Household Verses :: :: University of Virginia Library

Daughter of ONE to whom I owe, in part,
My early fondness for the minstrel's art,
Kindly accept, from my too laggard lyre,
This tardy tribute to thy honoured sire.

In childhood's dawn, in boyhood's by-gone days,
Dear to my heart the Bard of Amwell's lays;
For I, betimes, was taught their worth to scan,
By those who prized the poet, and the man;
And with their love of each could also blend
The feelings called forth by a valued friend.

Whether his Muse portrayed upon her scroll
The changeful “Seasons” as they ceaseless roll;
Or touched the heart's more tender sympathies,
Mourning the rupture of love's sweeetest ties:
Or whether, with a genuine pastoral grace,
The simple scenery round her loved to trace;
And tune her Doric reed, or artless lyre,
To Amwell's tufted groves and modest spire;
Or, mindles show the world's vain glory frowned,
Denounced the martial drum's discordant sound;
Or, true to nature's social feelings, penned
Sonnets and rhymes to many a distant friend;
Whate'er the theme, truth, tenderness, in all
Their echo woke—and held my heart in thrall.

And, even now, in health and strength's decay,
Aye, on this cheerless, dull November day,
When moaning winds through trees half leafless sigh,
And all is sad that greets the ear and eye,
Now in my heart of hearts I cherish still
The lingering throb, the unextinguished thrill
Woke by the magic of his verse of yore,
When new to me the Muses' gentle lore;
And gratefully confess the boundless debt
Due to my boyhood's benefactor yet:

Nor boyhood's only when his page I scan,
What charmed the child, still fascinates the man;
And better test of merit none need claim,
Than thus in youth and age to seem the same.

My friend, a nobler heritage is thine,
Than aught bestowed by any titled line;
For what can stars or coronets confer,
If thought or feeling be interpreter
Of the best homage given by heart or head,
On which the highest, happiest fame is fed,—
To what a birth-right like thine own implies,
Born of a Bard ascended to the skies!
A Poet's Daughter! 'tis a pedigree
As proud, as pure, as pangless, as should be
Desired by woman: to call him thy sire
Whom they were wont to love, and to admire,
Whose plaudits still to fame are passports true,
Johnson and Beattie, Jones and Montague.
While wreaths of their's his memory entwine,
I feel ashamed in thus awarding mine;
Yet wilt thou not that minstrel's lay disown,
Who fain would cast upon his cairn a stone.