Judith, Esther, and other poems

When the lone danger of the wild
For science' sake thou dared'st to brave,
Well might he love to call thee child,
Who dewed with tears poor Lewis' grave.

For when fair Nature sank to rest
And blackly waved the forest trees,
And every warbler in his nest
Shrank from the midnight's mournful breeze.

Then as he praised with word benign
The music of his favorite throng,
Oh! W---! the power was thine
To soothe him with a sweeter song.

And when to greet the morning gray
Was swelling every downy breast,
Didst thou not catch the varied lay,
And steal of every tone the best?

The echo of some barren hill—
Some pebbly brook's melodious roll?

No—wilder, softer,—varying still,
Thy soul-born cadence meets the soul.

The sighs of some forsaken bower,
Where love's sweet-breathing blossoms glow—
The dew that from some brimming flower,
Drops in the fountain-vase below.

Had Thracia's boasted lyrist sung
Such strains as float upon thy breath,
Each jealous hand had dropt unstrung,
And feared to close his lips in death.

If, as Libethrian maidens said,
The dew upon that minstrel's grave,
To every tenant of its shade,
Such more than earthly warblings gave.

Oh! quit no more thy native plains,
But when thy spirit seeks her home,
Let o'er the dust which still remains,
Thy native rose and laurel bloom.

The stranger then who seeks our coast,
In search of philosophick lore,
The music of his groves shall boast,
And scorn our brighter plumes, no more.

Alexander Wilson, who was accompanied by the gentleman here addressed, in one or more of his ornithological excursions.

The unfortunate Capt Lewis, explorer of the Missouri, who died by his own hand at a hut not far from Nashville. Wilson visited his humble grave, and left money to have it fenced from the wild beasts.

'Tis said that the birds of the New World, though more brilliant in plumage, are inferior to those of the other continent in song.

University of Virginia Library

TO Dr. --- ---,