University of Virginia Library

The Past and the Present

From boding dreams where visioned woes arise,
Ah, where shall terror turn her waking eyes,
Where fly, when fancy leads her phantom train?
Blight the cold heart, and fire the phrenzied brain,
When slumber steeps her wand in misery's bowl,
And pours the venom on the wounded soul.
Deep wrapt in spectered gloom remembrance rears
The lonely image of departed years.
With anguished gaze my aching eyes contrast
What was and is the present and the past.
The waste wild path, where lone unblest I roam,
With all the calm delights of happy home;
Home! sacred name, at thy endearing sound
What forms of vanished pleasures hover round!
What long-lost blisses, mourned, alas, in vain!
Awakened memory gives my soul again!
Joys, now no more, yet sweeter, dearer still
Than all that wait me in this world of ill.
Friends severed long, and of that much-loved one,
Who still from heaven looks kindly on her son.
Thou gnawing canker in misfortune's breast,
Is this thy beam that soothes a wretch to rest?
No, 'tis the light that glimmers on a tomb,
To add a deeper horror to the gloom.
Sad is the homeless heart; and mine hath known
Neglect's cold blasts, unpitied and alone;
I meet no eye that, softening, rests on mine,
No hand whose heart-warm pressure says, 'tis thine!
No lip whose smile a ready welcome bears,
No heart to share my joys or soothe my cares.
Yet through the clouds that round me roll,
A brighter sunbeam lights my darkened soul.
Again around the social hearth of home,
My all of earth, friends, parent, sisters come,
With hearts unchanged by time or fortune's war;
We meet in peace to part on earth no more.
Again we feel affection's holy kiss,
And taste the dear domestic heaven of bliss.
Thus when remembrance throws her sombre dyes,
Hope bids her fairy bow of promise rise;
With magic ideal peace bestows,
And lulls with future joys our present woes.
[OMITTED]
What boots it that when nature stamps the seal,
She gave the heart to love, the soul to feel!
No dew-eyed seraph meets me on the way,
To wake its kindling pulses into play.
E'en the bright dream my fancy half believed,
Has left my heart to mourn o'er hope deceived;
To pine for life's last solace torn away,
And curse the smile that flattered to betray.
What boots it now, that toil and vigil past
On science's steep ascent I stand at last?
Lo! where around my heart won honors wait,
Dark envy, malice, pale and smiling hate,
And the fair tree which might have flourished high,
And cast its leafy glories to the sky,
Sinks by the canker's deadly touch o'erthrown,
And dies deserted, withered, and alone.
What boots it now that o'er my infant head,
Some blessed drops from fancy's cup were shed,
That bade my heart with nameless rapture swell
Before the master of the mighty spell,
Gave my dim eyes thy thousand charms to see,
And bowed my soul, oh matchless muse, to thee?
Cast round thy eye, and mark where'er it darts,
A mass of empty minds and icy hearts;
Vain were the hope one mental joy to steal,
From clods that will not think and cannot feel;
Vain were the hope communion sweet to find,
The flow of thought, the interchange of mind
When fairy dreams and minstrel visions high,
Burn in the cheek, and brighten in the eye;
When hidden truth, by keen-eyed reason sought,
Draws on the brow the deepening lines of thought;
When wit awakes the glance of keen delight,
And humor holds his sides and laughs outright.
Yet these were once my own, and more divine,
Home, parents, sisters, friends, all, all were mine.
A home where love in every heart was shrined,
Warmed by the heart, illumined by the mind.
Oh, then I thought in sweet seclusion blest,
No fears to haunt us, and no cares molest;
Calm as the slumbering wave our life should glide
Serene and still, a mild, unruffled tide
That steals unmarked along in viewless wave,
Towards the peaceful ocean of the grave.
Oh! there were times when to my heart there came
All that my soul can feel or fancy frame;
The summer party in the open air,
When sunny eyes and cordial hearts were there;
When light came sparkling through the greenwood eaves
Like mirthful eyes that laugh upon the leaves;
Where every bush and tree in all the scene
In wind-kissed wavings shake their leaves of green,
And all the objects round about dispense
Reviving perfumes to the awakened sense;
The golden corslet of the humble-bee,
The antic kid that frolics round the lea;
Or purple lance-flies circling round the place,
On thin, light shards of green, an airy race;
Or squirrel glancing from the nut-wood shade
An arch black eye, half pleased and half afraid;
Or bird, quick-darting from the foliage dim,
Or perched and twittering on the tendril slim;
Or poised in ether sailing slowly on,
With plumes that change and glitter in the sun
Like rainbows fading into mist—and then,
On the bright cloud renewed and changed again;
Or soaring upward, while his full, sweet throat
Pours clear and strong a pleasure-speaking note;
And sings in nature's language wild and free,
His song of praise for light and liberty.
And when within, with poetry and song,
Music and books led the glad hours along,
Worlds of the visioned minstrel, fancy wove
Tales of old time, of chivalry and love;
Or converse calm, or wit-shafts sprinkled round,
Like beams from gems too light and fine to wound;
With spirits sparkling as the morning's sun,
Light as the dancing wave he smiles upon,
Like his own course—alas! too soon to know
Bright suns may set in storms, and gay hearts sink in woe.
Look round thee, wretch, are there no joys to taste
On all the barren world's abounding waste,
Can hope, sweet solacer, no balm supply
From the rich stores of dark futurity?
She, when cold sorrow throws her sombre dyes,
Bids through the gloom her bow of promise rise,
In magic dreams ideal peace bestows,
And lulls with future joys our present woes;
Warms with her smiles, when bleak misfortune lowers
And strews life's weary way with thornless flowers.
Enchantress, no! though bright its gleamings be,
Thy heavenly lamp hath now no light for me;
Condemned like unforgiven ghost to tread
The scenes of buried joys and pleasures fled,
Through all my haunts of joyous youth to roam,
Friendless and sad, a wretch without a home.
One only gift remains—one boon I crave,
A home of dreamless rest—a quiet grave.