And so began our young, delighted strain,
That would evoke the plumed chieftains brave,
And bid their martial hosts arise again,
Where Narraganset's tides roll by their grave,
And Haup's romantic steeps are piled above the wave.
Friend of my youth! with thee began my song,
And o'er thy bier its latest accents die;
Misled in phantom-peopled realms too long,—
Though not to me the muse averse deny,
Sometimes, perhaps, her visions to descry,
Such thriftless pastime should with youth be o'er;
And he who loved with thee his notes to try,
But for thy sake, such idlesse would deplore,
And swears to meditate the thankless muse no more.
But, no! the freshness of the past shall still Sacred to memory's holiest musings be; When through the ideal fields of song, at will, He roved and gathered chaplets wild with thee; When, reckless of the world, alone and free, Like two proud barks, we kept our careless way, That sail by moonlight o'er the tranquil sea; Their white apparel and their streamers gay, Bright gleaming o'er the main, beneath the ghostly ray ;—
And downward, far, reflected in the clear
Blue depths, the eye their fairy tackling sees;
So buoyant, they do seem to float in air,
And silently obey the noiseless breeze;
Till, all too soon, as the rude winds may please,
They part for distant ports: the gales benign
Swift wafting, bore, by Heaven's all-wise decrees,
To its own harbour sure, where each divine
And joyous vision, seen before in dreams, is thine.
Muses of Helicon ! melodious race
Of Jove and golden-haired Mnemosyné ;
Whose art from memory blots each sadder trace,
And drives each scowling form of grief away!
Who, round the violet fount, your measures gay
Once trod, and round the altar of great Jove;
Whence, wrapt in silvery clouds, your nightly way
Ye held, and ravishing strains of music wove,
That soothed the Thunderer's soul, and filled his courts above.
Bright choir! with lips untempted, and with zone
Sparkling, and unapproached by touch profane;
Ye, to whose gladsome bosoms ne'er was known
The blight of sorrow, or the throb of pain;
Rightly invoked,—if right the elected swain,
On your own mountain's side ye taught of yore,
Whose honoured hand took not your gift in vain,
Worthy the budding laurel-bough it bore,—*
Farewell! a long farewell! I worship you no more.
BY JONATHAN LAWRENCE, JUN.
AWAY, away to forest shades!
Fly, fly with me the haunts of men!
I would not give my sunlit glades,
My talking stream, and silent glen,
For all the pageantry of slaves,
Their fettered lives and trampled graves.
Hesiod. Theog. 1. 1. 60. 30.
Away from wealth! our wampum strings
Ask not the toil, the woes of them From whom the lash, the iron wrings The golden dross, the tear-soiled gem; Yet bind our hearts in the pure tie That gold or gems could never buy.
And power! what is it ye who rule
The hands without the souls? oh, ye
Can tell how mean the tinselled fool,
With all his hollow mockery!
The slave of slaves who hate, yet bow,
With serving lip but scorning brow.
And love, dear love! how can they feel
The wild desire, the burning flame,
That thrills each pulse and bids us kneel-
The power of the adored name;
The glance that sins in the met eye,
Yet loved for its idolatry!
They never knew the perfect bliss,
To clasp in the entwined bower Her trembling form, to steal the kiss
She would deny but hath not power; To list that voice that charms the grove, And trembles when it tells of love.
Nor have they felt the pride, the thrill,
When bounding for the fated deer;
O'er rock and sod, o'er vale and hill,
The hunter flies, nor dreams of fear, And brings his maid the evening prey, To speak more love than words can say.
Have they in death the sod, the stones,
The silence of the shading tree;
Where glory decks the storied bones
Of him whose life, whose death, was free;
And minstrel mourns his arm whose blow
The foeman cowered and quailed below?
No; they, confined and fettered, they
The sons of sires to fame unknown,
With nerveless hands and souls of clay,
Half life, half death, loathe, but live on ;
And sink unsung, ignobly lie
In dark oblivion's apathy.
Poor fools! the wild and mountain chase
Would rend their frail and sickly forms;
But for their God, how would they face,
Our bands of fire, our sons of storms;
Breasts that have never recked of fears,
And eyes that leave to women, tears.
They tell us of their kings, who gave
To them our wild, unfettered shore;
To them! why let them chain the wave,
And hush its everlasting roar !
Then may we own their sway, but hark!
Our warriors never miss their mark.
Away, away from such as these!
Free as the wild bird on the wing,
I see my own, my loved green trees,
I hear our black-haired maidens sing;
I fly from such a world as this,
To rove, to love, to live in bliss!
FAIR orb! so peacefully sublime,
In silence rolling high,
Know'st thou of passion, or of crime,
Or earthly vanity?
In that bright world can lust abide,
Or murder bare his arm?
With thee are wars, and kings, and pride,
And the loud trump's alarm?
What beings, by what motives led,
Inhale thy morning breeze?
Doth man upon thy mountains tread,
Or float upon thy seas?
Say, whence are they? and what their fate? Whom whirls around thy ball?
Their present and their future state,
Their hopes and fears recall?
Canst thou of a Redeemer tell,
Or a Betrayer's kiss?
Their's is a Heaven or a Hell?
Eternal woe or bliss?
Can infidelity exist,
And gaze upon that sky? Here would I bid the Atheist
God's finger to deny.
|