Lays of Melpomene :: :: University of Virginia Library

Lays of Melpomene

Fairfield, Sumner Lincoln (1803-1844)

[epigraph]

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SONNET.

Lyre of my Love! for many a lonely hour
Thou hast breathed music o'er my sinking mind
And I have sought thee, when the world unkind
Crushed my fond hopes, in Love's secluded bower,
And found thy chords possessed a magic power
O'er the dark workings of the soul;—woes bind
The Memory unto joys life leaves behind,
And Fancy radiates the darkest lower
Of stormy being with rich light;—howe'er
Rude and unpractised be the hand that strays
Thy golden wires among, thy plaintive lays
Oft from my soul have banished pain and fear,
And I have felt for many a lingering year
Of harrowing woe for one so young the days
More softly come and go, illumined by rays
Brighter than others, when my lyre was near.
Thou hast been faithful and I love thee well.
Go forth, ye orphan lays! ye have no guardian spell.

AUTUMN.

There's beauty in the autumnal sky,
And mellow sweetness in the air,
But it hath sadness in my eye,
And breathes of sorrow and despair;
Its softness suits not settled woe,
Its richness mocks my poverty,
And sunny day's ethereal glow
Laughs o'er my dark soul's misery.

The requiem song of sighing gale
With rustling, lifeless foliage playing;
The chilling night wind's saddening wail
O'er rock-browed hill and wild heath straying;
The mournful sound of lapsing flood
Lamenting desert mead and shore,
Rather beseem his solitude
Who weeps for all he did adore.

I have long been a wanderer, doomed
Life's ills and wrongs and woes to bear,
To feel my bosom's loves entombed,
To cherish grief and woo despair!
And I have been betrayed, oppressed,
Belied and mocked in guise so foul,
That there dwells not within my breast
A hope, nor purpose in my soul.

No kindred bosom beats with mine,
For I am one the world loves not;
No hopes around my being twine,
For I am doomed to be forgot;
Oh! had I perished when a child,
Ere high aspirings burned to heaven,
Devotions blasted, pleasures foiled,
And passions ne'er my heart had riven!

I have no friend on this cold earth,
No gilded prospect cheers my eye,
Despair watched o'er my unwished birth,
And woe wept o'er the agony;
My childhood groaned 'neath wrong and ill,
And I grew sad when others smiled,
For ever on joy's rapturing thrill
Came sorrows deep and miseries wild.

My youth has been a scene of woe,
And wandering and reproach, and all
That loved me in death's overthrow
Have passed away beyond recal;
And I am left to suffer here
Alone, and feel the keenest throes
Of pain unpitied, while no tear
Gushes to calm my burning woes.

Pale daughter of the dying year!
I ever loved thy scenes of death,
Thy foliage dropping red and sear,
Thy pensive look and nipping breath;
For thou wert like thy votary son,
Fading and dying day by day,
And smiling that thy task was done
So soon, and life had passed away.

When, oh, I trace the path of years
And count the pangs my heart hath borne,
And number o'er my bosom's tears,
And sighs and groans of grief forlorn,
And think of all the dead behind,
And what they were in life to me,
I feel a wild delight refined
In holding converse thus with thee.

Oh, I would change my being high
Gladly a withered leaf to be,
And float on zephyr's pinions by,
A thing unknowing misery!
And when the snows of winter fell
I should not feel their icy blight,
But slumber in the mountain dell
Sweetly the livelong northern night.

I ne'er could cringe and crouch to guile,
Nor thoughts repress that would arise,
Nor visor with a villian smile
Ice-featured hatred's demon lies;
I ne'er could herd with fashion's throng,
And whirl away the unmeaning hours,
Nor link with base nefarious wrong
My spirit's unpolluted powers.

And so my mortal life hath passed
In loneliness and grief and woe,
And I have trod an arid waste
With measured step, lone, solemn, slow,
And seen the viper brood of hate
And baseness crawl around my way,
And felt my being desolate
Lit by misfortune's baleful ray.

Oh, dying Autumn! would with thee
I could lie down and sleep fore'er;
Thou would'st not waken misery
In the soft springtime of the year
By breaking his undreaming sleep
Who never loved its brilliant flowers,
But often sighed—he could not weep—
When musing of youth's changeful hours.

Cold is the hand that once was prest
In passioned rapture to my heart,
And colder yet the lovelit breast
That felt in all my woes a part:
Wild wails the wind o'er many a tomb
Which holds full many a dear one bound,
And in creation's starless gloom
I hear a mournful, dirge-like sound.

'Tis nothing, Autumn, but thy breeze
Amid the leafless forest flying,
But yet it comes through bending trees
Like the last groan of nature dying;
And seems, as low the sun sinks down,
Like a sweet voice I loved to hear,
Though altered now its charming tone
To suit the melancholy year.

In childhood's hours, a wandering boy,
Reflective, feeling, sad and wild,
I felt it was a glad employ
For lonely, visionary child,
To rove abroad 'mid hills and woods,
And climb the cliff and pluck the flower
That flourished there, and skim the floods,
And dare worst danger's utmost power.

I little thought at that sweet time
My heart would ache 'mid scenes like these,
Or that the clear brook's lulling chime
Would ever fail my soul to please;
But, ah, long time has passed away
Since I knew not the world's deep woes,
And pleasures past around me play
Like spectres round the dead's repose.

Since thou, pale widow of the year,
Wert here before, strange deeds have been;
Full many a gay heart's quaked with fear,
And many a lovely, joyous scene
Hath changed to desolation wild;
Eyes, that once shone with pleasure's light,
Have wept like those of little child,
And lost their happy, fairy sight.

And many a proud and lordly one
Hath knelt beside the robbing tomb,
And high-born things have heedless gone
With creatures nursed in lowly gloom;
All—all, O nature! die with thee,
The high, the low, the sad, the gay,
And it were joy, in sooth, to me,
If I could die like yon sweet day.

A SKETCH.

Days, weeks and months passed o'er me and were seen
Vanishing eternally with a smile,
That formed itself against the spirit's will,
So glad was I to feel that burden, Time,
Dropping from my pierced heart; for I did live
Among, but yet not with the living—tears
Suppressed within the fountains of the soul,
Hardened like crystal rills in cavern-hall,
And fell in icy particles upon
My burning heart, yet melted not but lay
Unmoving there, and chilled each feeling, hope,
Desire and aspiration that arose.
My being passed 'mid shadows, and the things

Familiar once assumed, or unknown form
Or appendage, unknown, and to my eye
The faces erst beloved appeared like those
Imagination images in dreams;
And oft I feared to speak, lest I should be
Abandoned to my woe; and, if I spake,
My voice re-echoed round me like the cries
Of desperation 'mid a dirge. My brain
Was fevered with my dreadful anguish, which
Grew by repression, like the camomile,
Until it mastered reason, or whate'er
Name that observant faculty doth bear
Whose power is o'er the visible universe.
There was a dread, unmeasured, in my thought,
A vague idea of something horrible,
Which I dared not examine lest it should
Prove real; and I lived like one in sleep,
Forever searching for some lost companion,
And wandering in mazes till the eye
Refuses to direct, and hope expires.
Yet amid all the estranging of my love
I still clung to my child; a mother's heart
Retains its deep devotion to her dear
And pang-bought offspring, when the woman's mind
Is laid in ruins; and her bosom burns
With love instinctive for an innocent
And lovely creature whom her spirit knows
Only as something worthy to be loved.
Folding the orphan to my heart, I went
Abroad the mansion witlessly, and searched
Its chambers desolate, and then returned
In wildered disappointment that the thing
I looked for could no where be found.—I sat
In the lone winter nights before the dim
And melancholy embers, and did hush
My breath while listening for the tread of him
Who ever spent his evenings with his love

In social converse;—but he came not, so
I sighed and murmured to my prattling babe
That he would soon return; but then I thought
That he had gone to a far land and left
His duties unto me, and that I must
Discharge them as became our vow of love.
And so I oped his escritoir and saw
His papers, pens and pencils and all things
Disposed e'en as he left them, and I felt
That I could not arrange them otherwise
If they were wrong;—his closet then I searched
And there his vestments hung familiarly
And appositely arrayed;—I returned
From such short wanderings sad, and sometimes thought
My love had told me he should dwell no more
Upon the earth—and then my heart did feel
As if it floated in a lava sea.
Thus passed my strange existence from the day
He died until disease my infant laid
Upon his suffering couch, and I became
His sleepless watcher. Long I sat beside
The lovely one, attending all his wants
And sick caprices uncomplainingly,
Yet all unconscious that he was my son,
Till one said he was dying—then there flashed
Through my dark spirit thoughts of past, and tears
Profuse quenched the destroying fire that burned
Within my heart and brain; I backward looked
And saw my desolation, and yet felt
Happy contrasted with the awful state
I had awaked from; life hath direful ills
And woes and sufferings, but the fiercest lie
In madness, e'er in dread of heaven and earth.
It cannot weep—it doth not think, and yet
It hath both tears and thoughts, the one of blood,
Of pangs the other; all its feelings coil
Like serpents round the heart and sting the core
Unceasingly, and all the sweet ideas

Of love and friendship round the racked brain twine
Like knotted adders, venomous and blind.
Pierce, O Thou Holy One! the heart but spare
The spirit! Let thy judgments fall upon
The affections, but preserve the immortal soul!

My child was spared me; and the tale I tell
Was gathered from the loved ones who beheld
But could not mitigate my woe, and those
Impressions I retain of sights and sounds
That floated by me in bewilderment.

THE PROMENADE.

It was the Sabbath's herald eve; and pained
With melancholy musings, such as hearts
Bleeding with sorrow nourish, forth I went
To gaze on nature's pensive face and smile
Of virgin softness, and I felt the sweet
Sense of her loveliness stealing o'er my woes
While watching her pure countenance, now veil'd
In moonlight and her changeful robes of green
Azure and silver blended, while she looked
Like one who was to me what angels are
To paradise—the living fount of joy.
A diamond star was gemming o'er the waves
Of pearl, that danced along the silver wake
Of Dian's bark, and it did seem like love
Adorning innocence; while in the midst
Of ether hung the rosy isles of bliss,
Where spirits, as they do the bests of heaven
And warder Zion's towers, commune with each
Other delightedly, and tune the songs
That soaring souls forever sing above.
The thought of meeting my beloved again,
Filled all my soul with gladness; and there came
The blended feeling of devoted love
Struggling with hope's pale spectres, and despair

Kindling the incense of its orisons
At Eden's altar; and I felt a deep
Impress of confidence of happier days
On my wrung heart till sorrow came again.

A sea of voices waked me from my dreams
Of holier spheres, and told me of the earth,
That held in its cold bosom all my loves,
Save one sweet babe that gilds its buried sire's
Image upon his widow's heart! O Earth!
Cold is the couch thy sons must sleep upon,
And dark the chambers of their slumber deep;
I looked around me and the vestal moon
Was silvering the waters, o'er which scud,
Swanlike, many a silent sail bound afar,
Perchance, to fathomless eternity!
And dazzling lamps, that seemed in the pale moon
Like crime obtruding his unholy light
Before rose-beaming virtue, glared above
The blushing waters as they laughed in scorn.
And in a sea-dome, studded o'er with lights
That mocked the diamond, many a voice arose
In merriment, well-feigned and many a form
Of outward splendor, glided round to find
Something to tell how happy all must be
Who 've wooed and won the pleasures of the world.
Like earth's gay hopes, full oft a column rose
Of fire far in the azure vault of night,
And then it burst and vanished, and loud laughs,
Lunatic, echoed far;—but some did watch
The glittering fragments till they fell—then sighed—
And I sighed too—they told me of my joys!
It was no scene for me—the sights I saw
Were once shared with those eyes that wake no more;
The voices that I heard were all unknown;
The arm I held was not my loved one's—oh!
'Tis bitter to compare our passing years!

The Dead! where are they now? The Living! what
Are they to those whose hearts are in the tomb?
[OMITTED]
Slow I returned to my lone room, and kissed
My sleeping child, and looked to heaven—and wept.

THE YANAR.

In orient land of wizardry and charms,
Spells, spirits and romance, there is a fire
Unchangeably eternal, and it burns
In undimmed brightness amid mountain snows
That hang white, pure, unmelting o'er the flame,
Which (saith the legend) suddenly appeared
To the meek prophet whom the princess saved
In childhood from his watery couch, and nursed
In all the science of the magic land,
To warn him of his bondaged nation's wrongs,
And light his spirit to supernal deeds.
Round that undying flame in beauty bloom
Roses in all their pride of fragrancy,
Diffusing o'er the flame such rich perfumes
As angels only may inhale and live;
And amaranthine flowers in clusters wave
Around it ever, while the genii hold
Their magic conclave 'mid the alcove there.

But, oh, methinks there is an holier fire
That burns yet richer incense, and a light
Brighter and lovelier than that o'er which
Men marvel as a thing beyond their power
To solve—a widowed heart's immortal love;
A Love, that followed gladly in the path
Its idol chose, unquestioning of the good
Or ill therein, and went unmurmuring on
Through want and weakness, wretchedness and woe,

Disease and weariness, and feared no wrong
Save one's unkindness and reproach; oft tried
Sorely and found unchangeable as truth;
A Love, that wedded pleasure, pride and mirth,
And turned in after-days to sadness, gloom,
And melancholy poverty with a smile
That nothing but his censure could displace.

The heart is Love's dear dwelling-place, and there
Around his throne pure thoughts and feelings high
Embodied spirits stand or kneel in deep
Devotion at the shrine of sweet content,
Fanning with dewy breath the incense-wreath
Of faithful worship, while the sun-beam eye
And angel feature of their lord respond
To the fond vows of unalloyed delight.

The icy look of stranger sympathy—
The blooming sweetness of young loveliness—
Tempest and sun-light and the storm and breeze
Are all alike to those who feel no hope
Of better time or season; all whose joys
Have perished in the wildest wreck of Fate.
The inextinguishable lamp of love,
That burns within the bosom ceaselessly,
Is lighted at the sepulchre of hope,
And doth derive its nutriment from pale
Misery's tears—the portress of the tomb.

TO IANTHE.

Perchance, desponding maid! thy plaintive strain
Is echoed by a heart as desolate,
And soul as melancholy as thine own.
Perchance, should I a shorter life than thine
Unfold, it would reveal more dreary scenes
Than those thy muse so feelingly portrays;
Fond hopes crushed by the anaconda coil

Of envy, treachery, folly and deceit—
Affections blasted by the breath of scorn—
Loves murdered on the pillow of repose,
Revelling in dreams of holiness, and rapt
To ecstasies of passion pure and high;
Deep feelings tortured on the rack of doubt,
Till their engendering fibres, broken, warped,
Withered and hardened, trembled on the wheel
That killed them, like a wretched maiden's thoughts
On the imperjured object of her love!
Perchance, thou hast not seen the dew of death
Gathering upon the brow of him thou loved'st
Most holily, and felt the life, that was
Thy heaven, trembling in the unequal pulse
Till the heart throbbed no more! Thou hast not seen,
Perchance, the pallid lip striving in vain
To give the parting spirit speech—the eye
Upturned to thy inanguished view, and bent
In dying fondness on thee, till it lost
The light of life and love at once in death!
When the dark tomb holds all we loved below,
'Tis meet to wish us there, that we may blend
The ashes that in life were warmed by fires
Ethereal mutually; and that our souls,
From earth's thrall freed, might rise together on
The worlds they loved to hold converse withal.
But, lovely songstress! (lovely in thy life
And poesy alike,) thou hast fond friends
Who love thee ardently, and would not lose
Thee tearlessly—while I, whom thou hast seen
Sembling a smile that mocked the lip and eye
That wore it, have no tie but grief to bind
My spirit to this sphere; for none would know
When I am buried that I e'er had been.
How little know we what we are, and less
What our companions are! We toil and pain
Ourselves to be the things that nature cries
We are not; and we rack our souls in days
Of sunny loveliness to find a cloud

Where fancying sorrow may complain and sigh.
Oh! if the grief that rends the silent heart
In twain, could write in pangs its harrowing tale,
'Twould shame the moody minstrel's morbid strain,
And burn the heart that listened to its notes.
Such woe is mine, and mine will ever be
Till death, for I have proved the world, and find
Sickness and sorrow universal here.
The wave of Arethusa cannot heal
The soaring soul that laves in its bright stream,
Nor can Pierian waters cool the heart
That burns in feverish anguish. To invest
Our woes in fancy's rainbow robes, and clothe
Pangs with the spirit's sunlight, is to deck
A corse in diamonds, and to lay the dead
Upon a bier of gold—vain pageantry!
Songstress! thou can'st not find among thy friends,
Though full oft near thee, her whose lonely breast
Broods woes too poorly pictured in this strain;
But be it thine to know that a bright face
May often mask a hopeless heart, and forms
So falsely gay as mine be near the tomb.

SONNET.

Lord of my bosom's love, a last Farewe
The tears of Time bedew the burning throes
Of agony, and maniac pain compose
To sadness, that becomes thought's magic spell;
The musings drear of hopelessness to tell
Would tire the gay; a tale of bitter woes
To mirth doth bring alloy, and pleasure's rose
Would vanish at the sound of death's deep knell.
The hopes, the fancies and the follies—all
The subtle means employed to brighten life
Shall live and be with sweet delusion rife
Long ere I throw o'er them their sable pall.
Though brightest feelings and most fond desires,

Aspirings holiest, delights most pure
For few brief moments in the view endure,
They glitter, while they be, with magic fires;
And, like the sea the setting sun beneath,
Life loveliest looks when sinking into Death.

THE ROMAN CATACOMBS.

Empire of Death and nation of the Dead!
With trembling awe delightful, through thy realm
Unwarring, lighted by a flickering lamp,
Whose quivering flame just trembles on the verge
Of darkness, and displays unreal things,
I tread in silence, and my spirit feels
A luxury of terror, and a dread
Sublime in its infinitude, while o'er
This peaceful land where man hath learned to dwell
In quiet with his fellow, I with step
Soundless, wander to muse. 'Tis a dread place
For those whose puny spirits quail at death,
And his high attributes! O'er the damp walls
Flit shadows spectral, and the startled ear,
Tensely attentive, doth create wild sounds,
And tomb-like voices, whose strange language spells
The daunted heart, and fires the reeling brain
To agony; and on each side there stand
The mighty congregations of the dead;
Not phantoms as their spirits be, but still
Things of proportion as they were in life,
Though they move not as erst they did, from sense
Internal, but are swayed by passing things,
And speak in voices not their own; the forms,
Anciently seen upon the Earth, are now
Degenerated to that strange state which doth
Exist between the living and the things
In the world's creed thought dead. Sensations wild

And agonizing wake within the heart,
At maddening meditation on the fate
Mortality involves; and spirits proud
Quail at the glance of him whose chilling touch
Freezes both thought and feeling;—but I feel
A glory and a majesty, unfelt
Before, amid the Empire of the Dead.

Here all is peace; distinctions die with man,
And pride and power, and high and low lie down
Together like fond twins, and slumber here
Forgetful of degree; the Cardinal
And Count with Monk and Peasant sleep,
Undreaming of to-morrow's festival
Or hierarchal pomp; no crosiers here,
Nor coronets, nor gold cross robes, nor crowns
Of triple dominance, the humble garb
Of meek dependance mock; but lordly prince
And haughty priest lie side by side with him
Who chronicled in memory the high
Distinction, that he digged their 'scutcheoned graves.
This is the tomb of Nations; and upon
Yon broken statue I will sit me down,
And meditate on death; burn up, my lamp!
No Sun of life lights this vast darkling cave.
Methinks there is a mighty power within
My spirit, that I feel such glorious thoughts
Roll like sun-billows o'er my swelling brain.
The World, unthinking things, would call me mad!
And reprobate the act whose affluence
Of thought e'en Angels would be proud to own.
But, oh, thou Father of my soul! I bless
And worship thee that I'm not like the world.
When thy pure Spirit purifies my heart
From this life's blots, and liberates my soul
From mortal fardels, and doth place me where
I may be one of thy own Angel choir,
My theme of praise to thee shall ever be

That thou didst give to me a soul above
The sickening follies of this slaving World.

This subterranean mansion ages since
Was made to shield the persecuted race
Of humble Christian worshippers from rage
Of pagan bigotry: and oft, perchance,
The solitary follower of Him,
Who was the Prince of peace, hath sat alone
Where I do now in sadness, listening close
For sound of dread discovery, and the first
Object that met his wearied eye has been
A headless, mangled brother, or a child
Rescued from Vultures. Bitter was the bread
Of mortal sustenance, but sweet the pain
Suffered to those who felt a loftier range
Of being in this dungeon than the crowned
Despot who reigned o'er Earth-shadowing Rome.
The cold clay was their couch—the dripping rock
Their pillow, and their food the scant supplies
Of short occasion or quick passing chance;
And the sweet sympathies of life, the pure
Diffusion of fond tenderness and love,
The mingling of unwounded feelings, were
Few and unlasting; yet the unfaltering sense
Of Godlike piety cheered their hearts
And filled their spirits with a strong-winged faith,
Which rose to paradise amid the gloom
Of their long banishment.—Where are they now?
And where their foes, the mighty ones of Rome?
They sleep together in yon glittering piles
Of limbs and sculls, and he, who on the rack,
Or in the cauldron, or 'mid savage beasts
Perished, lies now beside his murderer
And links his bony hand with his who plied
The torture or the fire, or goaded on
The frenzied Lion, fiercest.—Senators
And Slaves, and Knights and Servitors, and high
Dames and their lowly damsels; meek and proud,

The wise man and the fool, and friend and foe,
The persecutor and the persecuted lie
Commingled indivisibly; and all
Who, living, waged eternal warfare—fierce
Banditti and their victims sleep in peace
Beside the mitred lords whose curses poured
Unceasingly against them; their rude wars
And bitter feuds, taunts, jeers and scoffings now
Are past; we hear of them as tales of death
Befitting only horror's wild romance.
And here I sit amid a perished world;
And 'tis, methinks, a better place to dwell
Within, than that polluted one they call
Land of the living; for a dead man shows
More nature and true tenderness in look,
Action and attitude, than the base herd,
Who cannot breathe save in a venomed air.
Death purifies the tainted heart, and sheds,
Not aromatic fragrance, but a balm
Of potency o'er poisoned hearts, and gives
Feelings of kindness to degraded souls.
The dead lie not; their speech and intercourse
Is silent but 'tis faithful; no poor forms
And ceremonies chain the bleeding heart
In converse with the slumbering sons of clay.
Acquaintance long and guarded there is none—
Ere one can speak a thought or do a deed
That chimes with his desire; and so I love
The dead as friends who ever speak the truth;
They give me better counsel than this vain
And prating world; and he, who lives among
The buried nations, doth derive his thought
Of might and grandeur from those fountains whence
Nor ill, nor wrong, nor malice, ever flow.
The silent eloquence of this lone place
Prepares the bodied spirit, which doth groan
And bleed below, for paradise; 'tis here
Man sees and feels the little thing he is.

Since the first hour of rising consciousness,
And tortured feeling and corroding thought,
When has the period been we did not wish
For Death as for a proud deliverer
From woes and agonies he never knew?
When has the time existed spirits high
Longed not to throw the fardels off of poor
Humanity, and live in glorious climes,
Fitting their own glorious nature? None
But cowards, slaves and villains dread the hand
That doth disrobe us of the blood-wet vest,
Which saturates our spirits with the gore
Of agony; the wretch who begs for life
I would contemn as one unfit to live.

In such a dome as this—the sepulchre
Of ages, it were glorious fate to die,
Beholding the assembly venerable
Of Roman lords and mitred saints, and all
The thorn-crowned martyrs smiling that their son,
Tired of the pains of time, and wearied out
With this world's crimes and miseries, had come
To join the council of the hall of Death.
Then should we look upon the maddening strife
For nothing, which corrodes our bleeding hearts,
With due derision; and contemplate all
Our hopes and purposes and proud desires,
And lofty feelings and aspiring thoughts,
And wasted hours and bitter sufferings,
As phantoms of a maniac's dream. Alas!
We cannot act ourselves; we are chained down
By fashions and by follies, and made dupes
Of action artificial; all is changed.
Than this delightful world, no fairer thing
Sprung from the plastic touch of Deity;
Amid the unbounded Universe there rolls
Creation none more beautiful; but, oh!
This fairy palace of delightful things
A lazaretto has been made by man,

Within whose loathsome porticoes and towers
Dwell want, disease and wretchedness and crime;
The balmy airs, that once flew fanning o'er
Its gardens of delight, and loved to kiss
The lovely creatures who, like Peris, roved
Around its fragrance breathing bowers, now move
Heavily on leaden wings amid the steam
Of the wide reeking pestilence; the songs
Of gladness that erst rose to Heaven are changed
To wailings of despairing misery.
And yet upon this scene of turbulence,
And war and sin and rank pollution, still
Heaven smiles as wont; and Angels ope the gemmed
Portals of Eden to console this world
Of self-inflicted pain, while they change not
From what they were in Time's young lovely days,
Save that they often weep that man should prove
The deadliest of foes to his own peace.

Night wanes in her dark circuit; and my lamp
Dimly illumines the lone catacomb.
And forth I must depart—to live again
Among the living of the sun-lit Earth.
Yet, oh ye mighty dead! I shall forget
Never your counsels; ye have been to me
Wiser and kinder than the breathing race,
And oft amid the volumed lore which doth
Survive all time, I've passed both day and night,
And gathered ample stores of knowledge pure
And alimental, which have been to me
A counterpoise to all my heart hath borne.

Farewell, ye dead! ye once were great, and Time,
When he watched o'er the growth and perfect glow
Of energies ye once possessed, beheld
No mightier things beneath the shadowing sky.
But ye are nothing now; and none can tell
Or name or lineage; so all must be,
And then be not; appear and vanish, like
The foamy wake, which a fleet sailing bark
Leaves murmuring a moment in its path.

PASSAIC.

Blue Passaic! o'er thy mirror stream
The queen of heaven in beauty flings
The pearly light of her silver beam,
While the sky-throned spirits from their wings
Drop starry gems in the dark blue flood,
And pensive Eve sits on the shore,
Wooing the embrace of solitude,
And watching the dance on heaven's gemm'd floor
Of the airy shapes who guard young love,
When pure hearts with affection gush,
And trill their songs of bliss above,
When lip meets lip, and beauty's blush
Fires with a brighter flame the breast
Of him who breathes the virgin's breath,
And feels so purely, fondly blest,
He e'en would court the embrace of death!
O Earth! amid thy cheerless gloom
There are sunny spots of bliss supreme,
And if, when the lights of love illume
Those Edens with joy's rosy beam,
We could lie down upon the mead,
And die beholding Paradise
Around, above, within, indeed
'Twere more than heaven to close our eyes,
From which wrung tears so oft have flowed,
And perish in that blissful hour
When every hope hath been bestowed,
And we have drained enjoyment's power.
Like music heard in young love's dream,
The chiming waves come dancing on,
And their spiry cones in the moonlight gleam
Like memory's thoughts of the dead and gone;
And the pebbly beach lies sweetly still,
Beneath the look of the queen of night,
Drinking from music's fount its fill,
And shining amid the pale moonlight

Like budding hopes in blighted bowers
Of soul-lit love, when rapture's eye
Hath closed in death, and sorrow's hours
Link with a dark eternity!

Blue Passaic! on thy verdured shore,
When the world doth sleep, I sit alone,
And the deep blue sky I traverse o'er,
To find where all my hopes have gone;
For I once was full of love and glee,
And felt delight as others do,
And my voice rung loud and merrily,
Ere I saw that pleasure was untrue,
That the melting glance of a fond blue eye,
And the angel smile of a ruby lip,
Were as full of guile as witchery,
And offered to all who loved to sip
The venom that burns in the heart forever;
The quenchless fire that sears the soul,
Whose flame will cease its fury never,
But scorch where'er its billows roll.
Spirits of night! oh, give me back
My innocent hours of boyish mirth,
And blot from my heart the lava track
My thought hath run o'er this dark earth!
My childish spirit but little way
Flowed in its pure and sweet delight,
But, oh, it was a sunlight play
Of gleaming waves, forever bright;
While now on billows of lightning rides
My boundless thought, o'er midnight skies,
And my spirit rolls in the fiery tides
With rending groans and wailing cries.
My birth star was a meteor-flame,
And it wanders and burns fore'er like blood;
Nor hope nor love can its fury tame,
For it dwells in dreadful solitude;
'Tis fated the pure and the good to kill,
And murder the hearts I love the best,

And its comet fire burns fiercely still
O'er every hope of my lonely breast.

O, lovely Passaic! were my heart
As calm and bright as thine azure stream,
In nature's love I would bear a part,
And blend with the light my soul's pure beam!
But ah, I am one by fate oppressed,
The wandering ghost of the harmless child,
And my heart hath died within my breast,
I have so often been beguiled.

THE LOVER'S LAMENT.

Good night! the last faint hues of day
Blend with the sapphire sea on high,
And anguished rapture with that ray
Sinks to despair's deep agony.

The tinted robes of evening fade
O'er the dark welkin's cloudy vest,
As Hope's long lingering funeral shade
Shrouds the lone bower of love unblest.

The soul-lit vision of delight
Is vestured with a heart-wrung tear,
And prescient misery's chilling blight
Comes from affection's sunny sphere.

Night, ebon night, veils every scene
Where oft we met and mingled souls—
Oh, that thy smiles had never been!
My pulse throbs wild, my mad brain rolls.

A burst of moonlight feeling gleams
O'er my fond heart's magnolia bower,
But memory 'mid the bright flowers screams,
While Love weeps o'er the parting hour.

O'er life's perspective, dim and dun,
No gilding rays of orient glow,
My soul's gem-star, my fancy's sun,
Burns lurid in the vaults of woe.

Down-winged sylphs no longer dye
The pale dead rose of buried love;
The air-wove forms of transport's eye
Float not o'er sorrow's cypress grove.

Upon cerulean pinions borne,
'Mid opal waves of spheral light,
O'er my dark spirit, lost, forlorn,
Comes one dear shade of dead delight.

'Tis more than demons could invent
To wreak their deadliest hate in pain,
The broken heart's fierce punishment,
To gaze on bliss from cells where reign

The fiend, whose fangs are fraught with all
Love's raptures changed to agony,
And that foul hag, whose shriek can call
The bitterest woes of misery.

Away—away! my boiling blood
Maddens my dizzy brain, whene'er
I think that Envy's hell-born brood
Barred me the love of one so dear.

[OMITTED]

Relax—relent! thou swelling sail!
Spare me a moment's thought of her!
O, how my senses faint and fail
As memory's star-light shades recur.

I ask not hours to throb and thrill
With sweet remembrance, sad and wild,
The sickness of my soul would kill
Ere I could dwell on passion foiled.

I ask but one last murdered look,
One glance of that o'ershadowed spot,
Where love his purple pinions shook,
Where all I valued was—is not!

Thou cliff! from whose aerial brow
My wild eye drank her sylphic form,
Oh! keep the soul-beams on thee now,
Through sunny days, and nights of storm!

And hear the wailing tones that swell
Above thy cloud-capt, azure height;
They ring a spirit's funeral knell;
They issue from sepulchral night.

Farewell! I ne'er shall gaze again
On mansion, cliff, or stream, or tree,
Where centres bliss, converges pain,
And wails the lyre of agony!

[OMITTED]

A light gleams from yon casement high,
And sparkles in my tearful gaze,—
Oh! 'tis the lattice meets my eye,
Where love threw flowers 'mid rapture's rays.

And 'tis her hand that waves the light,
For me? Ah, no! fierce madness tells

She waits the dalliance fond to-night
Of—how my bosom pants and swells!

I will not think—I'll plunge afar
Beneath the ocean's booming wave,
Where shines nor sun, nor moon, nor star,
Where the dead throng, and demons rave—

Ere I will speak the hated name
Of him who, fiend-like, stole my love;
Hell's banded demons better claim
As brothers, and their deeds approve!

But her—alas! I cannot feel
One haughty pulse, one hating thought;
My heart will ever basely kneel
Before the shrine my passion wrought;

And I shall stoop to dream of one
Who ne'er will think nor care for me,
And madly trace, when all undone,
The textured toils of destiny.

Memory will sit beneath the shade
Of sorrow's poison-dropping tree,
And, as the forms of misery fade,
People with fiends immensity.

Oh! that her lips would breathe a curse
O'er every step of life's wild track,
That I might ban the universe,
And hurl my proud defiance back!

Then I would ride the lightning's wing,
And catch the vollied bolts of heaven,
'Mid hurricane in triumph sing,
And shout and yell where they had riven.

And I would brave their maddest power,
Echo their echoes o'er the sky,
And in destruction's whelming hour
Forget my bosom's agony.

But ah! it will not—cannot be!
Time, fate, chance, foe have done their worst!
Earth, ocean, air, are nought to me—
Oh! that my panting heart would burst!

Who—who can bear a rapier smile?
A kiss that dooms the soul to death?
The anguish of illuding guile?
The nectar upas of the breath?

I—I will bear it—fierce and high,
Nor stamp my brow with characters
Each pitying fool can read, and sigh
In grief of scorn for him who bears.

Good Night, ye vales, and hills so fair!
I love to hold converse with you,
She claims no parting but despair,
Nature still wins a fond—Adieu!

THANKSGIVING ODE.

When young Time sung in Eden's bower,
And angels echoed back his strain,
Ere sin mildewed each morning flower
Of hope, and pleasure died in pain,
Each love-winged thought that rose on high
Was man's melodious prayer of praise,
And happy hearts threw o'er the sky
Blessings, as flowed the sun-waved days,
While Heaven benignly smiled and breathed the grateful lays.

No seasons, then, by power assigned,
Restricted songs of gratitude,
For man's pure heart and pious mind
Cherished no thoughts but those of good;
But, his high spirit higher soaring,
He knowledge bought, and was unblest;
And, when he should have been adoring,
Lost Eden—love's abode of rest,
And wandered forth o'er earth, an exile sore distrest.

There was a jubilee in Heaven,
When man to being sprung, and raised
His soul in praise for blessings given,
The image of the God he praised;
And there are songs of glory swelling
O'er Heaven, e'en in these sinning days,
When man laments his long-lost dwelling,
Yet for earth's joys chants hymns of praise,
And sings in Eden's speech, though lost to Eden's ways.

For sunny skies and balmy showers,
And mellow airs, diffusing health,
And bloomy meads and dales of flowers,
And fields of beauty rise with wealth,
And verdured vales and wooded hills,
And Plenty smiling o'er each home,
Which rose-lipped Love with odour fills,
And sweet Content, who scorns to roam;
For blessings such as these, let glad Thanksgiving come.

No pestilence hath stalked abroad,
And thrown o'er bliss the funeral pall;
No sword of crime-avenging God
Hath marred man's toil-won festival;
His earthquake voice hath not been heard
Amid the cheerful mirth of life;
But his breeze-wafted smile hath stirred
Softly the groves with perfume rife,
And blessed again the man who flies soul-jarring strife.

Pole-Star of Freedom's starry sky!
O Maine! fair daughter of the North!
Awake thy harp of melody,
And, holy Priestess, go thou forth
With voice of praise o'er Freedom's land,
And bid her happy sons revere
The memory of that hallowed band,
Who bowed to Heaven in forest drear,
And blessed the Almighty One, whose blessing dried each tear.

VIGILS.

Thou wert, my sister! sinless love! Thou art not now! Alone
I wander sadly far from scenes we loved to call our own,
And often breathe a sobbing sigh, and shed a bleeding tear,
When, mingling with the icy world, I think of blisses dear.

Thou wert a sun to light my heart when sadness on it hung,
And plaintive, pure, and holy were the songs thy spirit sung;
Thy dove-like bosom throbbed with love, so gentle, deep and fond,
That still it dews my burning heart though thou art far beyond

The scenes we trod, the groves we loved, and thy lone brother's view,
For heaven and earth are linked by love, so feeling and so true.
Sweet sainted shade! how happy had thy brother's pathway been
If thy soft smile had cheered his soul in many a gloomy scene!

But thou art gone, and I am left alone upon the earth,
A cloud amid the sunny forms of life—but of their worth
Or beauty, wit or wisdom, I know nought nor wish to know,
They pass, I see them not—they speak, but know not of my woe.

They flaunt along in robes so rich, and talk in tones so gay,
And plume their hearts so much on earth—poor insects of a day!
That I can feel no love for them, though fair and fond they be,
Since thou art gone, and I must go, to far eternity.

Oh! many a year hath fled afar, since thou wert with me, love!
And by my side did'st walk and sing along the elmy grove,
And turn thy soft blue eye to mine, and lay thy head upon
My love-lit breast and look so fond—and now I'm all alone!

The melancholy moon so dim, the attracting orb of woe,
I view and think on all thy smiles, thy tears, thy words below,
And then it seems so strange that old and soulless forms should be
Sepulchral shadows o'er the world, and thou so far from me!

Where art thou, sister, where? I know they tell us heaven's above,
And that it is a holy place—the scene of joy and love;
But where, oh! where is that dear spot in yon celestial sky
Thou dwell'st upon? O point it out to my long searching eye!

And I will sit the livelong night and gaze upon that place,
Where thou dost dwell and sing of love and heaven's ethereal grace;
And I will think thou dost behold thy brother's form below,
And smil'st upon his gloomy soul, and that will soothe my woe.

Can'st thou not tell me how they live, the spirits of the sky,
And where we go and what we feel when earthly bodies die?
And wilt thou not, my sister love! when I am sad and lone,
Descend upon my brooding soul and tell me where thou'rt gone?

The air's so pure that comes from heaven, the skies around so bright,
And all above so holy, it must be of dear delight
The mansion, and the place where He ascended to prepare
A palace for the wanderer—a refuge from despair.

And thou art there, in glory, love! and I in woe am here;
And thou dost shed a radiant smile, and I a bitter tear;
But thou art happy, and I feel that while I live below,
To think that thou art free from sin, will calm my ceaseless woe!

FAME.

To gain a name, and be the thing the world
Mimics and mocks, delights in and deludes,
Dooms to despair, and destines for the fane
Of fame; to feel the butterflies of earth
Sucking the essence of almighty thought
To sate and gorge themselves withal;—to be
The vassal camel of a mental waste
Toiling for things detestable, who love
To goad with gilded lances creatures formed
To elevate their honor, and to hear
Groans wrung from bleeding hearts:—to toil and sigh
'Mid vigils of strained thought, and feel the breath
Of waking nature stealing o'er the fires
Of the hot brain, and hear the morning air
Chant matin minstrelsy to hopeless woe,
Mocking the spirit's ear; to look abroad
O'er earth and heaven, and weave in sunny web
Thoughts pure and delicate, conceptions high,
Creations glorious, and fancies rich,
Threads spun in paradise and knit and linked
By magic skill of mighty intellect;—
To think, toil, fancy thus, and yet to know
That we but frame an Eden for base worms,
Serpents of venom, reptiles foul, and things
Beneath all name—'tis vile, oh, very vile!
[OMITTED]
And then the cold neglect, the stinging scorn,
The maddening look of pity, and the sneer
That calls itself a smile; the taunting speech
That words its malice in fair compliment
To aggravate its bitterness; the eye
Whose earth-bent gaze doth seem to scorn and laugh
At what the curl'd lip utters; the oblique leer
Of galling envy, telling standers-by
That its approval is the baited barb
Which all confiding genius swallows down,
To its own ruin! These are only part

Of what the votary of living fame
E'er silently endures!—His ocean-thought
Commingles with the universe, and rolls
In tides sublime along the eternal shore,
Its billows swelling amid worlds of light
And sounding immortality! Around
Floats music most seraphic, and above
Ascend the jewelled battlements of heaven,
Warded by spirits of the sun—below—
Alas! the cold re-acting waves return
Mournfully to earth, and lose their rich
Music and brightness in the oozy marsh
And slimy pools of folly, vice and sin.

THE SPIRIT.

The spirit cannot die; it must dilate
Eternally, and be a vital part
Of everlasting ages—knitted close
To absolute infinity and linked
With the immensity of fate—'tis just
It should be deathless, for its plastic powers
No limit know nor bound, e'er shining through
Creation like the sun; but, oh, the heart
Will prey upon its energies and prove
A mountain on its wings, for subtle thought
Is but the slave of feeling, and the soul
Will languish when the bosom aches and be
The vassal of locality, depressed
By poor contingencies and habitudes.
The desecration is most vile and yet
Life's feeble purposes demand the use
Of powers almost angelic, for the soul
Is like the sun, though stationed in the skies,

It must look down on earth and light alike
Things beautiful and loathsome. Be it so!
Shall man be querulous and dare impugn
What Deity hath warranted and done?

Spirits of greatness have human form
And feature, like the veriest thing that gropes
And grovels in base idiocy; they pass
Before the world as other mortal shapes,
And though the eye may beam unusually,
The brow wear deeper lines of thought intense
Than others, and the glow and gloom of hope,
The sunlight and the darkness of the soul
Vary the changeful feature, and the tread
Be more unequal and the outward bearing
More plainly intellectual than the step
And look of the great mass, yet deeply dwells,
Unseen, impalpable, the living beam
Of star-eyed light that issued from the sun
Of the Divinity; and, unbeheld
By creatures of most ordinary note,
Beings pass by in silence or they stand
Apart, in general estimation thought
Of minor consequence, on vacant air
Dwelling or veiling their soul-beaming eyes
From things external, that the soul may close
The portals of its palace and retire
To holy counsel with itself—who are
More fitting glory and would wear the robes
Of angels more to nature than the shapes
Mortality has burdened them withal.

Such Spirits fill the universe—they live
In the blue ether and their dwelling-place
Is the immensity above; they sit
Upon the thrones of angels in the stars
And hold converse with them when gentle night
The gay earth canopies and nature folds

Her moonlight drapery round her and lies down
By bright Hyperion's side to bridal sleep.
This world of sin they labour to forget
And all its crimes and woes, and they become
Associates with the blest in pure desires
And feelings holy; and they love to tread
The verge of paradise though mortal yet,
Seeking to know the loves that blossom there,
The joys that never fade in those bright fields,
The thoughts of bliss expanding ever through
The pauseless ages of unceasing love.
Such spirits find no thoughts reciprocal
In earthly beings; none can estimate
Their greatness rightly; none can feel the same
Dissolving and absorption of all powers
In soft elysian visionry—they live
Alone, star-beams round the sun-throne of God!

The sovereign eagle ever dwells alone
In solitary majesty, and waves
His mighty wings in air unbreathed by thing
Of lowlier nature; and the lion walks
The wilderness companionless, and holds
No converse with the creatures that surround
His monarch pathway; so the angel soul,
The seraph spirit lives in loneliness
Proud and unbending, and its solitude
Becomes its empire where it reigns fore'er
In might and majesty.—But when 't is chained
Down in the world's cold dungeon, and is mocked
By gazing folly and unholy guile,
And taunted by the reptile hordes around,
Madness springs up within the brain and flares
In deadly fury from the eye and whelms
The spirit prostrate which could be subdued
Only by its own potent strength;—the high
Aspiring intellect doth spurn the poor
Malice of insect nothingness and lives

Or dies only because it wills it so.
The boundless universe with all its worlds
Of stars and suns is but a narrow path
For the immortal spirit; one bright glance
Of the soul's eye pervades all space and flies
Beyond the farthest reckoning of the sage
Who reads the heavens; the winged thought sublime
Wanders unresting through creation's worlds
And searches all their glorious beauties, till
Yet unsatisfied, it would rove through realms
E'en angels know not of, when some keen pang,
O'erwhelming want or weakness murders thought,
And brings the almighty spirit down to earth,
And all its chilling woe and bitterness.

THE DEATH OF TIME.

There was delight among the unconscious sons
Of Earth when dew-lipped Eve upon the sky
In virgin beauty stood and bade adieu
To the Sun-Spirit as his crimson wings
In the far distance waved like gossamer;
And there was gladness in the look she threw
Into the blue infinitude to watch
The latest beam of day; and, when she turned
Her twilight glance upon this world, and spread
Her dusky veil o'er nature, there was love
In her ethereal attitude, and joy,
That had its being in sweet innocence,
Illumed her melting features winningly.
But Earth's gay habitants beheld the beams
Of Uriel's eye slow fading, and the soft
Dimness of eve condensing into night,
With feelings unallied to holiness

Or breathing of the pure serenity,
That flowed from all things; on false pleasures bent
Of sense, they waited but the closing night
To veil their gaiety and mirth and crime.

But Night, at man's unholy madness wroth,
And startled at his wassailry, arose
From her dark couch and shrieked so fearfully
To heaven that angels on each other gazed
In deep astonishment, for sinners chained
In hell ne'er framed a cry so piercing; looks
Of doubt and trouble passed ere tortured Night
Creation's guardians saw; but then she raised
Her thousand voices and invoked the Lord
Of All that Time might be no more! A voice
From heaven's eternal throne of light came forth
And angels echoed—“Time shall be no more!”
Then portent stillness stretched her leaden wings
Immovably o'er earth and nature slept
In deathful slumbers, save a startling moan
Involuntary ever and anon,
When the lascivious song of godless mirth
And the loud shout of revel rose and went
Forth, the dread witnesses of sin and crime.
The stars looked down and wept, and whispers stole
Along the firmament from each to each,
Communicating doom, while man's seared eye,
From which the spirit had retired in shame,
Read nought but peacefulness and pardon full
For all his vileness in the arching sky.

Morn leapt upon the mountains, but the light
Was gory crimson, and the lurid vault
Seemed panting while the day-break airs went by.
No lyric voice was heard; the loveliest birds
By pairs sat mutely on the trees, nor moved
Though the green leaves, all crumbled into dust,
Dropped o'er them rapidly; the wondering herds
Wandered unresting o'er the ground and roared

With pain, for the hot earth by inward fires
Was fast consuming; the fell reptiles hissed
Distractingly and thrust their venomed fangs
Against their rocky dens till their last joy,
The woe of man, was gone, and their fierce pain
Augmented by the act that meant relief;
The finny clans of ocean rose and spread
Upon its surface to escape the steam
Of its wide boiling billows, and the loud
Flapping of tortured bodies numberless
Frothed o'er the waters for a thousand leagues.
All nature was in agony—save man!
He slept amid the wailings and the shrieks
Of things to whom eternity was nothing.
What sound will wake the sleeper? Hark!—'tis nought.

'Mid volumes of dark vapour rose the Sun
Affrightingly effulgent, and his glare
Changed the dun concave to a sea of blood.
The World reeled to and fro and things of life
Gasped sobbingly for breath in the thick air.
Beneath day's baleful gleam rocks melted down
And mountains into lava seas—woods fell
And crumbled instantly to earth—fierce flames
Drank up the hissing streams and the hot ground
Rung with a hollow moan. Where—where was man?
Slumbering! What sound will wake the sleeper? Hark!

Creation, wake! it is the knell of Time!
Attend his burial in Eternity!
There sounds the Archangel's clarion! The skies
Roll rapidly away; the Sun hath gone
Down the abyss of chaos; demons throng
The gulf o'er which the world reels fearfully.
That fiendish laugh, oh, hear it!—See! the Earth,
The very dying Earth doth rise and shriek
As trembling with the dread that hell hath ta'en
Possession of her beautiful domains.
Darkness becomes material, and throngs

Of waking wretches grasp its stinging folds
With the tenacity of utter woe,
And, though their hearts are bursting, still they cling
'Till their frames mingle with the hell-fold night
And they are changed to demons!—Light as pure
As Him from whom it issues burns above,
And songs of glory echo yells of pain.

With one deep, hollow, rending groan the Earth
Dissolved and fell in fiery particles
Through the dense darkness of chaotic worlds;
And 'mid the horror-palsied multitudes
The fiends passed with infernal laughter while
Unutterable thoughts of bitter woe
Thronged many a burning brain and quivering lips
Strove vainly words of prayer to frame and tongues,
Erst eloquent coadjutors of thought,
Hung agonizing down till they became
Serpents, and fastened on each passer-by
Convulsively, and desperate bands there stood
Close woven to each other's agony,
Yet every moment aggravating pain
General by private instances of spite.
Time hurried to a resting-place to die,
And as he hastened on, prepared to leave
His mission; Death's keen scythe he downward threw,
And, flashing in hell's fires, its piercing edge
Was ever o'er the suffering sinners' heads,
Menacing vengeance yet protracting dread;
The glass, that numbered hours, now poured its sands
By centuries and 'mid a meteor's glare
Above, he hung it awfully distinct
To eyes that wept their owners' bosom blood,
And, when they asked the close of their fierce pain,
A vivid flame flashed upward and displayed
Eternity!—Then Time fell down and died.
But as he fell, amid the awful scenes
Of horror and despair, I saw two forms
Beautiful celestially bend o'er the verge
Of billowy chaos with a look of woe

And agony, and then in fond embrace
Rise upward joyously; a deadly moan
Went through the universe as fleet they fled,
For they were Love and Innocence!

EVENING.

The crimson waves of undulating light
Are blending with the azure sea of Heaven,
In the sublimity of beauty, while
The softest, sweetest, balmiest breath of eve
Fans fleecy clouds with fragrance as along
The sky's blue arch they sail, like angel wings
O'er Lebanon and Olivet; and far
In the cerulean ether soar the birds
Of heaven in joyance such as if they felt
The all-pervading holiness, and knew
The Deity who rules the universe.
The whispering breeze amid the twinkling leaves,
That dance to Zephyr's song, speaks gently sweet
In answer to the voice of waters far
Warbling along their pebbled path, beneath
The purpling light, which shadows out the trees,
And hills, and rocks, so mirror-like, that eye
Of wandering solitary could trace the form,
Being and nature of each object there.
The mountain's brow is crowned with glory—wreaths
Of purest radiance circle every tree,
And shrub, and low bush there; while far below
In the rock-barred ravine, no lonely ray
Wanders amid the gloom. The scene is like
The sun-browed thought of rapture, soaring high
In intellectual majesty, and full
Of holiest emotions, while it wings
Its flight through realms empyreal, and then
Drooping and falling lifeless on the dark,

Unholy, false and melancholy earth.
Hills feathered with their shrubbery redolent,
And cliffs with moss and lichens robed, and boughs
Of loftiest trees adorned with blushing flowers,
Jasmines, lianas and all woodland vines,
High precipices, rough and bare as when
The rocking earthquake left them—all are shown
In mimic beauty, like reality,
Upon the mirror by which nature decks
Her lovely form—yon little sleeping lake.
The latest beam of evening slumbers now
Upon the crystal waters, and I see
A world within the azure depth, so pure,
So full of happy peacefulness, I long
To plunge and seek out pleasure there, and dwell
In that sweet home of waters, ever mid
The best of friends—woods, rocks and silver waves,
Whose speaking silence innocently tells
All I can feel of pure beatitude.
But woe loves loveliest things, and I might find
Sorrow there even, were it as it seems,
And not a mockery as 'tis!—The soft,
Love-breathing vesper breeze plays o'er the smooth
Expanse delightfully, and curls and crisps
And crinkles the blue waves, while autumn dew
Wets the green leaves that have o'ercanopied
The lake the live-long day, untouched by drop
Of its serenest waters—oh, how sweet
Is nature's quietude! the lulling lapse
Of purling brook through vales of verdure rich,
And generous of their richness, and the sound
Most musical of down-winged winds, are songs
Of gladness she doth ever raise to Heaven,
In gratitude of still devotion; all
Her votaries are fond of gentle thoughts,
And pure desires, and high imaginings,
And noblest aspirations, seeking out
A dwelling far from turbulence and strife,
And noise, and folly, and corrupting sin.
Nature doth teach her lessons in a tongue

All can enjoy; and what she teaches none
Of saints and sages past could imitate.
There is a pure divinity, unwarped
By damning creed or dogma stern, in all
Her sacred teachings, and a holy voice
Of loftiest wisdom rises from the depth
Of her most silent solitude to teach
And counsel her infatuated sons,
In everlasting faithfulness—'twere well
Man weened and recked of her advisings more.

Night's star-winged angels in the firmament
Are setting watch, and hastily they come
Forth in the blue concave, like the fond hopes
Of young desire o'er the unwounded heart.
Faintly the dying light of day illumes
The western horizon, and shadows flit
O'er grove and dale and stream and hill alike,
For every object here is beautiful,
And worthy such rich robes of light and shade.
Oh, that each scene yon everlasting sun
Lightens, were worthy his celestial beams!
On feudal towers and castles, where the groans
Of death and bondage worse than death have rung
Through dungeon vaults, till every echoed tread,
For centuries, awoke despairing cries,
And voices of wild agony; on mosque,
Whose shrine's deep font is filled with blood for rite
Baptismal, and where muftis tell of joys
Sensual and hellish, as pure delights
Of after-being in man's paradise;
On palaces of pomp and crime, and huts,
Whose inmates gnaw a crust, and bless the hand
That gave it; on despair and hope, delight
And anguish, tumult, peace, and purposes
Of noblest pride and meannesses most vile;
On all things dreadful, sweet, detestable,
Beautiful and loathsome, thy beams alike
Shine, fire-robed lord of heaven! and if from thee

Alone man images thy Maker, how
Impartially beneficent he is!
The faintest blushing of departed day
Hath gone, and russet mantled night glides o'er
The eternal hills, as softly as the young
Mother trips round the cradle of her child.
Oh, that I could divest myself of life
Corporeal, and leaving this poor load
Of clay to mingle with its kindred earth,
Imbibe an elemental being—live
In the blue ether and float joyously
Through realms of upper air and feast my soul
On sun-beams! It were godlike fate to dwell
Amid the unbounded universe and be
A star or moon-beam, on which angels light
In their ethereal wanderings, and chant
Empyreal songs. The infinite desire
Of such celestial fate doth swell my heart,
And amplify my spirit to the embrace
Of thoughts immeasurable—feelings so
Tremblingly glorious, I would not pause
For one farewell if I could rise and be
The merest part of those most holy beams
Whose radiance now gleams o'er another sphere.
Alas! the bitter, false, ungrateful world
Doth class me with her multitudes; and 'mid
The sinning and the sorrowing, the vile,
The mean, the wretched, and the grovelling, still
Must be my dwelling-place. I loathe and hate,
Avoid and dread the stinging viper brood
That crawl around; and were I one like them,
I would seek out a midnight den to hide
My person from the sun. O mother Earth!
Beautiful daughter of the Spirit-Sire!
Thou wert a paradise, till man, the fiend,
Changed thee to hell by his all-nameless deeds.

THE DREAM.

Upon the rainbow's prismy pinions,
When soul was young and airy,
And dancing o'er the pale-blue sky,
A wild-tressed little Fairy,
In azure robes bedecked with gold,
Came smiling on my eye,
And breathing o'er my lovelit heart
The odours of the sky.

Around her thronged aerial shapes,
On her wild eye-beam sailing,
And other forms in sapphic notes
Among the Pleiads hailing,
While wavy music, floating far,
Embalmed each hallowed feeling,
And the heart's voice in thrilling notes
On the soul's ear was stealing.

Rapture behind the Fairy stood,
And rolled his sun-beam eye,
And, as he swept his angel lyre,
The everlasting sky
Its golden waves of ether threw
Along his swelling brow,
And heavenly choirs their music poured
Enchantingly below.

Soft Pleasure twined the Fairy's locks
Around her silver wires,
And Echo languished meltingly,
While all the fond desires
Came dancing from the palmy isles
Of rich Hesperides,
To wanton in the amber waves
Of music's sounding seas.

The Fairy sat on rainbow throne,
Amid her lovely train,

And as I, spell-bound, gazed on high,
I heard a seraph strain;
It bore my spirit on its wing
To realms by man unseen,
And paradise enraptured lay
Heaven's pillared fanes between.

'Twas Psyche's song, the Fairy's voice,
And Eden's angel lyre,
And every holy strain it tuned
Did thrilling love inspire;
Transparent on full many a brow
The mighty spirit shone,
And rapt Devotion bowed and knelt
Before the rainbow throne.

The strain was past—another rose,
But trembling, trilling, low;
Its notes seemed deep, but unexprest,
And sweet but full of woe;
'Twas Eden's lyre I heard, but touched
By Doubt's distrusting hand,
And tears were shed and sorrow reigned
'Mid all the astonished band.

The music then came mournfully,
Like panting evening breeze,
And light shone forth like moon beams wan
Amid lone willow trees,
And hearts dissolved in pity's tears
At Grief's regretful strain,
While star-winged angels bent from heaven,
And sadly sung again.

My melting eye in sorrow's dew
Lost vision for a time,
But, when I raised its look again,
A Shape in gloom sublime

Was scattering wide the rainbow throne,
And stamping on the lyre,
And darting from his meteor eye
A wild and wasting fire.

A sable host with eyes of guilt
Pursued his desert way,
And lightning flared and thunder crashed,
But, fiercer still than they,
Despair went on in fiery gloom.
Through realms once fair afar,
And Hope, the Fairy's shrieks were heard
Amid the ruthless war.

The sunbow bright I stood upon
In other distant sphere
Dissolved and midnight's fading dream
Disclosed no cause of fear;
But yet, methought, the spirit's lyre
Will echo music only
Unto the spirit's magic touch
Ere sorrow leaves it lonely.

ADIO.

Farewell! the Hope that led me on
Was sorrow's orphan child,
And thou may'st think, when I am gone,
That, though my love was wild,
I did but seek a home for one
To whom Despair was brother,
And prayed that thou would'st kindness own,
Since he desired no other.

But thou didst kiss the wandering child,
And fold him to thy heart,
And, when of all his sweets beguiled,
Thou bad'st the boy depart;
Oh! hadst thou never, never smiled
Upon his vows of love,
His life away had not been whiled
'Mid passion's dreamy grove.

Young Hope had lived in orphanage
His childhood's wandering hours,
But he for fair creation's page
Had culled celestial flowers;
And, than the scenes that did engage
His earlier thought, his mind
Was purer at his infant age,
More gentle and refined.

Farewell! Young Hope his mournful tale
Hath eloquently told thee,
And thou hast heard his requiem wail
From those who madly sold thee;
'Tis long, since died the orphan pale,
And he hath gone forever,
But he charged Love when life did fail—
“Forsake her not—no, never!”

MUSINGS.

The youthful heart is heir to wealth
That years can never tell;
The youthful soul does deeds by stealth
That might in triumph swell—
The thought that tunes a generous mind
Oft dies upon the wing,
And bosoms feeling, fond and kind,
Writhe oft 'neath torture's sting.

Gay hope, the night-fire of the brain,
Allures the heart to woe
With beams, that pleasure lends to pain
This faithless world to show;
And we are sped on life's lone way
By gilded goading spears,
While flitting fancy's meteor ray
Emblazons misery's tears.

The deepest woes we feel below,
The wildest throes of pain,
From our own fond illusions flow,
When sanguine passions reign;
For guileful flattery soothes the heart
That malice turns to sting,
And love, full oft, o'er ruin's dart
Its vermeil veil will fling.

Anticipations ever glow
In self-delusion's light,
While sorrow's tear and misery's throe
Sublime the heart's delight;
As silver clouds in fleecy wreaths
A summer sunbeam shade,
When breezy music softly breathes
Along the waving glade.

Undimmed by time, the youthful eye
Sheds tears unchilled by all
Those wayward feuds, that burst the tie
Of love when envies call,
And in the rudely tilting world
Engender woe and strife,
When friendship from his seat is hurled,
And pride companions life.

Darkness, disease and doubt will blight
The fairest dreams of bliss,
And rapture plunge, in sorrow's night,
To agony's abyss;
The fairy frost-work of an hour
Decays in misery's flame,
And false and vain are pomp and power,
And fleeting as a name.

A REVERIE.

Morn wakes upon the mountain height,
And dim and duskily along
The woodland dale glides pensive night,
Listening to nature's matin song;
Her russet robes and tresses dark
Far floating o'er the pale-blue sky,
While arrow-like, the wild-wing'd lark
Fans heaven with joyous minstrelsy.

But why wakes man with drooping eye,
And burning brow, and heart of gloom?
Why comes no soothing melody
From his dark spirit's breathing tomb?
The bursting sigh, the pallid cheek,

The quivering voice, and look of care,
An unblest soul too loudly speak,
A heart enthroned by grim despair.

Morn's glories bring no joy to him,
Eve's vermil beauties fade unseen,
His hopes are gone, his eye is dim,
The present pictures what has been;
Life is a dream of wretchedness,
The world a prison barr'd by woe,
The earth a grave where myriads press,
And heaven a place that none can know.

Starting from visions, whose false light,
Like fire-flies round a cataract,
Deludes the wretch to endless night,
He hurries forth to feel the rack
Of ductile malice, and to tread
Among the snares of villain guile;
To sigh in doubt, and gaze in dread,
And fall beneath a dagger-smile.

The spirit that can span the skies,
And walk divinely realms above,
Is torn with sorrow, stung with lies,
And murdered by the fiends of love;
For angels oft their robes impart
To shroud a demon's venom'd thrust,
And 'tis the madness of the heart
That makes the world supremely curst.

The iron mantle, flung by grief
O'er bosoms scorched by lava tears,
The savage feeling, past relief,
That centres all the pain of years;
The wild-fire rush of boiling blood,
The thought that seems to burst the brain,
Conquer at last pride's hardihood,
And time, fate, life and death disdain.

Vain is the searching thought intense,
That struggles in the expanding mind,
And vainer still the joys of sense,
For hell and demons rush behind;
Gloomy 'mid mirth, in crowds alone,
Distrusting good, adopting ill,
Man is the thing he dares not own,
The victim of his own wild will.

Youth withers 'neath the blight of wrong,
And minds of mighty birth are doomed
To perish in convulsions strong,
And by earth's reptiles be entombed;
While, lanced by hatred's gory blade,
And probed by misery's venomed steel,
The heavenliest hearts are naked laid
For vice to balm, and hell to heal.

A wanderer, seeking hope's pale ghost,
A shadow in the world's wide blaze,
In labyrinthine mazes lost
For blackening nights and midnight days,
Led by delusion, girt by woe,
Followed by horror and remorse,
Man could not render life below
More dreary, nor the world make worse.

RETROSPECTION.

Love of my sad and lonely Youth! to thee
I bowed my spirit in deep ecstacy,
And when most thrall'd esteemed myself most free
From lowly earth's polluting stains,
And sorrow's self-engendered pains,

And all that saints mourn over and regret;
For deep-felt passion purifies the heart,
And, when the signet of true love is set,
Sublime conception will its thought impart,
And noblest virtue ever sway
The joyous life from day to day.

Those holy hours of heavenly love we past
Their incense yet o'er life's lone path-way cast,
And through my being will their influence last,
Though, like the light of paradise
To suffering sinner's straining eyes,

Their pure, unearthly splendor in the gloom
Of dark misfortune and unceasing woe,
Gleams like the baleful torch-light of the tomb,
And haggard shapes and ghastly forms doth show
To eyes, that once on beauty shone,
And met love true as was their own.

Love of my dark and lonely youth! thy name,
Unread, unheard, no mortal power shall claim,
For, though I'm changed, yet I am still the same
To thee, my heart's eternal bride!
My spirit's life, and joy and pride!

When far retired from earth's unfeeling things
I hold communion with the days gone by,
And when my soul on high devotion's wings
Reads the bright volume of eternity,
I think of thee, and whispering tell
Thy name to those who loved as well.

Another claimed thy wedded love and thou
Didst yield response to his enamoured vow,
And on the earth there's nothing left me now
But coldness, sorrow and neglect,
(Erst of such fate I little reck'd.)

But in the pride of suffering I will bear
The past, the present and the future's ills,
And only think of thee as one in prayer
Doth think of heaven—and though my heart oft thrills
At sound of name too like to thine,
No eye in me shall grief divine.

I blame thee not, sweet one! that thou didst speak
Love to my passion, for my heart was weak,
And fondly leaned on what was sure to break;
I blame thee not—the time hath gone
When I did wish thee for my own.

Back o'er the desert of anterior life
I gaze in sorrow not with joy unblent,
For childhood's dreams and youth's enkindling strife
Have lost the illusion that they whilom lent,
And guile hath chilled my feelings so
I would not change for bliss my woe.

Long time hath past—lone, leaden-winged hours,
Days, months and years since Housatonic's bowers
Heard zephyr wantoning among the flowers
To lovers' soft and witching lay;
And many a lingering, lonely day

Since then hath hung like mountain on my mind,
And seemed eternal as the vault above;
And, though I've lived in misery, yet resigned
I could have been to sacrifice my love,
Hadst thou not lost, the while, thy bloom,
And wert thou not so near the tomb.

But such is youthful love—all passion, fire,
Fever and frenzy—all beyond desire,
Or hope, or aim, save what it doth inspire
Of paradise that turns to hell
With all who love long, fond and well.

Moments of bliss no human heart can bear
Prelude dark years of misery and pain;
Rapture lends venom unto fierce despair,
And youth's gay hopes in age deep sorrows reign.
The heart that love leaves desolate
Becomes the seat of settled hate.

SONNET.

Of Jove and sunny-haired Mnemosyne
O high-souled Daughter! If in these sad lays
Or thought or feeling gleam and live, the praise
Is due, high Priestess of the Lyre! to thee.
E'en in the earliest days of memory
My undirected musings wandered forth
From dull oppression and unmannered mirth,
And held high converse, 'neath the old oak tree
I loved, with thee, O tearful Goddess! Left
An infant orphan, and enslaved by those
Who, kindred friends, became my bitterest foes;
In childhood of a sister-love bereft,
And ever haunted by the fiends of ill;
Queen of lone hearts! as then I love thee still!