The low and sensual things of earth?

150

And canst thou then despise and spurn
The sympathies of woman's heart,
And, with a scornful spirit, turn
From visions, that may well impart
A rapture to life's hours of care,
And prove the balm of many a woe?
If such thy purpose, go, and wear
Contempt and hatred on thy brow—
Pass on, a stern and lonely one,
And for their “earthliness of thought”
The tempting forms of beauty shun,
And burst their spell, ere fully wrought.

But fare thee well!—the time may come,
When, that thou scornest now, may be
The only ray amid the gloom
That shades thy wayward destiny.
Yes, woman's love may be the stay
When every other tie has parted—
The cheerer of thy lonely way,
When man hath proved but faithless hearted.

Haverhill Gazette, August 11, 1827

THE JERSEY PRISON SHIP

They died—the young—the loved, the brave,
The death barge came for them,
And where the seas yon crag rocks lave
Their nightly requiem,
They buried them all, and threw the sand
Unhallowedly o'er that patriot band.

The black ship like a demon sate
Upon the prowling deep;
From her came fearful sounds of hate,
'Till pain stilled all in sleep—
It was the sleep that victims take,
Tied, tortured, dying, at the stake.

Yet some the deep has now updug,
Their bones are in the sun;
And whether by sword or deadly drug,
They died—yes—one by one.

151

Was it not strange to mortal eye,
To see them all so strangely die?

No death upon the field was theirs,
No war-peal o'er their graves.
They who were born as Freedom's heirs,
Were stabbed like traitor slaves.
Their patriot hearts were doomed to feel
Dishonor—with the victor's steel.

[OMITTED]

There comes upon the stilly eve,
Wild songs from that wild shore;
And then the surges more wildly heave
Their hoarse and growling roar.
When dead men sing unearthly glees,
And shout in laughing revelries.

The corpse-light shines, like some pale star,
From out the dead men's cliff;
And the sea nymphs sail in their coral car,
With those that are cold and stiff.
And they sail near the spot of treachery, where
The tide has left that dark ship bare.

Are they those ancient ones, who died
For freedom and for me?
They are—they point in martyred pride,
To that spot upon the sea,
From whence came once the dying yell
From out that wreck—that prisoned hell.

Hark! hear their chant—it starts the hair,
It makes the blood turn cold;
'Twould make the tiger forsake his lair,
The miser leave his gold,
And see yon harper! he doth try
A dead man's note of melody.

Chant

Soundly sleep we in the day,
And yet we trip it nightly,
We sail with the nymphs around each bay,
When the moon peers out most brightly,

152

And we chase our foes to their distant graves,
For they, like us, are sleeping;
But they dare not come o'er our bonny waves,
For our nightly watch we're keeping.
Our spectres visit their foreign homes,
And pluck right merrily,
Their bones which whiten within their tombs,
And plant them here, aye, cheerily,—
For cheerily then we dance and sing,
With our spectre band around them,
And the curse and the laugh of scorn we fling,
As we tell where our shadows found them.
And then we go to the rotting wreck,
Where we drank the cup of poison,
We laugh and we quaff upon her deck,
Till morn comes up the horizon.
But skip ye, skip ye, beneath the cliff,
For the sun comes up like a fiery skiff,
Ploughing the waves of yon blue sky—
Hie—laughing spectres, to your homes, haste—hie.—

Boston Spectator, August 18, 1827

154

THE BURIAL OF THE WARRIOR

'Tis over—they have laid him down,
The warrior—to his dreamless rest,
The last turf by his comrades thrown,
Is gathered o'er his princely breast;
They may not view his form again,
For their last look was taken when,
They found him on the battle plain,
Among his slaughtered men.

[OMITTED]

The wakeless slumbers of the dead,
Hath chilled the warrior's form, and now,
With tearless eyes, his comrades tread
The trembling earth that hides his brow.
Darkly and gloomily they stand,
Above their chieftain's cold abode;
They mourn the proudest of their band,
But not a tear hath flowed.

Oh! how unlike the friends that crowd
Where sleep the truly virtuous dead!
Oh! how unlike the mourners bowed
Around affliction's hallowed bed!
As lingers in the glowing west,
Of living light, a glorious flood
So lives within affection's breast,
The memory of the good.

But 'tis not sleep—that dread repose
Which gathers round the warrior dead,
For 'tis not like the sleep of those
Where peace and piety has led,
For round his grave in midnight hours,
The victims of his strife shall come,
And love shall twine no wreath of flowers
Around his haunted tomb.

Stanzas 1, 5, 6, 7 Haverhill Gazette, September 15, 1827

155

SONG

Air, “Loch Doine”

Ye say, ye dinna love me now—
'Tis weel; but ye maun gie to me
The gowden ring ye're finger wears;
I winna waste sic things on ye—
An' tak' those ear-rings frae ye're ears,
Ye ken they cost me muckle gowd;
An' tak' that chain frae off ye're neck,
For it has made ye a' too proud—
An' I'd nae gie a pint o' wine
To hae ye say ye wad be mine.

I ken there's mair in this wide world,
An' trust me, I'll nae greet for ane;
I'll further gae, an' better fare,
An' ye, proud lass, maun live alane!
Then gie me back my ring again;
I winna waste its worth on ye—
My jewels breet—my gowden chain—
The de'il may hae ye then for me;
For I'd nae gie a pint o' wine
To hae ye say ye wad be mine.

Haverhill Gazette, September 22, 1827.

SONG

Gae an' leave me—let nae sadness
Shade that bonnie e'e o' thine,
Gae! an' be thy spirit's gladness,
Lasting as the wae's o' mine.
Gae! an' let oblivion cover
A' that thou hast kenn'd o' me.
Gae a fause deceitful lover,
Yet my prayers shall gae wi' thee.

Gae an' leave me—fame may call thee,
Glory on thy path may wait,
Love o' silken ties enthrall thee—
Ties as strong as those o' fate.

156

Brighter e'en an' smiles may greet thee,
Fairer han's may press thine ain,
But when vows o' fondness meet thee,
Think how true my ain' hae been.

Fare thee well! I'll ne'er detain thee,
Gae! thy bark hath spread her sail,
Ties o' love hae fail'd to chain thee,
An' can tears o' mine avail?
Gae! fause lover, gae, possessing,
A' that made thee dear to me,
An' may heaven's ilka blessing,
Joy an' sunshine bide wi' thee.

Haverhill Gazette, September 29, 1827

THE PAWNEE BRAVE

[_]

(A young chief of the Pawnee Indians obtained the title of Brave, from the circumstances related in the following lines.)

Grimly toward the clouded skies,
Gleamed the fire of sacrifice,
On the mist-encumbered air,
Widely flashed the baleful glare;
Swiftly down its rugged bed,
Rolled the torrent darkly red;
River course and forest way,
Traced in that unhallowed ray—
Clothed in its unearthly hue,
Dimly opened on the view.

Hemmed within the blazing wood,
She—the helpless victim stood—
She—the loveliest of her race,
Doomed that funeral pile to grace.
Where was then her father's arm,
Lifted but for mortal harm?
Where his voice to summon then,
Crowded ranks of dusky men?
They were far—and hope had fled,
And her thoughts were with the dead—
Vain to look for mercy's eye,
In the dark forms hurrying by—

157

They have heard their leader's breath,
Chant the stirring hymn of death—
They have wept above the slain,
On the reeking battle plain,
O'er each dark and silent brow
They have poured the vengeful vow;
Will they from their purpose stay?
Will the dance of death delay?
Sooner from its destined bourne,
Shall the mountain torrent turn;
Sooner shall the whirlwind's wrath,
Pause in desolation's track—
Sooner from its darkened path,
Roll its stormy chariot back.

See! the flames around her close,
Smaller now the circle grows,
Horrid laugh, and fiendish yell,
Louder on the night air swell.
Victim! thy last hour is come,
Bow thee to thy certain doom;
Be thy father's spirit near,
Let it chase thy rising fear—
Let it triumph over pain,
And thou shalt not fall in vain,
If in such an hour and place,
Thou canst teach the hated ones,
That the daughter of thy race,
Well may shame their proudest sons.

Hark! a sound is on the breeze,
Borne among the giant trees—
Not the bittern's sullen boom,
Heard amid the forest's gloom,
But the tramping of a steed,
Reeking with his fiery speed!
Fast he bears his rider on—
Who is he—that daring one?
Wrath is on his youthful brow,
Flashes wild his dark eye now—
Warriors linked in gloomy dance,
Shrunk beneath his scorching glance,

158

High and shrill his war-note rung,
Towards the blazing pile he sprung—
Fast and fearlessly he broke,
Thro' the mingled flame and smoke;
Giant strength his arm possessed,
Sundered fell the victim's chain—
Thro' the fiery ring he pressed,
With his rescued charge again.

In the might, a righteous cause,
Round its bold asserter draws,
Mid the dwellers of the wood,
Proud and unconcerned he stood;
She, whom he had snatched from harm,
Leaning on his powerful arm,
Not a hand was raised to deal
On the twain the stroke of death,
Not a warrior plucked his steel
From its darkly crimsoned sheath;
But the brows that would defy,
Smoothed before his fearless eye.
Vengeance and its dark array
Passed like morning's cloud away;
Nobler feelings mingled then
In the breasts of those dark men;
Round the youthful chief they came,
Hailed him as a son of fame;
Bade him as a friend depart
Warrior of the fearless heart!
And the twain have gone their way,
But the maid he dared to save
From that unforgotten day,
Still hath blest the Pawnee Brave.

Haverhill Gazette, September 29, 1827

ALLAN GRAEME

Ken ye maidens, wha is he
Wi' the mirk an' mournfu' bree,
Wi' the wild, an' wanderin' e'e,
That across the moorlan's cam';

159

Seems he not o' foreign mien,
Far along our braes sae green,
None sae sad are ever seen,
Hush! he comes! 'tis Allan Graeme.

“Allan Graeme—frae whence art thou?
Care hath dimm'd thy bonnie brow,
Thou art pale an' mournfu' now!
Allan speak! thy sorrows name.”
Like the tree, the north win' gars,
Shake sae wildly, when it blaws,
Nightly o'er the wintry braes,
Shook the form o' Allan Graeme.

An' he answer'd wild an' fierce,
“Dinna read my aspect thus,
Nane o' ye maun know the curse,
Graven there in words of flame;
Tak' ye're bonnie han's frae mine,
See ye not the guilty sign?
Bluid hath darken'd ilka line,
I' the han' o' Allan Graeme.”

“Allan Graeme—it canna be,
Nane were ance mair kind than thee,
Nane wad e'er hae thought to see,
Ane sae noble bow'd wi' shame;
Speak! relate thy wrangs to us,
Wha has dar'd to use thee thus?
Wha has dar'd to fix a curse
On the head o' Allan Graeme?”

“Ken ye not the curse was giv'n,
By an a' avengin' heaven,
Haunted now, to phrensy driv'n,
Maidens, I have left my hame;
As ye shun the tremblin' scaur,
When the torrent comes to war,
Shun me, maidens! fly me far,
Shun the path o' Allan Graeme.”

Haverhill Gazette, October 6, 1827

160

THE MINSTREL

Where is now his tuneful number?
Who shall burst his harp's deep slumber?
Is there none to pour along
O'er its chords the melting song?
Have the strains that told so oft
How his spirit soared aloft,
Faded, now his light is dim?
Do they sleep in death with him?

Know, beyond the reach of time,
Brighter still in memory's clime,
Where affection's seal was set,
Shall the minstrel linger yet.

Go, and make his grave beneath
Where the ivy loves to wreath,
O'er the elms that mark the spot,
Where his muse the minstrel sought;
'Neath the turf he loved in life,
Let him rest from mortal strife,
Hang the harp he cherished so,
On the green and waving bough,
And the breeze, that steals along,
There shall wake the hidden song,
Oft when midnight cold and still,
Slumbers on the misty hill,
Shall the minstrel's form unseen,
Glide along the noiseless green;
Mournful, then, the harp shall sigh,
While that form is passing by.

Silent minstrel! peace to thee,
Green thy resting place shall be;
O'er the stone that marks thy grave,
Shall the winding ivy wave,
And affection's holy tear,
Oft, at eve, shall glisten there,
Though the harp no more shall thrill
To the hand of mystic skill,

161

Though the tones we loved to hear
Shall no longer chain the ear;
Still the memory of thy worth,
Shall be kept alive on earth.

Haverhill Gazette, October 6, 1827

TO THE AUTHOR OF THE “ODE TO SATAN”

I dinna ken how ye can tell
Sae muckle o' the chief o' Hell
Wha i' your sang ye hae sae well
An' ably painted,
Unless auld spunkie an' your sel
Are weel acquainted.

I dinna see how ye should ken,
Sae muckle o' th' infernal den,
Unless i' truth yoursel hae been
E'e witness o' it;
Ye maun hae been delighted then,—
Ye reverend poet.

For I maun say, that your idea,
O' the auld imp is muckle queer;
I ken ye maun hae gumption clear
For likeness taken;
When o'er your head his dusky spear,
The fiend was shakin'.

Did ye nae fear that he wad stick ye,
And down amang his brimstane kick ye?
Not sae—, ye kenn'd he wadna trick ye
When friendly to him;
A downright gawkie wad auld Nick be
To wark ye ruin.

Aweel—ye are a learned ane
And reverend too ye are, an' nane
Maun doubt the truth o' what has been
Tauld them i' numbers,
Sae fine—that while we list your strain,
A' reason slumbers.

162

An' if auld splitfoot be sae gude
As ye wad hae it understood,
He maun feel muckle gratitude,
For a' ye've done him,
An' a' o' Hell's dark multitude,”
Be sure will join him.

But earthly kings, ye ken will hae
Their flatterers near them, ane an' a',
An' wha kens but auld Nick may ca'
Ye also to him;
Sae if i' truth ye wish to gae,
Mair kindness do him.

Haverhill Gazette, October 13, 1827

SONG

Tell me nae mair o' what I hae,
Though gowd be round me shinin',
An' vassals at my biddin' gae,
The heart is still repinin'.
Can wealth, or power gi'e joy to ane,
Whose hopes hae a' been blighted,
Or splendor light the cauld hearthstane
O' ane sae lang benighted?

The light o' fame an' fortune glows
Aroun' the broken-hearted,
Like lamps aboon the tombs o' those,
Wha hae frae earth departed.
It canna frae their slumber start
The frozen founts o' feelin',—
Across the cauld an' wither'd heart,
Like simmer sunshine stealin'.

When a' the ties affection wove
Around the heart, are broken,
An' ilka day—o' joy or love
Blots out some cherish'd token;
Then feeble comes the voice o' praise
Upon the heart o' sadness
An wealth can gi'e to evil days
Nae cheerin' tint o' gladness.

163

As cauldly rise the northern gleams,
To make the night mair dreary,
Sae wealth an' useless splendor beams
Aroun' the worn an' weary.
Then tell nae mair o' what I hae,
Though gowd be round me shinin',
An' vassals at my biddin' gae,
The heart is still repinin'.

Haverhill Gazette, October 30, 1827

TIME

Dark dealing power! around thy way
The wrecks of human grandeur lay;
Oblivion's waters, cold and black,
Roll onward in thy gloomy track,
And darkly hide from mortal ken,
The traces where thy course hath been.

The proudest things that earth hath known,
The gorgeous splendor of a throne,
The crest, and kingly diadem—
Thy peerless arm hath scattered them;
And power that shook the world with dread,
Lies crushed beneath thy mighty tread!

Successive years around thee flow,
Yet leave no traces round thy brow—
Revealing and destroying all;
As firmly now thy footsteps fall,
As when at first thy course was given;
And thy dread limits marked by Heaven.

Mysterious power! still deep and strong
Thy tide of years shall roll along—
The sun shall leave his home on high,
The moon and stars of heaven shall die;
But thou shalt be the last to fall—
The conquerer and end of all!

Haverhill Gazette, November 17, 1827

“Time” was reprinted in the Boston Statesman on January 19, 1828. Preceding, was the following editorial note.

J. G. Whittier.—A youth of this name, whose early life, like that of the Bloomfield and the Hogg of the British Poesy was occupied in manual occupations, and whose untutored ear first caught the tones of inspiration in the many voices of Nature, and whose heart was awakened to the sweet breathings of the muse only by a contemplation of the glories of Creation,—has recently emerged from his obscurity as an anonymous newspaper contributor, and announced his intention of publishing a volume of his effusions. He is a Quaker and has been nurtured in the straitness of his sect, and therefore it is the more surprising that his compositions should be replete as they are, with that peculiar fervor and animation and intensity of thought, which is supposed attainable only by an attentive study of the best models.

“They only who have been much among old books,” says some greybeard of literature, “can carry with them into their own writings that firmness and solidity which are the true stamina of poetry.” If this remark be generally true, then is Mr. Whittier an exception to an acknowledged rule, as we think those of our readers will confess who peruse the following stanzas originally published in the Haverhill Gazette.

164

LINES

On the death of an infant

Child of the brief but cloudless day!
O! who can mourn e'en now,
That time hath had no power to lay
Its shadows on thy brow!
Thou'rt beautiful in death—no trace
By care's dark pencil writ,
E'er passed upon that quiet face—
No crime hath darkened it;
But free thou art, as at thy birth,
From all the thousand stains of earth.

[OMITTED]

Weep not—for why should tears be shed
That Heaven hath called him hence?
The rugged path that man must tread,
Life cannot recompense.

165

And joyous now can memory bear
The image of thy child—
Its loveliness embodied, there,
Stainless and undefiled;
Nor mourn the gift recalled to Heaven,
As pure as when to thee 'twas given.

Stanzas 1 and 5 Haverhill Gazette, December 8, 1827

TO THE MEMORY OF CHATTERTON

Youth of the high and gifted lyre!
Thy feeling heart and minstrel fire,
Too keenly felt, too warmly glowed
For life's uneven, cheerless road;
Where storms could blight and frosts could chill
The dawning hope and burning thrill.

Too soon the beams of fancy shed
Their wizard radiance on thy head;
Too soon they led thy gaze along
The wild and tempting path of song;
And kindled in thy heart a fire
That glimmered for its funeral pyre!

Too soon the rousing dream of fame
Upon thy youthful slumbers came;
Too soon the rainbow gleams that fly
Disordered round the poet's eye
Led forth thy young unpractised foot
To urge for them the vain pursuit.

And ill a heart like thine could bear
To see those hopes which promised fair,
With all their glittering train decay—
The frost work of a fleeting day,
And storm and darkness settle o'er
The path they made so bright before.

And oh! when fortune's stormy surge
Had borne thee to destruction's verge,
When wishing death and reckless how
The conquerer dealt his final blow,
Too lost to hope, too blind to fear,
Thy hand itself assumed his spear!

166

Did then no kindred spirit thrill
To soothe thy heart and share its ill?
Passed there no sympathethic glow
Upon the shadow of thy woe?
And did not friendship seek to bear
Thy sinking mind above despair?

Alas for thee! it was not so—
Unshared, unpitied came thy woe:
The finer feelings thou couldst boast
Were in the storms of fortune lost;
And clouds whose tones were lent by Heaven
Too soon, by misery swept, were riven.

The cold and heartless bigot may
Thy closing scene in gloom array,
Thy name to hate and scorn consign,
But who shall say what guilt was thine?
The misery of thy life to scan
And judge thy crime is not for man.

Farewell! around thy grassy pall
The tears of kindred hearts shall fall;
The bard shall o'er thy tomb recline
And feel his spirits blend with thine,
And beauty's eye shall shed for thee
Its tear of holy sympathy.

Boston Statesman, January 19, 1828

LINES ON THE NEW YEAR

'Tis over now—time's wreck-strewn wave,
Hath closed upon a year
Its deep and unrefunding grave,
Whence nought can reappear;
And thou deep, solemn midnight bell,
Art tolling now its funeral knell.

[OMITTED]

High thrilling hopes, too fondly known,
Have with that sound expired;
And rainbow dreams of life have flown,
That erst the bosom fired;

167

Visions that hit the opening year
Have fled and left but darkness here.

[OMITTED]

Thou coming year, could I obtain
The power to look on thee,
Thy chequered path—thy hours of pain—
Thy gloom and doubt to see,
I would not lift the veil that lies
Upon thy hidden mysteries.

No! by thy path in brightness drest,
Or wrapt in cloud and storm,
Beyond its power the eye can rest
On hope's celestial form,
High, pointing to a happier clime,
Impervious to the storms of time!

Then, coming year! I welcome thee,
And all that thou may'st bring;
Though few the joys that rest on me,
From off thy passing wing.
I will not murmur, while I know,
Fate strikes no undeserved blow.

Stanzas 1, 3, 8, 9, 10 Haverhill Gazette, January 19, 1828

THE DRUNKARD TO HIS BOTTLE

Ye thievin' curse! I dinna care
About ye're unco prisence mair,
Since ye hae gi'en to ruin sair,
Baith wealth an' credit;
An' now to shun yere awsome snare,
My vow I've made it.

[OMITTED]

Nane ither than auld Hornie sent ye
Before my path i' hopes to get me,
An' wae's the hour I ever met ye,
Ye cheild o' ruin—
E'en now despair an' portith wait me,
By your ill-doin'.

[OMITTED]

168

An' here's an end to midnight riot—
To reelin' gait, an' pulse unquiet;
Their awsome cause I winna try it,
Wi' frien' or foe;
But e'en as frae auld Cootie, fly it,
Where'er I go.

Stanzas 1, 3, 6 Haverhill Gazette, January 19, 1828

THE SPIRIT OF THE WINDS

“Thou actor perfect in all tragic sound!
Thou mighty poet e'en to phrenzy bold!”
Coleridge

Oh viewless spirit! well may'st thou
Thy harp of power sweep lightly now,
Since not a cloud thy breath has driven
Along the calm and starry heaven;—
And quiet moonshine, pale and chill
Is slumbering now on heath and hill.

Wild spirit of the chainless breeze!
Thy course is on the trackless seas;
Thou startest from their treacherous sleep
The surges of the mighty deep;
And bendest from thy clouded throne
To smile on ruins all thine own.

In peace or wrath thou visitest
The desert's dark and sterile breast;—
The mountain eagle's cold abode
Where mortal foot hath never trod;
And e'en the forest owns thy sway
Whose oaks with age alone decay.

Unrivalled minstrel! soft and low
On Nature's harp thou breathest now;
Faint steals thy music on the ear
A sound which love itself might hear—
A melody, in mercy given
To lift the lowly thought to Heaven.

169

I love thy music—harper wild!
I've loved it from a very child
Whether as now, its cadence stole
Like angel whisperings on my soul;
Or roused to murmurs wild and strong,
The tempest bore its tones along.

Thou'rt mighty—but that might was lent
Which wakes to sound thy element,
The over-ruling power that rides
The strong-winged hurricane, and guides
The tempests on the chainless sea;
That power, alone, commissioned thee.

Boston Statesman, February 9, 1828

TO CASSIUS

On reading his lines commencing
“And what are we poets made of.”

Forbear, forbear! ye graceless sinner!
Why need ye gar the ladies winner?
If poets like a hearty dinner
E'en let 'em do it;—
But though they're mortal men, it winna
Be wise to show it.

The warld believes we are a grade
O' favored beings, finely made,
But if 'tis proved we rhyme for bread
Or needfu' gain,
We poets then may ply our trade
O' sang in vain.

Ye speak o' us as if we were
A' unco' fickle to the fair
Sure mischief set ye to declare
That half our trade is
To flatter wi' the self-same prayer
A score o' ladies.

An' if we a' abjure the Muses,
Will sentimental fair anes roose us,
An' kindly seek to heal the bruises
They gie our hearts?

170

Alas! frae hence they'll a' refuse us,
Spite o' our arts.

Ye've played the muckle deevil, Cassius—
A few mair rhymes like yours wad fash us;
The reverend parsons a' wad lash us
Till they were weary,
An' ding us down frae steep Parnassus
A' tapsalteerie.

Then cease ye're blether, Cassius—quat it,
When ye in better mood gae at it,
An' rhyme wi' truth, I'll nae combat it;
For ye hae truly
A sonsie muse, if ye'd nae let it
Gang sae unruly.

Boston Statesman, March 1, 1828

DEATH OF OSSIAN

The moon, unseen by Ossian, shed
Its light on Selma's halls;
Silvering the armor of the dead
That frowned along the walls,
But all was cold and desolate
No soul of song was there;
And Morven's latest minstrel sate
Wrapt in his dark despair
Beneath the banners of the dead,
That flapped above his drooping head.

He sat within the crumbled porch,
Unseeing and unseen;
Where flashed of old the wassail torch,
And princely forms had been.
No more was heard the sound of shells—
The harper's tale of fame:
But there at dreary intervals
The gusty night-breeze came,
And caught the gloomy raven's cry,
Hoarse mingling as it hurried by.

171

He sat alone—there was not one
Familiar voice or tread;
The mighty of his race were gone,
Their glory vanished!
And nought was left to soothe and bless
Of all his youth had known:
Malvina's soul of tenderness
And Evir-allen's tone—
The husband's joy—the father's pride,—
The voice of praise, were all denied.

Tuneless beside the drooping bard,
The harp of Selma lay,
Its thrilling chords had not been stirred
For many a weary day;
For oh! that harp could wake no smile
Where rapture once had glowed.
The winds that wasted Selma's pile,
Swept o'er the cold abode
Of those who bent in gleaming mail
To list its master's magic tale.

Hoarsely and heavily the breeze
Along the ruins passed,
And Selma's old and gnarled trees
Groaned deeply in the blast.
It bore a sound to Ossian's ear
Of mournfulness and dread;
He raised his thin grey locks to hear
The summons of the dead.
For well he knew some hero's shade
Was hovering o'er his sightless head.

'Twas Fingal's voice—'twas Tremnor's son!
Renowned in many a lay,
Him bending from his cloud of dun
He called the bard away.
“Thy harp,” he said, “in Selma's hall,
Has echoed long and well;
A memory lingers round this wall,
Of those who proudly fell;
And every cliff that Morven rears,
The record of the mighty bears.

172

“And why should Ossian linger there
Forgotten and alone?
Come thou to Morven's mighty men—
The glorious who are gone.”
“I come, my sire,” the minstrel said,
“I feel that even now,
The welcome hand of death is laid
Upon my aged brow.
And soon a minstrel's name shall be
The only record left of me.

“But that shall live—with Fingal's name
Shall Ossian still be known;
Blest with the record of thy fame,
The bard shall speak my own.”
He ceased—a low unearthly moan
Rose sadly on the blast;
Untouched, the harp sent forth its tone
The soul of Ossian passed!
By stranger hands his grave was made,
And the grey cairn piled o'er his head.

And peace be with thee bard of old!
What though thy soul was high;
And war's grim chart was darkly rolled
Beneath thy frowning eye:
Thine was a wild and stormy age,
To Christian peace unknown;
And dark as is thy deathless page,
The master's power is shown
In many a sketch to fancy dear;
And many a tale that claims the tear.

Boston Statesman, March 8, 1828

THE SURVIVOR

[_]

There is a tradition among the natives of an island in the Pacific Ocean, that a crew of white men were thrown upon their shores, and that some of them lived to a great age.—I have endeavored to describe what I supposed to have been the feelings of the last survivor of those unfortunate men.

173

I am the last—I am the last—
A lone, forgotten wanderer now:
Yon tree that groans to every blast
With bending trunk and leafless bough,
Alone, where once a forest threw
Its gorgeous colorings to the day,
Surviving all that round it grew,
Is but the type of my decay.

I am the last—I am the last—
My kindred and my race are gone;
These old and withered hands have cast
The earth upon them one by one.
I loved them all—and I have wept
Full sadly at their memory's shrine;
But years have passed—long years, since crept
A tear adown this cheek of mine.

Ah! once I wept—my heart was not
So desolate, so seared as now;
And tears would flow, till I had sought
In vain for one familiar brow:
All, all were gone—the hunter stood
Alone before me, dark and grim;
My heart had not his savage mood,
It had no fellowship with him.

His gloomy spirit ne'er had known
The linkings of affection's chain;
He cursed my grief, he mocked my groan,
Till madness rushed on heart and brain.
I could not weep—I could not weep—
The fountain of my heart was dry—
'Twas seared, when in his last long sleep
I saw my latest comrade lie.

I sat beside the sufferer's bed
At dead of night—the torch was dim,
And blended with the moonbeams shed
A faint and ghostly light on him.
I watched the pale and changeful glow
Along his moveless features flit,
And wiped the damps from off his brow,
Where death his fearful seal had set.

174

The grey morn broke—and yet I gazed
On the wan features of the dead:
The morning passed, and noontide blazed
Its searching radiance round my shed—
A weary day—and yet I kept
My watchings where the sleeper lay
Till night with wing of darkness swept
The lingering western light away.

Ah! why should memory conjure up
Those visions of departed things?
A thousand times I've drained that cup
Of wild and dark rememberings.
That dreary night his bed I made
Yon lone and blighted tree beneath;
I smoothed the turf above his head
And left him to the calm of death.

My native land! my father's shore!
Oh none to thee our fates shall tell,
For memory wakens there no more
Our last and sorrowful farewell.
The hands we clasped in friendship true,
The hearts that throbbed with ours, are still;
And all who waved the long adieu
Are silent in the grave they fill.

Yes they are gone—but tears were shed
When the cold earth was o'er them pressed,
And love and friendship softly tread
Around their hallowed place of rest.
But who, when nature's strife is passed,
Shall watch beside my lonely bed;
Shall close my beamless eyes, and cast
Earth's mantle o'er my sleeping head?

Father and God! I murmur not
Against thy high and holy will;
Though lonely, by the world forgot,
Thine eye is on thy creature still;
And though no earthly friend is nigh,
When sinks the light that now is dim,
Thy presence shall the void supply,
And smooth the bed of death for him.

Boston Statesman, March 15, 1828

175

THE MASSACRE OF ST. BARTHOLOMEW

'Tis night—deep night! nor sound nor tread,
Proud Paris! breaks thy silence dead.
A fixed repose—a pulseless still,
As deep, as ominous of ill,
As that which chains the air and earth,
Ere bursts the prisoned earthquake forth,
Has settled round thy ancient walls,
The holy fanes, and princely halls!
Oh silent city! deadly harm
Is lurking in that seeming calm;

[OMITTED]

Morn streaks the east, and pours her light
Along the ghastly face of night;
Each sullen breath of morning air
Is telling of the massacre—
The living's wail—the dying's groan,
And childhood's shriek, are faintly known.
Exult, proud queen! those murmurs tell
The issue of that deed of hell.
Exult! thy fiendish task is wrought,
And thou hast crushed the Huguenot!

Haverhill Gazette, March 29, 1828

EDWARD AT CHARTRES

[_]

While the King of England was encamped near Chartres in 1360, there rose a storm and hurricane, one of the most terrible on record. It was accompanied by hail of extraordinary size, and the peals of thunder were so loud and incessant that the boldest warriors trembled. Edward, notwithstanding his usual intrepidity, threw himself upon his knees and turning towards the steeple of Notre Dame at Chartres, implored the assistance of the Virgin, and made a vow upon the spot to grant peace to the French people.

See Froissart, Chap. 211

He stood—the dreaded scourge of France
At closing of the day
Proudly, where banner, spear, and lance
Gave back the sunset ray
Surrounded by unconquered men,
And filled with hopes of conquest then.

176

Night gathered swiftly on the plain,
Clouds blackened on the sky;
The tempest wind threw off its chain,
And swept in darkness by:
And the long peals of thunder passed,
Filling the pauses of the blast.

Yet deeper fell the gloomy night,
Yet louder rose the storm;
And dancing with sepulchral light
On spear and mailed form,
The lurid gleams of lightning strayed
O'er many a shrinking cavalcade.

The monarch leaned upon his spear
With troubled brow and eye,
Watching each sound and sign of fear
In that portentious sky;—
E'en as he gazed that sky sent forth
Its deadliest o'er the shuddering earth.

It came with mingled fire and flood,
Impetuous o'er the plain,
The mighty pillars of the wood
Bowed to the hurricane;
And the tall warrior girt in mail
Sunk down beneath the sweeping hail.

Monarch! was this a time for thee,
To triumph in thy might;
To dream of coming victory,
Or nerve thy arm to fight?
Was this a time to look with pride,
Upon the thousands at thy side?

No! thou wast bending lowly then
Thy knee upon the sod;
And yielding with thy warrior men
The altered heart to God:
And the deep vow in anguish given,
Was pouring on the winds of Heaven.

177

'Tis morning—but the invader's lance
Is laid in rest no more;
The scourger of thy valleys, France,
Is sweeping from the shore;
And the last line of serried spears
On ocean's winding verge appears.

And ye that watch from dome and tower
That pageant pass away
Rejoice! for vain had been your power
Its hostile march to stay—
Rejoice! but not as conquerers do,
The victor's wreath is not for you.

They passed unscathed by mortal harm
The princely—the brave,
Ere yet the trumpet's wild alarm
One battle signal gave,
That their deep vows in peril spoken
For fame or power might not be broken.

Boston Statesman, April 5, 1828

THE ENCHANTED LAKE

[_]

Based on the story of a lake near Bergen, Norway, near which a sentinel was always posted to keep people from their desire to throw themselves in.

(The poem opens with the picture of a maiden in distress. She questions the guardian regarding the fate of a young man who she believes may have met his death there. The guard answers in the affirmative.)

Naught she spoke, but eye and brow
Told that madness ruled her now,
With a bound that mocked the arm,
Vainly raised to snatch from harm,
She hath reached the shivered steep,
Bending o'er the gloomy deep.
Phrensied joy was in her eye—
Wild the cliffs gave back her cry.

178

“Love! prepare a place for me,
Quickly, for I come to thee!”
Aged man! thy toil is vain.
Yonder cliff thou canst not gain.
Turn thee now—the deed is o'er,
She hath sunk to rise no more.

Weep not thou, of locks so grey,
Though the lovely pass away,
Dearer far than life to her,
Was the watery sepulchre,
Where the youth she loved so well,
'Neath its dark enchantment fell.
Peace to them! and be their sleep
Tranquil in that silent deep—
Waveless, tideless, tho' it be,
Never swept by breezes free,
Tho' no bird with sweeping wing,
Shadow o'er its waters bring,
Still shall be that silent lake,
Sacred for the sleeper's sake.

Stanzas 4, 5, 6 Haverhill Gazette, April 12, 1828

RALLE

[_]

I have often admired the heroic conduct of Ralle, the Jesuit, in sacrificing himself for the safety of his followers. When inhumanly attacked by the English, instead of assembling his warriors, he conjured, nay commanded them to escape—and advancing alone and unarmed to the side of a cross, which he had himself erected, he received the fire of the English.

Morn stooped upon the hills; and the red sun
Looked out upon the forest, through whose vast
And trackless solitude, in silentness
The calm Penobscot rolled its darkened tide
To the embrace of ocean. Silence lay
On the interminable wild—the cliffs
Grey and o'er hung with woods gave back no more
The lengthy echoes of the hunter's gun.

179

The clang of arms was hushed—the white man's track
Returning from the victory, might no more
By the keen hunter's practiced eye be traced
Along the forest openings. Nature's mood
Was one of settled calmness—but the breast
Of man was stormy, and his passions rose
To open variance with the tranquil scene.

And well might those who gathered sternly now
Around their desolated dwellings feel
A bitterness of spirit which the charm
Nature revealeth in her tenderest hours
May not subdue—for that calm loveliness,
Gentle and holy as its workings are,
On the best feelings of a heart unroused
By maddening impulses, has no power
On the wrung spirit where the sense of wrong
Deadly and deep is sternly gathering up
Its desperate resources for the hour,
When the long treasured purpose of revenge
Should deeply be accomplished. In such mood
The delicate and beautiful things of earth
Rise on the view with tantalizing power,
And the deep quietude of nature seemeth
But mockery to the agitated heart.

The sun passed up the heavens—the hunters stood
Beneath the deep oak shadows. They had laid
The mangled body of their martyr down
To his last sleep, even on the very spot
Where he had taught them with unwearied zeal
To bow devotion's knee, and offer up
The aspirations of his guileless heart
To the pure fount of blessedness; they smoothed
The green turf o'er him, and beside his head
They reared the holy symbol of the cross.

The rites were all accomplished. They drew up
Around the new-made grave—the veteran brow
Graven with battle, and the proud dark eye
Of the wild forest maid. Sorrow was there
With indignation blended, far too deep
For utterance by words—but the bent brow,

180

Clothed in unusual darkness, and the eye
Flashing with strange inquietude, revealed
The purposing of vengeance. Oft the hand
Of the stern hunter gathered in its grasp
The ponderous battle axe; and the low hum
Of many voices, strengthening as it passed
Down the long lines of sullen warriors told
That cliff and glen would shortly echo back
The fearful cadence of their battle hymn.

... One warrior came
Forth from the dusky multitude, and drew
His tall form proudly up. The mark of years
Was on his venerable brow; but yet
His keen eye was undimmed; and though his form
Was like the oak on which the storm has left
A thousand traces—yet like that proud tree,
Unbending as in its primordinal strength
So stood that ancient of the tribe. His arm
Had been in many battles—and his voice
Had swelled the war cry on his native hills
Through many a hard-fought day. Closer he drew
His mantle folds about him; and inspired
With nature's living eloquence, he spoke—

“Brothers! our hands have lain
The valley-turf upon the sleeper's head,
And the green foliage of the oak is spread
Above the foully slain.

“'Tis done! and now ye turn
Impatient glances toward the white man's path,
And for the dark and stormy work of death
Your dreadless spirits burn.

“Brothers, he foully died,
That upright man and faithful! Who is here
Warrior or maid, that he hath not dropped the tear
O'er him who was our pride?

“Yet wherefore grasp the spear,
And raise your chant so thrillingly on high?
Can deeds of vengeance light the sleeper's eye,
Or slaughter soothe his bier?

181

“Alas! have ye forgot
The holy counsels of the man we mourn,
That ye would now in desperation spurn
The lesson he hath taught?

“Was his the arm to wave
The sign of onset? Was his war-cry known,
Where the deep vale of stormy fight had grown
One dark promiscuous grave?

“Ah no: yet was his heart
Unmatched for manly daring—ye have seen
In danger's hour, how nobly and serene
He bore his trying part.

“Then lift not o'er his sod
The sign of vengeance—raise no war-song there—
But with the undoubting confidence of prayer,
Resign your cause to God.”

They felt the deep rebuke—those dark men knew
The spirit of the fallen had been breathed
Upon their ancient chief; and casting down
The implements of death, they bowed themselves
Humbly in prayer around their leader's grave.

Boston Statesman, April 19, 1828

THE WASTED FLOWER

The storms of Heaven have borne thee down;
The stem is broke—thy leaves are strown
In wild disorder o'er the plain
Whence thou shall never lift again
Thy head, to catch the evening dew,
Or charm the lonely wanderer's view.

Yet, wasted flower, thy sweet perfume
Partakes not of thy fearful doom;
It lingers still around the spot
Where erst thy form the sunshine caught;
And pours its incense on the air,
When thou art desolate and bare.

182

Thou art a type, thou lonely flower!
Of virtue's death—surviving power—
Fit emblem of the fragrance shed
Around the truly virtuous dead—
The hallowed memory of the good,
Which from the grave's cold solitude,
Gives to the thought of parted worth,
A charm unknown to things of earth.

Boston Statesman, April 19, 1828

THE SYBIL'S CURSE

Scorn not—my curse is with thee now—
A deep and deadly one
'Tis stamped upon the heart and brow,
And may not be undone;
'Tis writ in characters of fire
Upon thy guilty soul,
And will, till life's last pulse expire,
Thy destiny control.

Go forth! go forth among the gay,
And bow at pleasure's shrine;
And beauty's fairest forms shall lay
Their gentle hands in thine:
But while thy heart is beating high,
That curse shall o'er thee come;
And e'en 'neath beauty's melting eye,
Shall turn thy smile to gloom.

Go forth! and let thy battle cry
Awake the sleep of war;
Go, lift thy sign of triumph high—
An evil-boding star.
But not the robe of regal pride
Or victor's crimson wreath
Though proudly won—shall ever hide
The sleepless curse beneath.

Go forth and seek forgetfulness,
In revelry and wine:—
Thou shalt forget all, all but this—
This curse shall still be thine:

183

'Twill haunt thee in thy troubled sleep,
'Twill mingle with thy dreams,
And still with thee unbidden keep
When morning round thee beams.

Where'er may thy steps impel
That curse shall on thee rest;
The horrors of a quenchless hell
Shall linger in thy breast.
Not hope itself shall deign to soothe
The anguish of thy doom;
It shall not light—it shall not smooth
The pathway to the tomb.

Go now—the lingering curse is given—
The spell is laid on thee
The scorn of earth—the wrath of Heaven
Is in thy destiny.
Go now, the spell is laid on thee
Go, bear it to thy grave;
For death alone can set thee free—
And death thou dares't not brave.

Boston Statesman, April 26, 1828

THE SWITZERS' SONG

[_]

(This poem refers to the Revolution of 1308 when the Swiss, without bloodshed, were freed from the Austrians.)

High let the song of triumph swell,
O'er Lucerne's rock-girt sea,
Till all the mountain echoes tell
Of freedom's jubilee.
Loud as, when first the strain arose
On that remembered morn,
When o'er St. Gothard's crest of snows,
And clouded Jungfrau horn,
The genius of our mountainland
His star-lit banner, flung,
And Freedom waved her signal brand,
Where the trembling avalanche hung.

184

The light of that auspicious dawn,
No tide of slaughter dimmed,
Instead of drum and gathering horn,
The song of praise was hymned.
No pennons red with battle bowed
O'er guarded peak and glen,
Our fathers' trust was in their God,
Not in the strength of men.
He heard their prayer, th' oppressor's pride,
Was scattered in his wrath,
Like snows upon the mountain side,
Before the glacier's path.

Then let the joyous harmony
Of prayer and praise ascend,
Until the mountain eagle's cry,
With its wild music blend.
Be this our prayer, that freedom shed
Its light upon our land,
And that the hills which now we tread,
May unpolluted stand
Long as the Lauffen's rocks shall bar
The Rhine's impetuous tide,
And thunder clouds shall move to war,
Along St. Gothard's side.

Haverhill Gazette, April 28, 1828

POEM

It is an April morn—and rain
Is beating on the darkened pane;
The sleeping mist is on the hills,
And angry floods have swelled the rills,
Whose flow I loved so dearly when
Their summer music filled the glen—
The trees that I have gazed upon
When every bough that caught the sun
Was full of beauty, and whose shade
Fell coolly on the sunny glade,
Now rear against the clouded sky
Their bare proportions, dark and high,
And none, while sadly gazing now
On mossy trunk and naked bough,

185

Would dream that summer suns could dress
Such wasted forms in loveliness.

I love the face of nature well,
Its quiet beauty hath a spell,
To waken joy in weary hours;
Like dew upon the drooping flowers
But in a dreary day like this
When nature boasts no loveliness,
When earth is mournful—and in the sky
The lazy clouds are rolling by;
I feel that such a time is not
Congenial with poetic thought,
And that each effort e'er its close
Would dwindle down to perfect prose.

Away! away! I will not look
On nature's dull and sombre book;
Since here a fairy landscape brings
The light of unforgotten things;
The memory of those hours which wear
The beauties of the changing year.
And though the spring of lofty thought,
From outward forms is vainly sought,
This silent view of scenes, which can
Yield gladness to the heart of man,
To me hath something of the power,
Revealed in nature's gentlest hour.

The fading light—the sunset sky—
The broken clouds that float on high—
The winding stream—the forest shade
Along its gentle waters laid,
All speak of nature—and that rude
Old ruin hemmed with ancient wood,
Across whose grey and ivied walls
The latest gloom of evening falls,
Restores the dream of old romance,
The mailed knight—the levelled lance—
The tourney shout—the red wine's flow—
The minstrel's tale of joy or woe—
And all that once delighted me,
In tales of “aunciente chivalrie.”

Boston Statesman, May 10, 1828

186

SARDANAPALUS TO HIS COURTIERS

Aye, point me to the battered helm—
The pennon soiled and worn,
By monarchs of Assyria's realm,
In prouder ages borne.
Point out the spoil—the glittering gem—
The jewelled crest—the diadem,
From knightly temples torn.
'Tis vain—to me those trophies show
How pride can mock at human woe.

Ye say my sires were glorious, when
The falchion never slept;
When o'er each field of slaughtered men
A thousand mothers wept;
When thoughts of conquest stifling all
Of pity for a nation's fall,
Their hardened legions swept
Across the realms of humbled kings
Like the destroying angel's wings.

And hence their glory—hence their fame
A never-setting sun!
So let it be—no meed I claim,
For aught that I have done—
I ask no temple's haunted gloom,
No sculptured arch—no blazoned tomb,
When my career is run,
I seek no reverence—be it shown
To my stern ancestors alone.

Enough for me if I can die
With blessings on my head—
Enough for me if beauty's sigh
Is whispered round my bed;
And tears which grateful hearts bestow
Upon the soothers of their woe
Be there in silence shed.
Such be my meed—I ask no more
Of memory, when my course is o'er.

Boston Statesman, May 17, 1828

187

RURAL EXCURSIONS

[_]

(Suggested by an item in the Boston Statesman warning people against rural wanderings because of poison ivy etc.)

Yes! doubtless 'tis very amusing
To wander at dawn of day,
And search the meadows, and tread the hills,
As the grey mist rolls away.
'Tis pleasant—'tis sentimental,
To watch the glad streams run;
And see how the forest tops receive
The kiss of the rising sun.

But ah! 'tis a dangerous business—
This strolling in quest of flowers;
For poison twines with the sweetest shrubs,
And lurks in the greenest bowers.
You may pluck the modest wildflower
Where the dark-green ivy grows;
You may stop to sever the violet's stem
And the dogwood brush your nose.

With your hands the size of a farmer's,
And the color of dingy brass;
And your eyes just open enough to see
Your delicate phiz in the glass;
Your cheeks puffed out like bladders,
And your nose provokingly red—
You'll hate the “rural excursion,”
Drink saffron, and go to bed.

Oh horrible!—horrible—horrible!
Fair florists, stick to your home,
As you would avoid the saffron tea
And the bath of New England rum—
I know it all by experience,
And I warn ye, florists fair!
If ye have a mind for strolling,
Again I say, “Beware.”

Haverhill Gazette, June 7, 1828

188

MIDNIGHT THOUGHTS

It is the noon of night—the far off stars,
Clear and undimmed, as when at first they gemmed
The blue expanse of heaven, are looking down
Serenely beautiful!—The half-faced moon
Hath poured her delicate light upon the tops
Of the tall trees; and the hills' summits wear
The mantle of her beauty.—Pshaw! I'll see!—
'Tis not exactly so—There is no moon
And if there was, I should not see it shine
On lofty trees, or sky-approaching hills,
But rather on the old distillery,
Blackened with smoke,—or directly in the distance,
The roofs of Frinksborough might reflect its gleam,—
I told somewhat of stars—but really now,
I see but six or eight, and even these
Are winking drowsily, as if they needed
Their sleep as well as I,—I half suspect
I have been dreaming now—but never mind!
We poets are strange animals, and have
Undoubted right to deviate a little
From the plain path that sober prose points out.

Haverhill Gazette, August 9, 1828

TO ------

I ask no look of fondness,
No tender glance of thine,
For they would but be wasted, on
A spirit ruled as mine.
My pulse may lose its quietness
With the music of thy tone;
My heart may wildly thrill with thoughts
The cheek would blush to own.

It may be thus—it may be thus
For passion's fount is deep;
And easy 'tis for such as thou
To burst its seeming sleep,

189

Yet fear thou not the turbulence,
Of feelings wild and strong,
Altho' they bear the ling'ring stain,
Of unrequited wrong.

[OMITTED]

No! beautiful and stainless
Thy love hath ever been—
A veiled and holy shrine to claim
The worshipping of men!—
Then let no look of tenderness
Its earthly home betray;
Nor give at passion's stirring call,
Its priceless gem away.

Stanzas 1, 2, 4 Haverhill Gazette, August 9, 1828

THE CAMBUSCAN MIRROR

Unrivalled Mirror! in whose face
Engraven deep with mystic pen,
Our dim, and bounded glance might trace
The hidden thoughts of other men!
Well wert thou worthy to be sung
By him who swept the lyre of old,
And lasting beams of genius flung
On temples else unknown and cold.

[OMITTED]

It may not be—we may not look
Upon the spirit veiled within,
Or read as from an open book
Its passages of shame and sin,—
Enough for us if we can turn
An eye upon our own dark way;
Correct each erring step, and learn
Our duties from each fleeting day.

Stanzas 1 and 3 Haverhill Gazette, September 6, 1828

190

AT THE GRAVE OF A VERY YOUNG LADY

Weep not for them who go
In life's young hours,
To lay them down below
The churchyard flowers;
Thy tears, fond mourner fall
Upon the peaceful grave of all,
For which their own would flow:
Weep not for them.

Their years have passed away
Like their own dreams;
Or the last light of day
On silent streams,
For they had yet to know,
That joy is but the veil of wo,
Seem lovely as it may;
Weep not for them.

They die as flowers have died,
Laid low at morn,
When all their hues of pride
Were proudly worn;
Not left to feel at last,
The death chill of the mighty blast,
And wither side by side;
Weep not for them.

But weep for them who stay,
When friends are gone,
While years of dull decay
Move darkly on,
Like sentinels that keep
Their lonely watch while others sleep
The stormy night away;
Oh, weep for them.

Soft on our lost one's breast,
The turf shall lie;
And oh, thus to be blest,
Who would not die!

191

She slumbers not to wake—
No step, no voice, no dream shall break
The stillness of her rest;
Weep not for her.

New England Weekly Review October 20, 1828

THE GRAVE OF HOWARD

Nay, pass thou not with careless tread,
This simple mound and mossy stone—
The sanctity which shrouds the dead
Is here in deeper reverence known.
A hallowed memory lingers here—
The very air is blest around,
For pious prayer and grateful tear
Have made the spot as holy ground.

[OMITTED]

Peace to the good man's memory!—here
A champion of the cross is lain!
No earthly laurels grace his bier—
No gaudy show of pageant vain.
No herald slave above him stood,
To speak of power and lofty birth;
When here, in Christian quietude,
He gave his weary form to earth.

Dark conquerer! wear thy robe of pride—
Exult thee in thy arm of power,
And let the spoil of nations wide,
Yield splendor to thy triumph hour!
Give me the memory of the just,
Its blessing and its grateful tear,
Like that, which sanctifies the dust
Of him, who slumbers sweetly here.

Stanzas 1, 3, 4 Haverhill Gazette, November 29, 1828

192

STANZAS

How wearily the night goes on!
And yet how silently!—the hours
Have passed me slowly, one by one,
Nor weighed to sleep the mind's high powers.
I feel the leaden moments press
Upon my eyelids, but they bring
To the mind's weary wakefulness,
No grateful spell of slumbering.

[OMITTED]

I will not murmur—there are things
That lighten o'er my darkest hours;
As pure—as bright as angel's wings
Descending from celestial bowers,
And tones of friendship murmur still
Around me, and the voice of love
Comes o'er my spirit, like the thrill
Of music from the world above.

The world is fair, and nature wears
Her beauty undefiled with sin;
They bring no portion of the cares
Whose fountains are concealed within,
And I will tread life's coming way,
Nor murmur at its weariness,
But cherish through each evil day,
The memory of departed bliss.

Stanzas 1, 6, 7 Haverhill Gazette, February 14, 1829

AMBITION

—“These are not a tithe
Of all the votary of living fame
Must silently endure.”
Fairfield

Aye, nerve thee for the strife of men,
The trial cometh now,
The seal of pride is on thy lips,
Of manhood on thy brow.

193

Thy golden dreams of childhood—
Thy thoughts of tender hours!
Outtwine them from thy spirit now,
They mar its sterner powers.

On—on!—the fire of souls is hid
Within thy kindling eye,
And the proud spirit-glance is raised
Up freely upon high.
Bear up against the trial
The mocking and the shame—
Nor stoop the pinion back to earth
That beareth on to fame.

Cast off the blending sympathies—
The tender bonds of life—
Nor cling to aught that bendeth to
The coming on of strife.
What have the frail and beautiful
To do with things like thee?
Away! and leave them all behind
Thy heart must still be free.

Nay, pause not—falter not, but on!
There is no turning back,
Thy weary wings must still pursue
Its bold and upward track.
On—swiftly on! thy meed shall be
One high and haughty hour,
One bitter draught of heartless praise,
One grasp at fleeting power.

Philadelphia Album, February 18, 1829

A DEATH SONG

“The head sachem of the Narragansetts would not accept his life when offered on the condition that he should make peace with the English. When he was informed that it was determined to put him to death he said, ‘I like it well. I shall die before my heart is soft— before I shall have spoken anything unworthy of myself.’”

Neal's Otter Bay

194

Betray my land? Ay, when the eagle
Cowers beneath a heron's beak;
Ay, when the lion from the beagle
Turns with a recreant cheek.

Betray my home? and from your fire,
Bear off a heart of fear?
Yea, change a wounded tiger's ire
To the milk blood of a deer.

Go ask my fathers—those whose bones
Rest in a brave man's grave;
Go ask their trophied mound of stones,
The trees which o'er them wave.

A traitor be? and lose that chase
Which tempts beyond the grave?
Become the nameless of my race—
A coward—woman—slave?

Go back—rekindle now your flame,
Each sinew let it sear,
'Tis not so scorching as that shame
Which blasts the heart of fear.

Shout, shout, ye dead—my soul is free,
I greet ye, fathers, now.
Your crowns are green—they wait for me—
Will flourish on my brow!

Farewell, ye woods,—farewell, thou sky,—
I hail the glorious dead;
They greet me for my victory,
And love the brave one's tread.

This is my death-song,—let it rest
Deep in your hearts, my foes;
I sleep fore'er among the blest,
Where heroes' hearts repose.

I wake,—the arrow's fatal barb
Is in my land anew;
I wake—put on the war-feast garb—
And shout the war-halloo!—

195

'Tis better far with fame to die,
Than live and nameless, stoop
To the proud taunt of infamy;—
Hurra for my death war-whoop!

The Yankee and Boston Literary Gazette February 19, 1829

TAKE BACK THE BOWL

Take back the bowl! take back the bowl!
Reserve it for polluted lips—
I will not bow a tameless soul
Beneath its dark and foul eclipse
I know that life must henceforth be
A weary and unblessed thing;
That hope can lend no ray to me,
Nor flowers along my pathway spring.

Well, be it so—my strife hath been
Beyond the low and vulgar aim—
The deeds of base and heartless men
Have never dimmed my honest name;
And I am proud—aye, even now
Amid the shades of deepening ill;
The fearless tread—the open brow—
The bribeless hand are left me still.

Take back the bowl!—I will not steal
The hallowed memories of the past,
They add no pangs to those I feel,
Nor shadows on the future cast.
Aye, take it back; let others bring
Oblivion o'er the haunted soul;
My memory is a blessed thing—
Away! Away! take back the bowl.

Philadelphia Album, March 4, 1829 (From American Manufacturer)

196

THE FIRE SHIP

[_]

(Suggested by a passage in the first volume of Salathiel)

It was a dream, and yet it seemed
As our waking visions are,
We were out upon a broad old sea,
And a joyous crew we were,
The moonlight slept on the reeling deck,
And the breeze in the sails was fair.

A cloud came up where the sky bent down
For the kiss of the silver wave,
And the stars were veiled, and the breeze was chained
To its shadowy ocean cave,
And the moon went out, and the sea grew calm
With a slumber like the grave.

Our ship stood still on its ocean way,
There was neither breeze nor tide,
And black as death the waters lay
Around on either side;
And the stalwart crew grew stern and still,
For the boldest heart was tried.

Anon we heard a rushing sound,
Like a tempest's coming on,
And up through the thick and murky air
A sudden meteor shone.
We gazed upon it and turned away,
And again—but it was not gone.

On—on it came like a living thing,
And the storm-tried seamen shook,
And the proudest eye grew dim with fear
At the awful shape it took,
Like a ship of flame to us it seemed
And yet we could but look.

A ship of flame, with its fierce red sail,
And its mast of tapering fire,
And a tall form stood on its blazing deck,
Like a slave at his funeral pyre!
Nearer and nearer came the ship,
And the mast of flame rose higher.

197

Nearer and nearer came the ship,
With its fearful tenant there!
The flame like a robe was round him thrown,
And his blackened arm was bare;
But his lip was curled, and his brow was bent
With the sternness of despair.

On—on with the flame of mast and sail
The spectre ship drew nigh;
A strange heat burned on every cheek
As its flaming keel went by!
And we saw its fiend-like mariner,
But he uttered forth no cry.

He stood with his crown of living flame,
Like a glory and a curse—
He looked like a stern and suffering one,
Who could not dream of worse—
And he turned his fierce and blood-red eye
Like a comet's orb on us.

We shrunk from its strange, unearthly glare,
And the spectre saw it then—
He turned his face, and we saw the trace
Where a mournful thought had been,
For he knew that he might no more commune
With the forms of living men.

With blazing shroud through the murky cloud
That veiled the sea so dim
They passed away—they might not stay
That spectre bark, and him,
Who sternly stood in the wreathing flame,
Like the fallen Cherubim.

They passed away—the cloud rolled on—
The stars shone out above—
The moon looked down on the wave again,
Like a quiet thing of love;
And the breeze sang merrily through the sails,
And the ship began to move.

198

I woke from sleep—and yet it seems
As our waking visions are—
My heart hath dreams of that spectre ship,
And its mariner's calm despair,
For the graving hand of memory leaves
Its legible horror there.

Haverhill Gazette, March 14, 1829

THE CHURCH-YARD

It was a clear, calm night of June;
On mound and wall and ivy wreath,
Slept the pale radiance of the moon,
Like beauty in the arms of death,—
It was a blessed season—such
As spirits choose for wandering forth,
When, trembling to their viewless touch,
The lyre of Heaven is heard on earth.

The church-yard, with its solemn lines
Of pale grey stones—and crumbling wall—
Its dark-green mounds, like sacred shrines
Where weeping love might yield its all,
Bathed in the solemn moonshine now
Seemed all unfit for earthly things,
Save as a spot for man to bow
His heart to old rememberings
Of love that bloomed no more for him,
Of severed hearts, and sundered faith,
Of all that makes our morning dim—
The harvest and the spoil of death!

There came a man—with hurried tread
He passed above the peaceful dead—
One long, stern glance around he flung,
As if he feared that man should know
The feelings of despair that wrung
His spirit in its hour of wo.
He knelt him by a mound of earth
And clear the ghastly moonlight fell
Along a brow that shadowed forth
The anguish and the pride of Hell!

199

Contrition, mighty as the wrong
Came o'er his haunted mind at last,
And phrensied feelings smothered long
O'er heart and brain in lightning passed.
Well might he mourn—a fairer flower
Ne'er bloomed to fend the spoiler's pride,
To be the idol of an hour,
Then flung, a worthless weed, aside.

She died, as high souls always die—
She asked no pity, no relief;
But veiled from friendship's searching eye
The secret of her early grief,—
And thus she faded—life went out,
As vanishes some gentle star,
When morning's light is drawn about
The pathway of its golden car.

Philadelphia Album, April 1, 1829 (From American Manufacturer)

JUVAT REMINISCI

It is not all I can forget,
Though dark and waste my spirits be,
And earthly hopes that linger yet,
Shine cold as watch-lights on the sea.

So far from all that hath been dear,
So much from others' love estranged,
While year hath followed after year,
My heart at length might well be changed.

Yet earth must lay a chilling touch
Upon affection's sunny flow,
Ere every stream we prized so much,
The music of its path forego.

The soul may weep o'er its repose
When all its stir of love is o'er;
The tears it gave to others' woes
Shall darkly now its own deplore.

200

Yet oft our hearts from all they meet
In sadness and in sickness turn;
And feel that it is far more sweet,
Over their buried joys to mourn.

Then thoughts of those we warmly loved,
And who perchance did love as well,
Though long, alas, and far removed,
Like blessings on our spirits dwell.

They wake to life the little joys,
Which leave us lonely when they die;
And hopes, the best that time destroys,
Call from the ruins where they lie.

Though underground our dear ones sleep,
We'll think as fondly on the dead,
And in our darker sorrows weep
Such tears as mirth might sigh to shed.

Though I may roam through pleasure's bowers,
And talk and smile as others do,
My soul shall keep its better hours,
Past years, remembered loves, for you.

New England Weekly Review April 13, 1829

TARIFFIANA, NO. 2

(“The only true policy for America is entire freedom of trade. Every other system is false, delusive, and hazardous.”

Liverpool Advertiser)

Hark! the voice of John Bull, who with fatherly care,
Still watches the nation he governed of old,
And breathes for its weal a benevolent prayer,
Whenever the tale of our greatness is told!

Take heed to its warning;—the wisdom of ages—
In disinterested benevolence proffered;
Each word of advice, and each maxim, worth pages
Of all that our short-sighted statesmen have offered.

201

Fools!—fools! that ye are, will ye listen to them—
To Jefferson, Clinton, and Madison when
Immaculate Britain is heard to condemn
The maxims that governed those prejudiced men?

Why talk of our statesmen?—the thought is absurd,
From Britain your notions of policy draw—
Henceforth be the voice of our leaders unheard,
And the nod of John Bull understood as a law.

Hurra for Old England!—let that be the cry,
Which shall gladden the arrogant lord of the waves;
Hurra for John Bull!—let it ring to the sky
'Till the ghosts of your fathers shall start from their graves.

Let the eagle that soars with the wings of the storm—
The bird of our country, his wanderings check;
Bend lowly in homage the pride of his form,
That the foot of the Lion may rest on his neck.

Such is England's advice—will ye dare disobey,
And call her kind counsel the whisper of guile?
Shall the thought of your fathers a moment outweigh
The love which ye bear to the “fast-anchored” isle?

Haverhill Gazette, April 18, 1829

TO A STAR

Wonderful, yet familiar! fadeless gem,
Set by the hand of angels, in the arch
Of the eternal heaven! how beautiful
Thy soft light resteth on the unquiet sea,
That gathereth up its waves, as if the winds
Of yesterday, were prisoned in its depths
And struggling to be free!
The hazy clouds,
Pale relics of the recent storm have drawn
Their thin grey shadows out upon the sky,
And curtained in its beauty. Thou alone
Lookest upon the darkness. The great wave
That cometh upward to the guarded shore,

202

With its eternal thunder, hath received
Thy solitary beam, yet pauses not
In its mad turbulence. So have I seen
The light of woman's love poured out upon
The darkness of man's soul, yet hushing not
The tempest of its passions—a blest beam
Crossing the troubled surges of the mind,
Like moonlight glimpsing on a sky of storm.

Sole watcher of the heavens! I have not learned
Chaldea's mystic faith, yet thou dost seem
The emblem of a solitary heart,
Companionless like mine. No kindred star
Hath gladness in thy presence; and thy light
Falleth upon the waters like the love
Of a young heart upon the hollow world,
Unanswered, unregarded.

New England Weekly Review, June 29, 1829 (From American Manufacturer)

THE IMPRISONED

He started from his sleep,—the chain
Clanked on his stirring limb,
The fatal truth came back again,
Like an echoed curse to him.
Chained and alone—his proud heart rose,
Like a tided river then,
And his curse went forth as the Samiel goes,
To the doomed abodes of men.

Ye've bound your gyves upon the hand,
And fettered down the form,
And trampled on the freeman's land,
With his father's blood yet warm.
Ye've bound me where the sun is not,
Where the star-light never falls,
But ye humble not the kingly thought
That mocks your guarded walls.

The soul—the godlike soul is free,
Its glory is not dim,
It gathers sterner energy
From every tortured limb.

203

Dream ye that feelings nursed as mine—
Are touched by human ill?
The form beneath its chains may pine,
The soul is mighty still.

And heavier ye may bind the chain—
My spirit shall not quail,
Though madness revel on my brain
The heart shall never fail.
Ye cannot crush it—for the deep,
And burning sense of wrong,
Through every weary hour shall keep
Its thirst of vengeance strong.

That sleepless vengeance! it will come—
A whirlwind upon earth.
The dungeon stone—the very tomb
Shall send its summons forth.
The injured spirit sleepeth not,—
It may not be confined—
The tyrant's hand hath never wrought
A fetter for the mind.

Haverhill Gazette, July 11, 1829 (From American Manufacturer)

THE BRIDAL

“Oh! haud ye not the feast tonight—
The wassail hour delay—
The glimmer o' a cauld corse light
Comes up the murky brae:—
It lights some frien's or neighbor's wrath
Up to the auld kirk wall,
It bodeth ill—it bodeth death—
Make dim the festal hall.

“Blau out the lights—the merry lights
Send a' the minstrels hame,
And let the band o' worthy knights
Gang backward as they came.
There's muckle evil lurkin' near,
Wi' sights an' sounds of awe,
The young bride's cheek hath felt the tear—
The bridegroom is awa'.”

204

Out spake the bride's proud father then,
Wi' blended fear and rage—
“Fair dame,” he said, “an' merry men,
Why heed ye croakin' age?
Cheer thee, my daughter—let nae fear
For Keven dim thine eye,
The hour that should hae found him here,
Ye ken is hardly by.”

Call out the minstrels—pour the wine—
Strike up a merrier strain,
Mair brightly let the tapers shine,
Lead down the dance again.”
The dance went down the hall once mair—
Flashed out the festal sheen—
The fair bride's cheek, through falling hair
In a tearful smile was seen.

The castle clock smote out the hours,
Wi' slow an' solemn chime;
And the bridesmaid dropped her wreath o' flowers,
As she thought o' the midnight time.
Sair wept the bride—the father smote
His strong hand on his brow;
An' the dancer did na' hear the note
O' the merry music's flow.

A horn—'twas Keven's—rang without—
A shrill unearthly tone,
An' the heavy curtain flapped about,
An' the old hall seemed to groon,
Nae warder's trumpet made reply,
Nae door was open'd there,
But a heavy tread came slowly by,
As an armed knight it were.

The music ceased—the tread came on—
A form is with them now,—
Saints help thee, bride!—is this the one
Who hath thy virgin vow?
An armed knight—his helm was raised—
His face was unco pale,
An' his lip was white, an' his e'en were glazed—
Red bluid was on his mail.

205

He spake nae word—he took the han'
O' Agnes in his ain',
An' the grey auld monk couldna but stan'
Before the awesome twain.
A' tremblingly he spake the word
Which made them e'en as one;
An' the many guests in silence heard
The awfu' ritual done.

The bridgegroom turned frae the holy man
An' led his bride awa',—
The guests sat still an' raised nae han'
Within that silent ha';
They passed awa'—the strong doors turned
As wi' an unseen power;
An' the lamp o' a feeble meteor burned
To light them frae the tower.

There was wailing in that castle long—
The bride came not again—
The master shunned his vassal throng
And the minstrel's idle strain.
An' the peasant tells a fearsome tale
By his evening fireside
O' the gentle girl an' the knight in mail—
The spectre an' his bride.

Philadelphia Album, August 12, 1829

TO MY COUSIN

No, Cousin, no,—each gentle word,
Of thine is unforgotten yet,
That sweet low voice in boyhood heard,
E'en manhood's pride may not forget.
I do not tell thee this to flatter
Thy vain young heart with words of passion,
For love has grown a playful matter,
And sentiment is out of fashion.
The world has given a different tone
To feelings which it cannot bridle;
And manhood would disdain to own
The worship of its earthly idol.

206

Nay, Cousin,—it is idle now,
To linger on the past, or cherish,
A thought of that unmeaning vow
Whose very nature was to perish.
For many months we have not met—
And yet they say thy mood is cheerful,
They say thy cheek is rosy yet
And that thine eye is seldom tearful,
That in the gay and crowded hall
The mazes of thy dance are highest—
Thy voice the freest one of all,
The glances of thine eye the brightest,
That broken-hearted lovers yet
Are thronging round thee by the dozen—
That thou art still a gay coquette—
And it is so, my gentle cousin!

I hope it is—for thou art one
Unfitted for a weary trial,
A thing to perish when the sun
Is shrouded from thy spirit's dial!
Yet what of this, thou art not sighing
Of slighted love to flower and tree,
And little dost thou think of dying
For such a worthless thing as me.
Yet, Cousin, those were pleasant times,
When we were in the moonlight straying
With hearts as idle as the rhymes
With which my careless pen is playing.
'Twas pleasant to behold thee lift
Thy dark eyes to the blue sky o'er us,
With brow as fair as mountain drift,
When polished by the wing of Boreas.

Cousin—these days have vanished now,
And love's mild glance would ill befit
The darker lip and haughtier brow
With anguish and ambition writ.
I blame thee not that thou hast lent
The blessing of thy love to others,
Although my own was never meant
To be but as a friend's or brother's.

207

But time hath worked a change—perhaps,
The better for a heart like mine,
And though it may at times relapse,
And worship at its older shrine,
Yet, Coz, it were an idle thing
Of other days and loves to speak;
And idle were thy hopes to bring
A tear on manhood's bearded cheek.

Farewell, sweet cousin!—thou are young,
And wealth, and mirth, and love surround thee;
And I—a wreck of being—flung
Upon a sea that darkened round me.
Forget—forgive the dreamy part
Which thou and I have acted o'er;
Go—kindle in another heart
The flame that burns in mine no more.
When married—for acquaintance sake—
Good Cousin, I am sure you'll do it—
Just send a piece of bridal cake
And I—will write a sonnet to it.

New England Weekly Review August 17, 1829

THE BURIAL OF ABNER

The heavy night cloud sundered, the red sun
Rolled upward from the east—a blazing world!
And the grey mists that gather nightly on
Judea's awful mountain heads, unfurled
Their shadowy banners, and in long wreaths curled
Before the eye of Heaven until they caught
The living glories which its presence brought.

Then leaped the waves in sunlight, as the breeze
Went over nature like a spirit—breaking
The mirrored slumber of the dreaming seas,
And the deep music of the forest waking
Upon a thousand unseen harps, and shaking
The pleasant perfumes of the earth abroad,—
Nature's best offering at the shrine of God.

208

Yet men had gathered in that glorious light—
Strong, warrior men that recked not of its gladness—
Eyes, that rolled fiercely under brows of night,
And swart hands clenched, as in convulsive madness,—
Hearts, which were torn with blended hate and sadness,
Mournful yet troubled, like the tempered wrath,
Of Ocean heaving in the moonlight's path.

Bent the mailed forms in silence, as the bier
Rested before them with its sleeper pale,
Strong hands were clasped, and manhood's guarded tear
Stained the dark cheek and trembled on the mail.
It was a time for giant hearts to fail
From the nursed pride of warriors, Death was there—
A hero's requiem moaned upon the air.

One warrior's lip curled haughtily; beneath
A battered helm and plume in battle shorn,
An eye of kingly seeming—dark as death—
Gloomy with hate and terrible with scorn,
Flashed o'er the kneeling forms—the monarch born—
Tall chief and bearded Levite, bending there,
In the hushed awfulness of inward prayer.

Guilt struggling with ambition—pride with shame,
How terrible the conflict! Men of blood!
On thy scarred cheek the fearful shadowings came,
When cross the dark soul in its stormiest mood!
Yet thou alone of all that multitude
Stood up in stately manhood, seeming not
To note the ruin which thy hand had wrought.

Ground heavily the tombstone—all was done—
The sepulchre received its silent guest;—
The Levite's prayer—the chanted requiem tone
Were hushed around the slumberer's place of rest.
Slow rose from earth each humbled warrior's crest
And tearful eyes flashed wrathfully upon
The dark, still form of that unweeping one.

And Israel's monarch lifted up his head,
Baring his pale brow to the light of heaven—
A brow, whereon the multitude might read
The trial of a spirit which had striven

209

With the great sense of wrong, to which was given
Unwonted power and eloquence to shed
A prophet's malin on the murderer's head.

He bent his eye on Joab. The proud chief
Quailed from his glance as if he dared not gaze
On his wronged monarch; but the strife was brief,
And haughtily the pride of other days
Came o'er his spirit, and the dark eyes blaze,
The firm clenched lip, the marked and steadfast brow
Told that the strong man might not tremble now.

Dark terrible man! in silent power he stood
Above his mighty victim. There was heard
An awful voice denounce his deed of blood,
Yet on his brow no pulse of terror stirred,
His form stood up untrembling, as the word
Of Israel's monarch poured its sorrows forth
O'er the chill tenant of the halls of earth:—

“Dweller of the soundless grave!
Bravest of the passing brave—
Eagle-soul in Glory's sun
Thou hast led thy chosen on
Tingeing Kedron's mountain flood
With the stain of heathen blood,
Sweeping from the path of war
Grim Philistia's sworded car!—
Gathered to thy fathers now,
Earth is on thy helm-worn brow,—
Cold the form that grappled well
With the giant infidel,
Chained the voice, whose thunder call
Bade the lifted lances fall,
And thy legions breast the shock
Of the war-cloud, rolling on,
Steadfast as some mountain rock
When the torrent thunders down.
[OMITTED]
Not to me or mine belong
Traitor kiss and deadly wrong.
[OMITTED]

210

Traitor! is the curse of Heaven
Deeply to thy spirit given,—
Nameless ills which have their birth
Only from the crimes of earth—
Serpent thoughts that ever twine
Round a spirit lost as thine—
Shadows falling cold and dun,
Cloud-like on thy being's sun,
Phantoms in the sunlight gliding,
Spectres at thy couch abiding,—
Traitors in thy path abroad,
Traitors at thy household board,—
Every ill that mocks relief—
Haunt thy bosom—haughty chief!”

The monarch ceased. The murderer trembled not—
But a strange shadow veiled his spirit, when,
As the last terrors of the curse were wrought,
Rose from around, the deep response, “Amen.”
He felt the malin in his bosom then,
Yet turned him proudly from his victor's tomb
With a strong heart to wrestle with his doom.

Haverhill Gazette, August 22, 1829 (From American Manufacturer)

FROM A RECENT POEM IN THE PHILADELPHIA ALBUM

Lady farewell! I know thy heart—
Its angel strength to rise above
The cold reserve—the studied art
That mock the glowing wing of love.
Its thoughts are purer than the pearl
That slumbers where the wave is driven,
Yet freer than the winds that furl
The banners of the clouded heaven.

And thou hast been the brightest star
That shone along my weary way—
Brighter than rainbow colorings are,—
A changeless and enduring ray.

211

Nor will my memory lightly fade
From thy pure dreams, high-thoughted girl!
The ocean may forget what made
The blue expanse of waters curl,
When the strong wind hath passed—the sky
In its rich sunshine may forget
The recent cloud that floated by—
The glories of its last sunset;
But not from thy unchanging mind
Will fade the dreams of other years;
And love will linger far behind
In memory's resting place of tears.

Haverhill Gazette, August 22, 1829

MEMORY

“Memory with a spectre's fingers
Scatters torn flowers o'er what hath been.”
Fairfield's Clara

Farewell! if this be only
A lightly spoken word,
Why should the heart be lonely
As a mate-forsaken bird!
If its meaning be not deeper
Than its simple sound would seem,
Why should it haunt the sleeper
And mingle in his dream?

[OMITTED]

Tearfully we parted,
In the utmost hush of even,
When above the weary-hearted
Looked tearfully the heaven.
And a long farewell was spoken
Which thy heart might not forget,
I have lost full many a token,
But that is living yet.

'Tis a loved page in my story,
A sun-ray in my dream,
Turning to rainbow glory
What else would darkness seem.

212

Though darkly memory giveth
Its visions of the past,
Yet while that picture liveth,
I would that it might last.

Stanzas 1, 7, 8 Philadelphia Album, September 9, 1829

THE DREAM OF THE MISANTHROPE

I went away from the haunts of men
In a fairy-rowed canoe;
And the emerald hills and the old church spire
First lessened and then withdrew.
The sea was around me bright and calm
As the smile of a sleeping child,
And beautiful clouds of a thousand hues
Against the sky were piled.

In truth 'twas a goodly sight and grand—
That sea without a shore,—
The dreaming clouds, and the moving bark
With its invisible oar.
Away—away, at an earthless speed—
Away from guilty men,—
The white foam lightened around my track,
And I laughed for pleasure then.

The wonderful things of Ocean shone
Right under the cutting keel;
The star-fish lay on a diamond stone
In the coil of the golden eel,—
The Merman sat in his coral chair
Like a chieftain of the sea,
But he frowned when he saw his partner wave
Her beautiful arm to me.

Soft eyes looked up from the sunny deep
With their smiles of love and mirth—
Wild passionate eyes, that would laugh to shame
The brightest ones of Earth,
And the young forms danced on the pearly floor,
And wreathed their arms of snow;
And sang their beautiful lays of love,
To a music sweet and low.

213

I had hated music, because it came
From the vulgar lips of men,
But I gave my soul to the witchfulness
Of those ocean-voices then.
I had hated woman—because I knew
Her love was a changeful gem,
But I knew those ocean-girls were true,
And I gave my heart to them.

I came at last to an isle that seemed
Like an emerald set in gold,
For a rich and pleasant sunshine robed
The waves that about it rolled.
My bark went up to a narrow beach,
Made snow-white by the sun,
Where the streams came down in search of the sea,
And I laughed to see them run.

A beautiful shape of ocean birth
Held out her delicate hand,
And she took my own, and I followed her
To that green and pleasant land.
Its streams were pure, and its musical shades
Bore not the trace of men—
And over its green and silken grass
No human foot had been.

And this was mine—I sat me down
And for every joy I wept,
While the broad and beautiful trees about
In the living sunshine slept.
The sea-girls came to the white sea-beach,
And danced in Nature's glee,
And they brought their treasures of ocean pearl,
And gave them all to me.

Rich fruits hung down to the laughing streams,
With a strange inviting smell,
And a bird went by on a thousand wings
In the sunlight painted well.
The chime of the waves was soft and low,
As the mermaid's gentle strain,
And oh! I prayed that I might not know
The human voice again.

214

Yet even then I thought of home,—
Of the speaking human face—
I thought of the grey familiar church
And its shady burial place.
I knew that those I loved were there,
In their last and pleasant sleep;
I had wept for them; but I knew for me
There was not an eye to weep.

And a shadow fell upon my soul,
In that most pleasant isle;
And I did not see the light waves fall,
Nor watch the mermaid's smile;
And I felt that Earth in its pride had not
A balm for the spirit riven,—
That all the hopes of the human heart
Were vain but the hope of Heaven!

Haverhill Gazette, September 12, 1829

215

PASSAGES FROM “THE VESTAL”

She leaned against a gorgeous pillar, wrought
With most unwonted workmanship; the flame
Burned in the distance, and the moonlight fell
Through the transparent arching of the roof,
In glory round her form, revealing all
Its exquisite proportions, for the robe
Which veiled her young but ripened beauty, seemed
Light as if woven by a fairy's hand
Of texture borrowed of the moonlight air.

Oh she was passing fair!—Pygmalion
Woke not a lovelier into breathing life
From the cold shape of his idolatry.
Her brow was as a white scroll lifted up
To the dark outline of her clustering hair,
Most eloquent with thought. Her eye was dark,
Yet tempered with the softness of her clime.
Its long lash seemed to slumber; and her cheek
Blushed with the passionate coloring of thought.
[OMITTED]
but her thoughts
Had wandered from their trust, and her young heart
Was beating with another feeling now,
Than that of meek devotion. ...

Whose tall form
Is stealing towards her, noiseless as the shade
Of the old pillars, shrouded in the garb
Of Vesta's virgins?—. ...

216

Morning was over Italy. ...
There was a flood of pleasant sunlight poured
Through the long arches where the moon had thrown
Her milder gift upon the temple floor,
And round the Vestal's shrine. That shrine was cold.
The sacred flame had perished. Dark, cold stains
Were on the polished marble—stains of blood;
[OMITTED]
There were two graves,
Piled carelessly among the menial dead—
The tombless and uneulogized of Rome—
The stained with crime and outcast; and therein
Slept a young warrior, in whose frozen veins
Patrician blood had burned; and at his side
The beautiful watcher of the idol shrine—
The fallen Vestal who had died with him.

Haverhill Gazette, November 21, 1829 (From Yankee and Boston Literary Gazette)

AUTUMN

The pleasant sun is going up
Painting sere grass and old wood top;
The frost upon the meadow land
Like curtain wove by fairy hand
Is glowing underneath his beam;
And morning's vapor pale and thin,
Is melting off from every stream
That drinks the blessed sunlight in.

Spring hath its glories,—when the gush
Of music cometh like the wave
That murmurs through the coral bush,
And round the marble architrave
Of the Deep's stony Paradise—
The untrampled garden of the waters,
Where song and loveliness entice
The listening down to Ocean's daughters;
And warmer sky and greener earth,
And deeper cloud and higher sun,—
Calling young flowers and green leaves forth
From every spot she gazes on.

217

And Summer hath a dower of pride—
Dark verdure on her mountain side—
The lively rain—the voiced cloud—
The thunder on the hill-tops bowed—
The greenness of her forest tree—
The breezes of her summer sea—
The fervor of her kindling noon—
The quiet of her night of moon.

But Autumn cometh pale and sere,
With stricken heart and faded wreath,
To bend above the dying year
And yield the living up to Death!—
The winds are hoarser round her way,
The flowers receive her breath and die—
Earth's greenness changes to decay;
And withers at her passing by.
Yet there are scenes most beautiful,
Which chequer Autumn's changeful reign,
As on the eye with sorrow dull
Some fitful smiles will play again.

There is a quiet beauty now
On all the living things of God;
And Nature gladdens in the glow
The grateful morning sends abroad.
The oak upon the windy hill
Yet wears its garb of summer green;
The hemlock by the moaning rill
In its perennial garb is seen
While the white birch's graceful stem
Bears lightly up its gorgeous flower—
The changeful frost-work of an hour,
And the rude walnut bough receives
The sun upon its crowded leaves,
Each colored like a topaz gem;
And the tall maple wears with them
The coronal that Autumn gives—
The harbinger of ruin near—
The wreath that Desolation weaves
Around the sunset of the year.

218

Oh! seem not human glories dim,
With Nature thus unveiled before us,
Most glorious from the hand of Him
Whose starry curtain bendeth o'er us!
And may not hearts alive to all
The blessedness of Earth and Heaven,
Feel Nature's pure religion fall
Upon them like the dew of even;—
And gather from unbreathing things
The spiritual holiness of prayer—
And soar on high, as angels' wings
Were tracing out our pathway there!

The Original, January, 1830

BEAUTY

[_]

A warning to a beautiful girl lest she be too gay.

Oh, turn thee from thy gladsome hours,
And from the smiles that light thy way;—
The garner of life's fading flowers,
The funeral torches of Decay!
Oh, turn from these, for they will pass
Like dew from off the shaken grass,
Or like the dream that glideth by
The vision of the sleep-sealed eye;
Ay, Hope and Love may pass away,
Before one raven tress be grey!

But there is Hope—and when the heart
By wrong, and guilt and shame is riven,
It points us to the “better part,”
The pure and blessed light of Heaven!
What though the way of life become
A desert of unbroken gloom,
Still to Contrition's eye of tears,
A ray of promised bliss appears,—
A guiding radiance sent abroad,
To call the pilgrim home to God!

Haverhill Gazette, March 27, 1830

219

THE FAREWELL

Farewell;—I feel that thou and I,
Must part even now, perhaps forever;
I heard last night thy long good bye
And chained but with a proud endeavor
The smothered tide of tearful feeling—
I could not bear that other eyes
Should smile upon the heart's unsealing
Of all its hidden sympathies.
Oh—was it not a mocking thing
At that last hour of parting sadness
Over the fount of tears to fling
The light and careless smile of gladness!

Yes—sadder eyes were fixed on thee—
And sadder tones bespoke regret;
And trembling hands were proffered free,
And young, fair cheeks with tears were wet;

220

And I—the saddest one of all—
Returned thy greeting with a smile—
That smile was for the crowded hall—
My heart was with thee all the while;
And burning thoughts were thronging there—
The hopes and fears affection hath
To prompt its still, unuttered prayer
For blessings on the loved one's path.

They tell me thou wilt choose thee one
Of brighter eyes and glossier curls—
Among the “Children of the Sun”—
The silver-toned Italian girls;
That she will love thee with the glow
And joy of her voluptuous clime;
And whisper music, like the flow
Of soft winds in the summer time:—
That when the moonlight sleepeth on
Gay Venice and her many isles—
And when the gondolier alone
May mark the dalliance hour of smiles,
Thy arm will bear a yielding form—
Thy hand amid her tresses play,
And fervent kisses soft and warm,
Disturb at times her melting lay.

Alas!—I would believe thee true—
And yet I fear a change will come,
And waste away like morning dew,
Affection's rich and untold sum.
For thou wilt roam in other lands,
And other eyes will smile on thee,
And thou wilt ask from other hands,
The gifts which I have proffered thee;
For I have seen thee in my dream
Of feverish and unquiet sleeping,
Devoid of all which man should seem
When Love around his path is weeping.
I've seen thee at the altar-side
And listened to the rites which gave
Unto thy arms another bride,
And left forsaken love—a grave!

221

God grant my dreams may never prove
Their stern reality of wrong;
Nor make the meaning of thy love
A ring—a promise—and a song.
I do believe thou lovest me now—
But will thy boyish dream remain,
When foreign suns have lent thy brow
A darker and a manlier stain?
And wilt thou love my memory, while
Above thee bends the Italian sky?
Or where the Grecian maidens smile—
Or where the Georgian dance goes by?

Farewell!—forgive the doubts which fling
A shadow on our parting hour,—
Nor deem my heart a wayward thing—
A jealous and ungentle dower:
For woman's love is blent with fears—
Her confidence—a trembling one—
Her smile—the harbinger of tears—
Her hope—the change of April's sun!
Farewell!—and oh! where'er thou art,
Indulge at times a thought of me,
And I will soothe my trembling heart
In one long dream of love and thee.

New England Weekly Review July 26, 1830

TO THE AUTHOR OF THE IMPROVISATRICE

I know thee not, high Spirit! but the sympathy of thought
Hath often to my hour of dreams thy living presence brought;
And I feel that I could love thee with the fondness of a brother,
As the sainted ones of Paradise bear love for one another.

For I know thy spirit hath been poured full freely in thy song,
Where feeling hath been prodigal, and passion hath been strong—

222

That the secrets of thy bosom are burning on thy lyre,
In the nature of thy worshipping, a ministry of fire.

Young priestess at a holy shrine, I scarce can deem that years
So few and beautiful as thine are registered in tears—
That the gift of thy affections hath gone abroad in vain—
A rose-leaf on the autumn wind—a foam-wreath on the main!

Yet blended with thy beautiful and intellectual lays,
I read a mournful consciousness of cold and evil days;
If the weariness existence feels when its sunlight has gone down,
And from the autumn of the heart the flowers of hope are strown;

Of the coldness of the hollow world, its vanities that pass
Like tinges from the sunset or the night-gems from the grass—
In mocking and unmeaning praise, the flatterer's fatal art—
Flowers to the bosom clasped, with serpents at their heart!

And oh! if things like these have been the chastening of thy years,
How hath the woman's spirit known the bitterness of tears!
How have thy girlhood visions—the warm, wild thought of youth,
Folded their sunny pinions and darkened into truth!

O wearily, most wearily, unto the child of song,
The heavy tide of being rolls, a sunless wave along—
When the promise of existence fades before the time of noon,
And the evening of the soul comes on, unblest by star or moon!

God help thee in thy weary way! and if the silver tone,
Of Fame hath music for an ear so chastened as thine own,
Thou hast it from another clime, where heart and mind are free,
And where the brave and beautiful have bowed themselves to thee.

223

And one whose home hath been among the mountains of the North,
Where cataract mocks the earthquake, and the giant streams come forth—
Where spirits in their robes of flame dance o'er the cold blue sky,
And to the many-voiced storm the eagle makes reply!

A worshiper before the shrine at which thy spirit bendeth,
While on its pure and natural gifts the holy flame descendeth,
Hath poured his tribute on thine ear, as he would praise a star
Whose beams had wandered down to him from their blue home afar.

Lady! amidst the clarion-note of well-deserved fame,
It were, perhaps, but vain to hope this feeble lay might claim
A portion of thy fair regard, or win a thought of thine
To linger on a gift so frail and dissonant as mine.

But onward in thy skyward path—a thousand eyes shall turn
To where, like heaven's unwasting stars, thy gifts of spirit burn—
A thousand hearts shall wildly thrill where'er thy lays are known,
And stately manhood blend its praise with woman's gentlest tone.

Farewell!—the hand that traces this may perish ere life's noon,
And the spirit that hath guided it may be forgot as soon—
Forgotten with its lofty hopes—the fevered dreams of mine—
Unnoted, stealing to the dead without a name behind.

But thou upon the human heart, in characters of flame,
And on the heaven of intellect hast registered thy name;
The gifted ones of fallen earth shall worship at thy shrine,
And sainted spirits joy to hold companionship with thine.

Atheneum, August 15, 1830

225

THE DESTINY

Ask not of me, thou dark-eyed one
What may the future be—
Look to thy heart—and ask of none
To read the stars for thee!
Look back upon the silentness
Of unreturning years—
The faded hours of early bliss—
Of passion and of tears.

Yet stay—the spell is over me—
And I must speak thy doom!
Like dark waves on a midnight sea
Behold thy future come!
Ay, bend thy brow as manhood may—
And scoffing as thou wilt—
I see thee on thy future way—
A haunted thing of guilt!

Thou'rt hasting from thy native land—
With crime upon thy soul
Not such as lifts the midnight brand—
The dagger or the bowl!
No, thine hath been a guiltier part—
It hath a darker seal—
Thy pride hath crushed the human heart
As with an iron heel!

Go to the classic shrines of old—
The tombs of mighty men—
Where desolation, grey and cold
Telleth of what has been.

226

Go dream beside the Parthenon—
Or by Grenada's walls—
Or linger where the desert sun
On Tadmor's ruins falls.

Yet there—thy dreams of power and gloom
One thought shall glide between—
Above the hero's crumbled tomb
The martyred one shall lean!
And, through the old, deserted pile,
That pale, still form shall glide
And dimly in the pillared aisle
Steal softly at thy side!

Go mingle with the glad and gay,
And bow at pleasure's shrine—
And Beauty's fairest forms shall lay
Their gentle hands in thine,
Yet there—a spectre—ever nigh—
The injured one shall come
And underneath Love's melting eye
Shall turn thy smile to gloom!

Go now—the lingering curse is given
The spell is laid on thee—
The scorn of Earth—the wrath of Heaven
Is in thy destiny!
Or on the land, or on the sea,
In shadow or in sun—
That spectral form shall follow thee—
The broken-hearted one!

New England Weekly Review, August 23, 1830

228

THE DYING

Oh! bring me flowers—my dearest,
And wreathe them in my hair,
The beautiful—the fairest ones—
And let them wither there—
Wild rose, and the fragile lily—
The blossoms of a day—
And twine them on the brow of one
As perishing as they.

I may not see them growing
In wildwood or in glen,
I may not tread upon the green
And fragrant Earth again,
Yet, leave the casement open,
That the blue and blessed sky,
The tree-tops and the pleasant hills
May greet my closing eye!

And gather ye around me—
The friends whom I have loved—
The eyes that ever shone with mine—
The hearts that I have proved.
In calm unweeping sorrow,
Oh, let the loved draw near,
And let each low, familiar tone
Fall on the dying ear.

I know that Death is near me,
And yet I feel it not—
It is but shedding sunshine on
The shadows of my lot—
A welcome from the spirits
Of the pure and sin-forgiven—
The lifting of the curtain-fold
Which shadows Earth from Heaven!

New England Weekly Review, October 18, 1830

230

THE MOUNTAIN SPIRIT

The day is spent. Dark night has come
With frowning brow and dripping shroud,
And led forth from their caverned home,
The fiercest of her spirit-crowd;
She leans upon the mountain's brow,
And like a silent, living thing,
Upon the misty fields below
She spreads her broad mysterious wing.

Roll on, ye clouds, from every pole,
And veil the earth from moon and star;
Dark, heaving, sounding—onward roll!
Fiercely as when ye are at war;—

231

For I shall roam the plain this night,
Where sunlight hath so lately been;
And I shall go in serried might—
Veil ye the valley darkly, then.

Ye lightnings, flash along the sky,
And dance ye on the mountain's brow
Ye thunders, peal your song on high—
Dash onward, wild and strangely now!
Ye winds, awake your sleeping power,
And, howling, go ye forth again!
Arouse, ye spirits of the hour,
And rush ye, trooping, o'er the plain!

How wildly sweep the winds along—
They ne'er have waked to fiercer glee;
How loudly rings the thunder's song—
Its music hath a charm for me.
It is the song to which I dance,
And I will seek the pleasant vale,
Long ere the morning's red advance,
To revel with the midnight gale.

The chilling fog shall veil my throng,
And thickly lie upon my path;
And shadowy forms shall rush along
Like stalwart foemen in their wrath.
Thick darkness shall unfurl her pinions
O'er all beneath the floating sky;
And her unseen and fearless minions,
Shall plunge like bursting waters by.

For I shall go in power this night,
To wander with the lowland band;
And we shall join our gathered might
And tread the meadows hand in hand.
Then we shall rush to Ocean's shore,
And call her daughters from their pillows
To listen to the breakers' roar,
And dance upon the foaming billows.

232

Wo, then, to keels the waters lave—
For we shall dash them on before!
Wo, wo to him who sails the wave—
For he shall see his home no more!
Wo to the lovers—they may wail
Who gave fond tokens when they parted!
Wo to the mother on the vale—
She surely will be broken-hearted!

New England Weekly Review, July 7, 1831

THE DECLARATION

We are not strangers—we have met
As carelessly as others do—
Thou, to smile on me and forget
The form that passed before thy view;
When others claimed thy smile and caught
The music of thy silver tone—
And I—to cherish in my thought
Each look and motion of thine own—
Each kindly word—each smile that lent
New beauty to the playful lip—
Each blush that o'er thy fair cheek went—
A pearl and coral fellowship,—
Each movement of thy form of grace,
Each tossing of thy waving hair,—
All came before me like the trace
Of half-forgotten dreams that were.

With every hope—with every dream
Of fame and power—amidst the might
Of conscious strength—thy presence seems
Around me like some holy light!
And then I feel that all which earth
Of power or glory might bestow
Were vain and cold, and little worth
As sunshine streaming over snow,—
If thou were not the shrine whereon
The garlands of my fame might blossom—
If that which lighted up my own,
Woke not a thrill within my bosom!

233

It may be that thou hast not given
One gentle thought of thine to me—
That like some pure, bright star of even,
Thou movest onward, “fancy free”—
Unmindful as that holy star
Of ardent eyes to thee upturning
Still in thy radiant sphere afar—
A blest and lonely radiance burning!
Or it may be that in thy heart
There lies some fond, remembered token
Some sacred feeling held apart,
Some cherished dream of love unspoken—
Perchance some form to fancy dear,
Glideth before thy memory's eye—
That still in slumber thou canst hear
His whispered and his fond reply.

And oh—if it be so, I ask
Nor thought nor sacrifice from thee;
And mine shall be the ungentle task
To love—when love can only be
Like one who bows him down in prayer
Before some veiled and mystic shrine,
Even when the idol-glories there,
May never on his worship shine!

New England Weekly Review, August 8, 1831

THE WARRIOR

A gallant form is passing by,
The plume bends o'er his lordly brow;
A thousand tongues have raised on high
His song of triumph now.
Young knees are bending round his way,
And age makes bare his locks of grey.

[OMITTED]

The gallant steed treads proudly on,
His foot falls firmly now, as when
In strife that iron heel went down
Upon the hearts of men;
And foremost in the ranks of strife,
Trod out the last, dim spark of life.

234

Dream they of these—the glad and gay,
That bend around the conquerer's path?
The horrors of the conflict day—
The gloomy field of death—
The ghastly stain—the severed head—
The raven stooping o'er the dead.

[OMITTED]

Men—Christians! pause—the air ye breathe
Is poisoned by your idol now,
And will ye turn to him, and wreathe
Your chaplets round his brow!
Nay, call his darkest deeds sublime,
And smile assent to giant crime!

Forbid it, heaven!—a voice hath gone
In mildness and in meekness forth,
Hushing before its silvery tone,
The stormy things of earth;
And whispering sweetly through the gloom
An earnest of the peace to come.

Stanzas 1, 4, 5, 7, 8 The Bouquet, November 5, 1831

THE BETROTHED BURNESE TO HER HEATHEN LOVER

Perchance, when life hath passed away,
My dust may claim from thee a sigh;
That one who loved thee should decay,
Though joy was in her dying eye;
That clay which once was spirit-lit,
Should mingle with its fellow-clod,
Then thou may'st oft remember it:—
Then when my soul is borne to God!

Ah! I have loved thee, deep and long—
None but my heart its depth may tell!
There is a penury in my song,
To paint the indescribable!

235

The gathering thoughts—the many fears,
That shadowed o'er my fevered brow,
That touched my cheek with bitter tears,
And made me pale as I am now.

[OMITTED]

And wilt thou bow in homage still,
To darkness and idolatry?
Oh, let me kneel and change thy will—
Once I was blind—but now I see:—
Lo! upon Faith's unclouded eye,
The gleams of endless rest break in;
Beyond the mystery of the sky,
Where boundless Love's unstained by sin!

Let it be thus! I would not live
And lose the treasure I have won,
The earth-born hopes may ne'er revive,
To cheer the heart that feels thy scorn:—
And should the tide of life roll on,
In shadows and in misery,
My soul shall turn from phantom's gone,
And, my Redeemer, cling to thee!

Stanzas 1, 2, 6, 7 Connecticut Mirror, November 12, 1831

THE LAST SLEEP

When like a shade from Summer's sky,
The darkness of this life shall cease—
When the unconscious breast shall lie
In the still earth's funereal peace:
How will the sleeper rest in dust,
His clay with kindred clay be blent,—
While the free spirit of the just
Soars to a brighter element!

There is a tranquilizing thought
Comingled with the voiceless grave;
'Tis with no bitter memories fraught—
It echoes not to Time's dull wave:

236

Passion and Pride are passed away,
And the deep slumberer sinks to rest,
Like gilded clouds, when sunset's ray
Is fading from the unbounded west.

And the hot gusts of kindling wrath,
Which lashed the bosom into storm;
They darken not his changeful path,
And the knit brow no more deform—
The throbbing heart is calm and hushed,
The pulse of Hate is cold and still;
And hopes, by sin and sorrow crushed,
Rise not to vex the baffled will!

Thus should it be! He slumbers now
Sweet as the cradled infant's rest;
No shadows cross that settled brow,
On which the unfelt clod is pressed:
From the sealed lid there steals no tear—
There is no care the eye to dim;
And in his shroud reposing there,
The vale's dull clod is sweet to him!

Oh, who would wake the sleeper up,
To walk earth's gloomy round again:
To feel the drops from Sorrow's cup,
Rise to the wild and fevered brain?
Far rather, in their lowly bed,
Let his pale ashes moulder on—
Since the Free Spirit is not dead,
But to an endless life hath gone.

Connecticut Mirror, December 17, 1831

THE FAT MAN

Oh—wo for pursy gentlemen—
The short and thick of frame;
With tun-like bodies that would put
A Dutchman's vrou to shame!—
Wo—for the round and bulky man—
The greasy and the fat—
The five feet high by four feet broad—
A walking tallow vat!

237

I have a handsome country-seat
And pleasant rooms in town,
I keep a noble pair of steeds,
For driving up and down—
My garb is of the costliest—
My steeds are dapple grey—
I've friends who sup with me by night,
And dine with me by day.

But I am one of those who bear
The curse of fat with them,
Enveloping their choicest gifts
Like earth around a gem.
And then I have an altitude
Too Pygmean by far,—
Out-measuring in circumference,
My perpendicular.

And with a spirit all alive,
And sensitive and proud,
I bear my massy frame about
Amidst the jesting crowd;—
And some will smile and all will stare—
And some will roar with laughter;
And lanky skeletons will point
Their bony finger after.

The ladies, too, are dumb with fear,
Or struggling with a smile—
Whene'er I make my awkward bow,
And talk of love the while,—
They turn them from my dashing greys,
And from my country seat—
And love each needy skeleton
That kneels before their feet.

Oh—tell me not that mirth and joy
To giant bodies fall—
Your over-grown and mammoth men
Are melancholy all!
Nay—rather than “this hill of flesh”—
I'd be a Barber's post—
The mummy of an Esquimaux—
Or Calvin Edson's ghost.

Haverhill Iris, January 28, 1832

238

THE LEAN MAN

Wo—for the lean and lanky man—
The fleshless and the grim—
The pleasant light of merry joy
May never rest on him!—
The man whose ghostly shadow seems
A long and narrow line—
Who eats and drinks, yet groweth not,
Like Pharaoh's evil kine.

He sitteth at the dinner board,
Cadaverous and cold,
As was the veiled sketeton
At Egypt's feast of old;
Yet worketh well his lantern jaw,
And fast his fingers fill,—
Your fleshless ones are noted for
Their gastronomic skill.

He walketh in the market place
Amidst the stirring throng—
A locomotive skeleton—
The bony and the long—
Like some wire-moved anatomy
He passeth by alone—
And men will pause, as if to hear
The clash of bone on bone.

The lean may scoff at grosser men—
'Tis Envy's self alone—
They all would change their skeletons
For bodies over-grown.
Ay—rather than their form so lean
And spectre-like and dry,
They'd welcome Falstaff's portly front,
Or Daniel Lambert's thigh.

Haverhill Iris, February 4, 1832

239

STANZAS

[_]

Written on reading the memoirs of Lucretia Maria Davidson, who died at the age of 17. Her poetical writings have attracted attention not only in this country but in Europe.

Beautiful being! thou hast gone
Unblemished from a sinful world—
And, where the star of promise shone
The pinion of thy spirit furled!
And it may not be well to weep
Above thy grassy sepulchre;
Nor over Death's unheeding sleep
The chords of vain affection stir:—
For thou wert taken back to Him
Who gave thee as a blessing here,
Before an earthly cloud could dim
The beauty of thy atmosphere!—
A spirit of a higher mould—
A being unallied to earth—
A gift of song which scarcely told
Its eloquence and priceless worth,
Ere it had passed away to God,—
These were the tokens of thy stay—
These—the bright treasures cast abroad
Like sunbeams in thy youthful way.

The smile of beauty sat upon
Thy forehead like an eagle's crown—
Thy heart was as an altar stone
On which the fire of Heaven came down,
And kindled to a burning gem
Each thought which genius scattered there,
And glowing Fancy gave to them,
The light which morning visions wear!—

Peace to thy sleeping!—o'er the green
And grassy quiet of thy bed,
The beautiful in tears shall lean—
The strong man hush his stately tread.
Thy songs shall live amidst the tall,
Green places of thy native hills,
And echo with the fountain-fall,
And murmur with the sun-lit rills,—

240

And fresher than the loveliest flower
Which bloomed beneath the living eye,
Thy fame shall know no Autumn hour,
Or fold its greenness up to die!—

New England Weekly Review, February 6, 1832

HOPE

When the o'er burdened mind
Sinks 'midst the turmoil and the strife of earth—
And mournful thoughts enshrined
In the dark spirit, send their influence forth
Like the cold whirlwinds, from the frozen North:

When the beclouded eye
Is dim and tearful in Affliction's hour,
And in the bitter sky,
The dusky legions of the tempest lour,
And Sorrow's rain comes down o'er perished leaf and flower,

What upon such a scene
Can shed the radiance that from Heaven descends—
That makes our pathway green:
That gifts of glory to each blossom lends,
And with the unsullied sky the smile of Eden blends?

Is it the world's vain show—
The pomp and glitter of its fading things
That o'er our paths can throw
A ray, where Fate, with melancholy wings
O'er treasured dreams of love, her midnight shadow flings?

[OMITTED]

Hope hath brief dwelling here—
Her pure white wing is folded but in Heaven:
Yet oft the soul to cheer
To the believer's way her smiles are given—
To heal the wounded breast, by sin and sorrow riven!

241

And onward, to the eye
Of ardent faith, beyond that Desert Land,
Her glorious mansions lie:
There her bright form is lost on God's right hand,
Hid in the eternal beams that round the blest expand.

Stanzas 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 8 Connecticut Mirror, February 11, 1832

STANZAS

Forgive thee—ay—I do forgive thee,
And bless thee as we part,
And pray that years may never leave thee
My agony of heart.
I call no shadowy malison
Upon thy fair young brow,
But would thy life might ever run
As sunwardly as now.

I know that I have knelt too lowly
For smiles so oft withdrawn,—
That trusting love received too slowly
The lesson of thy scorn,—
That thou hast had thy triumph hour,
Unquestioned and complete,
When prompted by a spell of power,
I knelt me at thy feet.

'Tis over now—the spell is broken—
The lingering charm hath fled,
And pass away like thought unspoken,
The vows which thou hast said;
I give thee back thy plighted word—
Its tone of love shall be
Like music by the slumbrous heard—
A dreamer's melody.

Go now—the light of Hope is on thee,
Thy lover's claims are o'er—
A thousand smiles thy charms hath won thee
They'll win a thousand more;

242

For Beauty hath a charming spell,
Upon the human will,
Though false the heart it veils so well,
It hath its homage still.

Go—blue-eyed girl!—the proud shall meet thee
And gladden in thy smile,
And flattery's pleasant lip shall greet thee,
With the bland words of guile.
Go, try the recklessness of Earth,
With that young heart of thine,
And lavish its unpractised mirth
On Pleasure's every shrine.

Thy pleasant path may yet be shaded,—
A shadow cross thy sun—
The rosy wreath that Love has braided
Fall from thee one by one.
And yet thou hast my earnest prayer
For blessings on thy way,
That flowers may spring and blossom there
Which know not of decay.

The oak whereon the falling thunder
Hath passed, may yet remain,
The cliff by lightning torn asunder,
May dare the storm again;—
And I can bear myself so well,
In manhood's sterner part
That neither brow nor lip shall tell
The ruin of the heart.

Haverhill Iris, September 13, 1833 (From New England Weekly Review)

PLEAD FOR THE SLAVE

Oh Woman!—from thy happy hearth
Extend thy gentle hand to save
The poor and perishing of Earth—
The chained and stricken slave!
Oh! plead for all the sufferings of thy kind—
For the crushed body and the darkened mind!—

243

So shall the ancient Earth have not
A nobler name than thine shall be:—
The deeds by martial manhood wrought—
The lofty energies of thought—
The spell of poesy—
These are but frail and fading honors—thine
Shall Time into Eternity consign!—

Yea—and when thrones shall crumble down—
And human pride and grandeur fall—
The herald's line of long renown—
The mitre and the kingly crown—
Perishing glories all!
The pure devotion of thy generous heart
Shall live in Heaven of which it was a part!

The Liberator, April 26, 1834 (From An Anti-Slavery Album)

259

THE EMERALD ISLE

Brightly figured thy shores upon history's pages
Where first the wild lays of the minstrel was known
And the brightest of statesmen of poets and sages
O'er the sea-girded isle of Hibernia shone.
Fair island thy vales are embalmed in the story
Which history telleth of ages gone by,
Where Ossian's heroes strode onward to glory
And ocean's wave answered their loud battle cry.
Fair isle of the ocean the shamrock is closing
Its foliage o'er many a dimly-seen pile
Where entombed on the field of their fame are reposing
The proud peerless chiefs of the Emerald Isle.

And in far later years, with the purest devotion
To the high cause of freedom full many a son
Of the green shores of Erin, the gem of the ocean
Fair evergreen laurels of glory has won.
The martyred O'Neil and the gallant Fitzgerald
On the bright list of glory forever shall stand,
And fame circle Emmet, the eloquent herald
That awakened the spirit and pride of his land.
Stern patriots in vain to the tomb ye descended
In the cause of your country since servitude vile
Is still by the hand of the tyrant extended
O'er the land of your fathers, the Emerald Isle.

260

Fair isle of the ocean, thy race is not dwindled
The sons of the mighty and valiant are thine.
Once more may the spirit of freedom be kindled
And liberty over thy valleys shall shine.
O, disgrace not the memory of those who have perished
In the high cause of justice, Hibernians, for you
Let their pathway to fame be tenaciously cherished,
As the course which yourselves should united pursue.
On your shores let the watchfire of freedom be lighted
And the world shall rejoice at its hope-beaming smile.
The Lion of England shall shrink back affrighted,
Nor dare plant his foot on the Emerald Isle.

Hibernia, the tyrants may seek to degrade thee,
Yet proud sons of science acknowledge their birth
On thy sea-girded Island whose genius hath made thee
The gem of the Ocean, the wonder of earth.

University of Virginia Library

A Group of Selections

EVE, AT THE BURIAL OF ABEL

THE EXECUTION OF LOUIS XVI

MICAH IV, 3

THE RESTORATION

Baruch, Chapter V

LINES

On the death of Martha Jane, daughter of Nathan Chase, aged three years and three months.

THE EVE OF BATTLE

From “Recollections of a Soldier,” an unpublished poem

HOPE

THE SUN

CHARLES EDWARD AFTER THE BATTLE OF CULLODEN

THE SONG OF PEACE

THE WANDERER'S RETURN

TO SARAH

THE QUAKER

HAROUN

By the ruins of Palmyra (From “Haroun,” an unfinished poem)

TO SARAH

PSALM 137

THE LYRE

UPON THE INSANE HOSPITAL

(From Miss C. G. A's. Album)

LINES

Written after reading Lord Byron's description of a tempest among the Alps.

A TWILIGHT SONG

TO SARAH

JOB III, 19

FRIENDSHIP

THE SEAMAN'S FUNERAL

LINES

Written after reading “The Warrior's Song” published in the Memorial of 1827

THE RUIN

THE CONVENT

LIFE'S PLEASURES

NIGHT

[Yes! brightly does the sunlight fall]

TO THE SUN

HALCYON DAYS

POEM

A CALM AT SEA

TO “ROY” (N. P. Willis)

On reading “Misanthropic Hours, No. 2”

THE JERSEY PRISON SHIP

Chant

THE BURIAL OF THE WARRIOR

SONG

Air, “Loch Doine”

SONG

THE PAWNEE BRAVE

ALLAN GRAEME

THE MINSTREL

TO THE AUTHOR OF THE “ODE TO SATAN”

SONG

TIME

LINES

On the death of an infant

TO THE MEMORY OF CHATTERTON

LINES ON THE NEW YEAR

THE DRUNKARD TO HIS BOTTLE

THE SPIRIT OF THE WINDS

TO CASSIUS

DEATH OF OSSIAN

THE SURVIVOR

THE MASSACRE OF ST. BARTHOLOMEW

EDWARD AT CHARTRES

THE ENCHANTED LAKE

RALLE

THE WASTED FLOWER

THE SYBIL'S CURSE

THE SWITZERS' SONG

POEM

SARDANAPALUS TO HIS COURTIERS

RURAL EXCURSIONS

MIDNIGHT THOUGHTS

TO ------

THE CAMBUSCAN MIRROR

AT THE GRAVE OF A VERY YOUNG LADY