University of Virginia Library

TO A. T.

ON HIS IMPORTUNING THE WRITER TO COMPOSE SOMETHING OF MAGNITUDE.

[Salem, 1808.]

Oft have you said, (or scolded rather,)
In many a literary quarrel,
Why strive these useless sprigs to gather,
E'en though they should be “sprigs of laurel?”
No! strive to have some lofty tree,
Whose branches stretching o'er the plain,
Reclined beneath thou 'lt gladly see;
Then take thy ease, nor plant again!
Thou dearest one! and dost thou, then,
Prize the rude lines I thus indite?
And think of manners and of men
Thy minstrel qualified to write?
Grant that “the tree” thy wish would raise,
To meet thy wish, had grown and flourished,
Protected by thy guardian praise,
And by thy kind attention nourished;
Grant that its early buds were fair,
That taste and tint its fruits combined;
Its dewy foliage cooled the air,
Its balmy fragrance blessed the wind;
Grant that its roots were firmly fixed,
Its limbs its just proportion knew,
Duly its soft'ning shadows mixed,
And pruned each shoot that wildly grew;—
All unadmired those leaves would fade,
Untasted be that fruitage-store;
Ah! withered soon its slighted shade,
Its wasted fragrance breathed no more!—
Thy hand alone, indulgent friend,
Its garlands, meet for praise, would twine,
And ev'ry sweet it e'er might lend,
Would satisfy no sense but thine.
Then cease, thou partial prompter, cease
The wish to urge a loftier strain;
The humble-hearted taste a peace
The rash aspirant ne'er could gain,
And still indulge the careless muse;
These wild-flower shoots, as wont entwined,
The tears of love its only dews,
Then graft the chaplet on thy mind.