Where is now the smile, that lightenedEvery hero's couch of rest?Where is now the hope, that brightenedHonor's eye and Pity's breast?Have we lost the wreath we braidedFor our weary warrior men?Is the faithless olive faded?Must the bay be plucked again?
Passing hour of sunny weather,Lovely, in your light awhile,Peace and Glory, wed together,Wandered through our blessed isle.And the eyes of Peace would glisten,Dewy as a morning sun,When the timid maid would listenTo the deeds her chief had done.
Is their hour of dalliance over?Must the maiden's trembling feetWaft her from her warlike loverTo the desert's still retreat?Fare you well! with sighs we banishNymph so fair and guests so bright;Yet the smile, with which you vanish,Leaves behind a soothing light;—
Soothing light, that long shall sparkleO'er your warrior's sanguined way,Through the field where horrors darkle,Shedding hope's consoling ray.Long the smile his heart will cherish,To its absent idol true;While around him myriads perish,Glory still will sigh for you!
Take back the sigh, thy lips of artIn passion's moment breathed to me;Yet, no—it must not, will not part,'Tis now the life-breath of my heart,And has become too pure for thee.
Take back the kiss, that faithless sighWith all the warmth of truth imprest;Yet, no—the fatal kiss may lie,Uponthylip its sweets would die,Or bloom to make a rival blest.
Take back the vows that, night and day,My heart received, I thought, from thine;Yet, no—allow them still to stay,They might some other heart betray,As sweetly as they've ruined mine.
Quand l'homme commence à raissonner, il cesse de sentir.—J. J. ROUSSEAU.
'Twas in the summer time so sweet,When hearts and flowers are both in season,That—who, of all the world, should meet,One early dawn, but Love and Reason!
Love told his dream of yesternight,While Reason talked about the weather;The morn, in sooth, was fair and bright,And on they took their way together.
The boy in many a gambol flew,While Reason, like a Juno, stalked,And from her portly figure threwA lengthened shadow, as she walked.
No wonder Love, as on they past,Should find that sunny morning chill,For still the shadow Reason castFell o'er the boy, and cooled him still.
In vain he tried his wings to warm.Or find a pathway not so dimFor still the maid's gigantic formWould stalk between the sun and him.
"This must not be," said little Love—"The sun was made for more than you."So, turning through a myrtle grove,He bid the portly nymph adieu.
Now gayly roves the laughing boyO'er many a mead, by many a stream;In every breeze inhaling joy,And drinking bliss in every beam.
From all the gardens, all the bowers,He culled the many sweets they shaded,And ate the fruits and smelled the flowers,Till taste was gone and odor faded.
But now the sun, in pomp of noon,Looked blazing o'er the sultry plains;Alas! the boy grew languid soon,And fever thrilled through all his veins.
The dew forsook his baby brow,No more with healthy bloom he smiled—Oh! where was tranquil Reason now,To cast her shadow o'er the child?
Beneath a green and aged palm,His foot at length for shelter turning,He saw the nymph reclining calm,With brow as cool as his was burning.
"Oh! take me to that bosom cold,"In murmurs at her feet he said;And Reason oped her garment's fold,And flung it round his fevered head.
He felt her bosom's icy touch,And soon it lulled his pulse to rest;For, ah! the chill was quite too much,And Love expired on Reason's breast!
* * * * *
Nay, do not weep, my Fanny dear;While in these arms you lie.This world hath not a wish, a fear,That ought to cost that eye a tear.That heart, one single sigh.
The world!—ah, Fanny, Love must shunThe paths where many rove;One bosom to recline upon,One heart to be his only—one,Are quite enough for Love.
What can we wish, that is not hereBetween your arms and mine?Is there, on earth, a space so dearAs that within the happy sphereTwo loving arms entwine?
For me, there's not a lock of jetAdown your temples curled,Within whose glossy, tangling net,My soul doth not, at once, forgetAll, all this worthless world.
'Tis in those eyes, so full of love,My only worlds I see;Let buttheirorbs in sunshine move,And earth below and skies aboveMay frown or smile for me.
'Twas in the fair Aspasia's bower,That Love and Learning, many an hour,In dalliance met; and Learning smiledWith pleasure on the playful child,Who often stole, to find a nestWithin the folds of Learning's vest.
There, as the listening statesman hungIn transport on Aspasia's tongue,The destinies of Athens tookTheir color from Aspasia's look.Oh happy time, when laws of stateWhen all that ruled the country's fate,Its glory, quiet, or alarms,Was planned between two snow-white arms!
Blest times! they could not always last—And yet, even now, theyarenot past,Though we have lost the giant mould.In which their men were cast of old,Woman, dear woman, still the same,While beauty breathes through soul or frame,While man possesses heart or eyes,Woman's bright empire never dies!
No, Fanny, love, they ne'er shall say,That beauty's charm hath past away;Give but the universe a soulAttuned to woman's soft control,And Fanny hath the charm, the skill,To wield a universe at will.
Was it the moon, or was it morning's ray,That call'd thee, dearest, from these arms away?Scarce hadst thou left me, when a dream of nightCame o'er my spirit so distinct and bright,That, while I yet can vividly recallIts witching wonders, thou shall hear them all.Methought I saw, upon the lunar beam,Two winged boys, such as thy muse might dream,Descending from above, at that still hour,And gliding, with smooth step, into my bower.Fair as the beauteous spirits that, all day.In Amatha's warm founts imprisoned stay,But rise at midnight, from the enchanted rill,To cool their plumes upon some moonlight hill.
At once I knew their mission:—'twas to bearMy spirit upward, through the paths of air,To that elysian realm, from whence stray beamsSo oft, in sleep, had visited my dreams.Swift at their touch dissolved the ties, that clungAll earthly round me, and aloft I sprung;While, heavenward guides, the little genii flewThro' paths of light, refreshed by heaven's own dew,And fanned by airs still fragrant with the breathOf cloudless climes and worlds that know not death.
Thou knowest, that, far beyond our nether sky,And shown but dimly to man's erring eye,A mighty ocean of blue ether rolls,[2]Gemmed with bright islands, where the chosen souls,Who've past in lore and love their earthly hours,Repose for ever in unfading bowers.That very moon, whose solitary lightSo often guides thee to my bower at night,Is no chill planet, but an isle of love,Floating in splendor through those seas above,And peopled with bright forms, aerial grown,Nor knowing aught of earth but love alone.Thither, I thought, we winged our airy way:—Mild o'er its valleys streamed a silvery day,While, all around, on lily beds of rest,Reclined the spirits of the immortal Blest.Oh! there I met those few congenial maids,Whom love hath warmed, in philosophic shades;There still Leontium,[3] on her sage's breast,Found lore and love, was tutored and carest;And there the clasp of Pythia's[4]gentle armsRepaid the zeal which deified her charms.The Attic Master,[5] in Aspasia's eyes,Forgot the yoke of less endearing ties;While fair Theano,[6] innocently fair,Wreathed playfully her Samian's flowing hair,Whose soul now fixt, its transmigrations past,Found in those arms a resting-place, at last;And smiling owned, whate'er his dreamy thoughtIn mystic numbers long had vainly sought,The One that's formed of Two whom love hath bound,Is the best number gods or men e'er found.
But think, my Theon, with what joy I thrilled,When near a fount, which through the valley rilled,My fancy's eye beheld a form recline,Of lunar race, but so resembling thineThat, oh! 'twas but fidelity in me,To fly, to clasp, and worship it for thee.No aid of words the unbodied soul requires,To waft a wish or embassy desires;But by a power, to spirits only given,A deep, mute impulse, only felt in heaven,Swifter than meteor shaft through summer skies,From soul to soul the glanced idea flies.
Oh, my beloved, how divinely sweetIs the pure joy, when kindred spirits meet!Like him, the river-god,[7]whose waters flow,With love their only light, through caves below,Wafting in triumph all the flowery braids,And festal rings, with which Olympic maidsHave decked his current, as an offering meetTo lay at Arethusa's shining feet.
Think, when he meets at last his fountain-bride,What perfect love must thrill the blended tide!Each lost in each, till, mingling into one,Their lot the same for shadow or for sun,A type of true love, to the deep they run.'Twas thus—But, Theon, 'tis an endless theme,And thou growest weary of my half-told dream.
Oh would, my love, we were together now.And I would woo sweet patience to thy brow,And make thee smile at all the magic talesOf starlight bowers and planetary vales,Which my fond soul, inspired by thee and love,In slumber's loom hath fancifully wove.But no; no more—soon as tomorrow's rayO'er soft Ilissus shall have died away,I'll come, and, while love's planet in the westShines o'er our meeting, tell thee all the rest.
[1] It was imagined by some of the ancients that there is an ethereal ocean above us, and that the sun and moon are two floating, luminous islands, in which the spirits of the blest reside.
[2] This belief of an ocean in the heavens, or "waters above the firmament," was one of the many physical errors In which the early fathers bewildered themselves.
[3] The pupil and mistress of Epicurus, who called her his "dear little Leontium" as appears by a fragment of one of his letters in Laertius. This Leontium was a woman of talent; "she had the impudence (says Cicero) to write against Theophrastus;" and Cicero, at the same time, gives her a name which is neither polite nor translatable.
[4] Pythia was a woman whom Aristotle loved, and to whom after her death he paid divine honors, solemnizing her memory by the same sacrifices which the Athenians offered to the Goddess Ceres.
[5] Socrates, who used to console himself in the society of Aspasia for those "less endearing ties" which he found at home with Xantippe.
[6] There are some sensible letters extant under the name of this fair Pythagorean. They are addressed to her female friends upon the education of children, the treatment of servants, etc.
[7] The river Alpheus, which flowed by Pisa or Olympia, and into which it was customary to throw offerings of different kinds, during the celebration of the Olympic games. In the pretty romance of Clitophon and Leucippe, the river is supposed to carry these offerings as bridal gifts to the fountain Arethusa.
I could resign that eye of blue.How e'er its splendor used to thrill me;And even that cheek of roseate hue,—To lose it, Cloe, scarce would kill me.
That snowy neck I ne'er should miss,However much I've raved about it;And sweetly as that lip can kiss,IthinkI could exist without it.
In short, so well I've learned to fast,That, sooth my love, I know not whetherI might not bring myself at last,To—do without you altogether.
I bring thee, love, a golden chain,I bring thee too a flowery wreath;The gold shall never wear a stain,The flowerets long shall sweetly breathe.Come, tell me which the tie shall be,To bind thy gentle heart to me.
The Chain is formed of golden threads,Bright as Minerva's yellow hair,When the last beam of evening shedsIts calm and sober lustre there.The Wreath's of brightest myrtle wove,With sunlit drops of bliss among it,And many a rose-leaf, culled by Love,To heal his lip when bees have stung it.Come, tell me which the tie shall be,To bind thy gentle heart to me.
Yes, yes, I read that ready eye,Which answers when the tongue is loath,Thou likest the form of either tie,And spreadest thy playful hands for both.Ah!—if there were not something wrong,The world would see them blended oft;The Chain would make the Wreath so strong!The Wreath would make the Chain so soft!Then might the gold, the flowerets beSweet fetters for my love and me.
But, Fanny, so unblest they twine,That (heaven alone can tell the reason)When mingled thus they cease to shine,Or shine but for a transient season.Whether the Chain may press too much,Or that the Wreath is slightly braided,Let but the gold the flowerets touch,And all their bloom, their glow is faded!Oh! better to be always free.Than thus to bind my love to me.
* * * * *
The timid girl now hung her head,And, as she turned an upward glance,I saw a doubt its twilight spreadAcross her brow's divine expanseJust then, the garland's brightest roseGave one of its love-breathing sighs—Oh! who can ask how Fanny chose,That ever looked in Fanny's eyes!"The Wreath, my life, the Wreath shall be"The tie to bind my soul to thee."
And hast thou marked the pensive shade,That many a time obscures my brow,Midst all the joys, beloved maid.Which thou canst give, and only thou?
Oh! 'tis not that I then forgetThe bright looks that before me shine;For never throbbed a bosom yetCould feel their witchery, like mine.
When bashful on my bosom hid,And blushing to have felt so blest,Thou dost but lift thy languid lidAgain to close it on my breast;—
Yes,—these are minutes all thine own,Thine own to give, and mine to feel;Yet even in them, my heart has knownThe sigh to rise, the tear to steal.
For I have thought of former hours,When he who first thy soul possest,Like me awaked its witching powers,Like me was loved, like me was blest.
Uponhisname thy murmuring tonguePerhaps hath all as sweetly dwelt;Upon his words thine ear hath hung,With transport all as purely felt.
For him—yet why the past recall,To damp and wither present bliss?Thou'rt now my own, heart, spirit, all,And heaven could grant no more than this!
Forgive me, dearest, oh! forgive;I would be first, be sole to thee,Thou shouldst have but begun to live,The hour that gave thy heart to me.
Thy book of life till then effaced,Love should have kept that leaf aloneOn which he first so brightly tracedThat thou wert, soul and all, my own.
Go then, if she, whose shade thou art,No more will let thee soothe my pain;Yet, tell her, it has cost this heartSome pangs, to give thee back again.
Tell her, the smile was not so dear,With which she made the semblance mine,As bitter is the burning tear,With which I now the gift resign.
Yet go—and could she still restore,As some exchange for taking thee.The tranquil look which first I wore,When her eyes found me calm and free;
Could she give back the careless flow,The spirit that my heart then knew—Yet, no, 'tis vain—go, picture, go—Smile at me once, and then—adieu!
Blest infant of eternity!Before the day-star learned to move,In pomp of fire, along his grand career,Glancing the beamy shafts of light
From his rich quiver to the farthest sphere,Thou wert alone, oh Love!Nestling beneath the wings of ancient Night,Whose horrors seemed to smile in shadowing thee.No form of beauty soothed thine eye,As through the dim expanse it wandered wide;No kindred spirit caught thy sigh,As o'er the watery waste it lingering died.
Unfelt the pulse, unknown the power,That latent in his heart was sleeping,—Oh Sympathy! that lonely hourSaw Love himself thy absence weeping.
But look, what glory through the darkness beams!Celestial airs along the water glide:—What Spirit art thou, moving o'er the tideSo beautiful? oh, not of earth,But, in that glowing hour, the birthOf the young Godhead's own creative dreams.'Tis she!Psyche, the firstborn spirit of the air.To thee, oh Love, she turns,
On thee her eyebeam burns:Blest hour, before all worlds ordained to be!They meet—The blooming god—the spirit fairMeet in communion sweet.Now, Sympathy, the hour is thine;All Nature feels the thrill divine,The veil of Chaos is withdrawn,And their first kiss is great Creation's dawn!
[1] Love and Psyche are here considered as the active and passive principles of creation, and the universe is supposed to have received its first harmonizing impulse from the nuptial sympathy between these two powers. A marriage is generally the first step in cosmogony. Timaeus held Form to be the father, and Matter the mother of the World.
Donington Park, 1802
To catch the thought, by painting's spell,Howe'er remote, howe'er refined,And o'er the kindling canvas tellThe silent story of the mind;
O'er nature's form to glance the eye,And fix, by mimic light and shade,Her morning tinges ere they fly,Her evening blushes, ere they fade;
Yes, these are Painting's proudest powers,The gift, by which her art divineAbove all others proudly towers,—And these, oh Prince! are richly thine.
And yet, when Friendship sees thee trace,In almost living truth exprest,This bright memorial of a faceOn which her eye delights to rest;
While o'er the lovely look serene,The smile of peace, the bloom of youth,The cheek, that blushes to be seen.The eye that tells the bosom's truth;
While o'er each line, so brightly true,Our eyes with lingering pleasure rove,Blessing the touch whose various hueThus brings to mind the form we love;
We feel the magic of thy art,And own it with a zest, a zeal,A pleasure, nearer to the heartThan critic taste caneverfeel.
'Twas on a dayWhen the immortals at their banquet lay;The bowlSparkled with starry dew,The weeping of those myriad urns of light,Within whose orbs, the Almighty Power,At nature's dawning hour,Stored the rich fluid of ethereal soul.Around,Soft odorous clouds, that upward wing their flightFrom eastern isles(Where they have bathed them in the orient ray,And with rich fragrance all their bosoms filled).In circles flew, and, melting as they flew,A liquid daybreak o'er the board distilled.
All, all was luxury!Allmustbe luxury, where Lyaeus smiles.His locks divineWere crownedWith a bright meteor-braid,Which, like an ever-springing wreath of vine,Shot into brilliant leafy shapes,And o'er his brow in lambent tendrils played:While mid the foliage hung,Like lucid grapes,A thousand clustering buds of light,Culled from the garden of the galaxy.
Upon his bosom Cytherea's headLay lovely, as when first the Syrens sungHer beauty's dawn,And all the curtains of the deep, undrawn,Revealed her sleeping in its azure bed.The captive deityHung lingering on her eyes and lip,With looks of ecstasy.Now, on his arm,In blushes she reposed,And, while he gazed on each bright charm,To shade his burning eyes her hand in dalliance stole.
And now she raised her rosy mouth to sipThe nectared waveLyaeus gave,And from her eyelids, half-way closed,Sent forth a melting gleam,Which fell like sun-dew in the bowl:While her bright hair, in mazy flowOf gold descendingAdown her cheek's luxurious glow,Hung o'er the goblet's side,And was reflected in its crystal tide,Like a bright crocus flower,Whose sunny leaves, at evening hourWith roses of Cyrene blending,[1]Hang o'er the mirror of some silvery stream.
The Olympian cupShone in the handsOf dimpled Hebe, as she winged her feetUpThe empyreal mount,To drain the soul-drops at their stellar fount;[2]And stillAs the resplendent rillGushed forth into the cup with mantling heat,Her watchful careWas still to cool its liquid fireWith snow-white sprinklings of that feathery airThe children of the Pole respire,In those enchanted lands.[3]Where life is all a spring, andnorth winds never blow.
But oh!Bright Hebe, what a tear,And what a blush were thine,When, as the breath of every GraceWafted thy feet along the studded sphere,With a bright cup for Jove himself to drink,Some star, that shone beneath thy tread,Raising its amorous headTo kiss those matchless feet,Checked thy career too fleet,And all heaven's host of eyesEntranced, but fearful all,Saw thee, sweet Hebe, prostrate fallUpon the bright floor of the azure skies;Where, mid its stars, thy beauty lay,As blossom, shaken from the sprayOf a spring thorn,Lies mid the liquid sparkles of the morn.Or, as in temples of the Paphian shade,The worshippers of Beauty's queen beholdAn image of their rosy idol, laidUpon a diamond shrine.
The wanton wind,Which had pursued the flying fair,And sported mid the tresses unconfinedOf her bright hair,Now, as she fell,—oh wanton breeze!Ruffled the robe, whose graceful flowHung o'er those limbs of unsunned snow,Purely as the Eleusinian veilHangs o'er the Mysteries!
The brow of Juno flushed—Love blest the breeze!The Muses blushed;And every cheek was hid behind a lyre,While every eye looked laughing through the strings.But the bright cup? the nectared draughtWhich Jove himself was to have quaffed?Alas, alas, upturned it layBy the fallen Hebe's side;While, in slow lingering drops, the ethereal tide,As conscious of its own rich essence, ebbed away.
Who was the Spirit that remembered Man,In that blest hour,And, with a wing of love,Brushed off the goblet's scattered tears,As, trembling near the edge of heaven they ran,And sent them floating to our orb below?Essence of immortality!The showerFell glowing through the spheres;While all around new tints of bliss,New odors and new light,Enriched its radiant flow.Now, with a liquid kiss,It stole along the thrilling wireOf Heaven's luminous Lyre,Stealing the soul of music in its flight:And now, amid the breezes bland,That whisper from the planets as they roll,The bright libation, softly fannedBy all their sighs, meandering stole.They who, from Atlas' height,Beheld this rosy flameDescending through the waste of night,Thought 'twas some planet, whose empyreal frameHad kindled, as it rapidly revolvedAround its fervid axle, and dissolvedInto a flood so bright!
The youthful Day,Within his twilight bower,Lay sweetly sleepingOn the flushed bosom of a lotos-flower;[4]When round him, in profusion weeping,Dropt the celestial shower,SteepingThe rosy clouds, that curledAbout his infant head,Like myrrh upon the locks of Cupid shed.But, when the waking boyWaved his exhaling tresses through the sky,O morn of joy!The tide divine,All glorious with the vermil dyeIt drank beneath his orient eye,Distilled, in dews, upon the world,And every drop was wine, was heavenly WINE!Blest be the sod, and blest the flowerOn which descended first that shower,All fresh from Jove's nectareous springs;—Oh far less sweet the flower, the sod,O'er which the Spirit of the Rainbow flingsThe magic mantle of her solar God![5]
[1] We learn from Theopbrastus, that the roses of Cyrene were particularly fragrant.
[2] Heraclitus (Physicus) held the soul to be a spark of the stellar essence.
[3] The country of the Hyperboreans. These people were supposed to be placed so far north that the north wind could not affect them; they lived longer than any other mortals; passed their whole time in music and dancing, etc.
[4] The Egyptians represented the dawn of day by a young boy seated upon a lotos. Observing that the lotos showed its head above water at sunrise, and sank again at his setting, they conceived the idea of consecrating this flower to Osiris, or the sun.
[5] The ancients esteemed those flowers and trees the sweetest upon which the rainbow had appeared to rest; and the wood they chiefly burned in sacrifices, was that which the smile of Iris had consecrated.
"Go!" said the angry, weeping maid,"The charm is broken!—once betrayed,"Never can this wronged heart rely"On word or look, on oath or sigh."Take back the gifts, so fondly given,"With promised faith and vows to heaven;"That little ring which, night and morn,"With wedded truth my hand hath worn;"That seal which oft, in moments blest,"Thou hast upon my lip imprest,"And sworn its sacred spring should be"A fountain sealed[1] for only thee:"Take, take them back, the gift and vow,"All sullied, lost and hateful now!"
I took the ring—the seal I took,While, oh, her every tear and lookWere such as angels look and shed,When man is by the world misled.Gently I whispered, "Fanny, dear!"Not half thy lover's gifts are here:"Say, where are all the kisses given,"From morn to noon, from noon to even,—"Those signets of true love, worth more"Than Solomon's own seal of yore,—"Where are those gifts, so sweet, so many?"Come, dearest,—give back all, if any."While thus I whispered, trembling too,Lest all the nymph had sworn was true,I saw a smile relenting riseMid the moist azure of her eyes,Like daylight o'er a sea of blue,While yet in mid-air hangs the dewShe let her cheek repose on mine,She let my arms around her twine;One kiss was half allowed, and then—The ring and seal were hers again.
[1] "There are gardens, supposed to be those of King Solomon, in the neighborhood of Bethlehem. The friars show a fountain, which, they say, is the sealed fountain, to which the holy spouse in the Canticles is compared; and they pretend a tradition, that Solomon shut up these springs and put his signet upon the door, to keep them for his own drinking."—Maundrell's Travels.
I more than once have heard at nightA song like those thy lip hath given,And it was sung by shapes of light,Who looked and breathed, like thee, of heaven.
But this was all a dream of sleep.And I have said when morning shone:—"Why should the night-witch, Fancy, keep"These wonders for herself alone?"
I knew not then that fate had lentSuch tones to one of mortal birth;I knew not then that Heaven had sentA voice, a form like thine on earth.
And yet, in all that flowery mazeThrough which my path of life has led,When I have heard the sweetest laysFrom lips of rosiest lustre shed;
When I have felt the warbled wordFrom Beauty's lip, in sweetness vyingWith music's own melodious bird;When on the rose's bosom lying
Though form and song at once combinedTheir loveliest bloom and softest thrill,My heart hath sighed, my ear hath pinedFor something lovelier, softer still:—
Oh, I have found it all, at last,In thee, thou sweetest living lyre,Through which the soul of song e'er past,Or feeling breathed its sacred fire.
All that I e'er, in wildest flightOf fancy's dreams could hear or seeOf music's sigh or beauty's lightIs realized, at once, in thee!
[1] Afterward Duchess of Hamilton.
o dulces comitum valete coetus!CATULLUS.
No, never shall my soul forgetThe friends I found so cordial-hearted;Dear shall be the day we met,And dear shall be the night we parted.
If fond regrets, however sweet,Must with the lapse of time decay,Yet stall, when thus in mirth you meet,Fill high to him that's far away!
Long be the light of memory foundAlive within your social glass;Let that be still the magic round.O'er which Oblivion, dare not pass.
Oh, fair as heaven and chaste as light!Did nature mould thee all so bright.That thou shouldst e'er be brought to weepO'er languid virtue's fatal sleep,O'er shame extinguished, honor fled,Peace lost, heart withered, feeling dead?
No, no! a star was born with thee,Which sheds eternal purity.Thou hast, within those sainted eyes,So fair a transcript of the skies,In lines of light such heavenly loreThat men should read them and adore.Yet have I known a gentle maidWhose mind and form were both arrayedIn nature's purest light, like thine;—Who wore that clear, celestial signWhich seems to mark the brow that's fairFor destiny's peculiar care;Whose bosom, too, like Dian's own,Was guarded by a sacred zone,Where the bright gem of virtue shone;Whose eyes had in their light a charmAgainst all wrong and guile and harm.Yet, hapless maid, in one sad hourThese spells have lost their guardian power;The gem has been beguiled away;Her eyes have lost their chastening ray;The modest pride, the guiltless shame,The smiles that from reflection came,All, all have fled and left her mindA faded monument behind;The ruins of a once pure shrine,No longer fit for guest divine,Oh! 'twas a sight I wept to see—Heaven keep the lost one's fate from thee!
'Tis time, I feel, to leave thee now,While yet my soul is something free;While yet those dangerous eyes allowOne minute's thought to stray from thee.
Oh! thou becom'st each moment dearer;Every chance that brings me nigh theeBrings my ruin nearer, nearer,—I am lost, unless I fly thee.
Nay, if thou dost not scorn and hate me,Doom me not thus so soon to fallDuties, fame, and hopes await me,—But that eye would blast them all!
For, thou hast heart as false and coldAs ever yet allured and swayed,And couldst, without a sigh, beholdThe ruin which thyself had made.
Yet,—couldI think that, truly fond,That eye but once would smile on me,Even as thou art, how far beyondFame, duty, wealth, that smile would be!
Oh! but to win it, night and day,Inglorious at thy feet reclined,I'd sigh my dreams of fame away,The world for thee forgot, resigned.
But no, 'tis o'er, and—thus we part,Never to meet again—no, never,False woman, what a mind and heartThy treachery has undone forever.
Away, away—you're all the same,A smiling, fluttering, jilting throng;And, wise too late, I burn with shame,To think I've been your slave so long.
Slow to be won, and quick to rove,From folly kind, from cunning loath,Too cold for bliss, too weak for love,Yet feigning all that's best in both;
Still panting o'er a crowd to reign,—More joy it gives to woman's breastTo make ten frigid coxcombs vain,Than one true, manly lover blest.
Away, away—your smile's a curse—Oh! blot me from the race of men,Kind, pitying Heaven, by death or worse,If e'er I love such things again.
Come, take thy harp—'tis vain to museUpon the gathering ills we see;Oh! take thy harp and let me loseAll thoughts of ill in hearing thee.
Sing to me, love!—Though death were near,Thy song could make my soul forget—Nay, nay, in pity, dry that tear,All may be well, be happy yet.
Let me but see that snowy armOnce more upon the dear harp lie,And I will cease to dream of harm,Will smile at fate, while thou art nigh.
Give me that strain of mournful touchWe used to love long, long ago,Before our hearts had known as muchAs now, alas! they bleed to know.
Sweet notes! they tell of former peace,Of all that looked so smiling then,Now vanished, lost—oh, pray thee cease,I cannot bear those sounds again.
Artthou, too, wretched? Yes, thou art;I see thy tears flow fast with mine—Come, come to this devoted heart,'Tis breaking, but it still is thine!
'Twas on the Red Sea coast, at morn, we metThe venerable man;[1] a healthy bloomMingled its softness with the vigorous thoughtThat towered upon his brow; and when he spoke'Twas language sweetened into song—such holy soundsAs oft, they say, the wise and virtuous hear,Prelusive to the harmony of heaven,When death is nigh; and still, as he unclosed[2]His sacred lips, an odor, all as blandAs ocean-breezes gather from the flowersThat blossom in Elysium, breathed around,With silent awe we listened, while he toldOf the dark veil which many an age had hungO'er Nature's form, till, long explored by man,The mystic shroud grew thin and luminous,And glimpses of that heavenly form shone through:—Of magic wonders, that were known and taughtBy him (or Cham or Zoroaster named)Who mused amid the mighty cataclysm,O'er his rude tablets of primeval lore;And gathering round him, in the sacred ark,The mighty secrets of that former globe,Let not the living star of science sinkBeneath the waters, which ingulfed a world!—Of visions, by Calliope revealedTo him,[3]who traced upon his typic lyreThe diapason of man's mingled frame,And the grand Doric heptachord of heaven.With all of pure, of wondrous and arcane,Which the grave sons of Mochus, many a night,Told to the young and bright-haired visitantOf Carmel's sacred mount.—Then, in a flowOf calmer converse, he beguiled us onThrough many a Maze of Garden and of Porch,Through many a system, where the scattered lightOf heavenly truth lay, like a broken beamFrom the pure sun, which, though refracted allInto a thousand hues, is sunshine still,[4]And bright through every change!—he spoke of Him,The lone, eternal One, who dwells above,And of the soul's untraceable descentFrom that high fount of spirit, through the gradesOf intellectual being, till it mixWith atoms vague, corruptible, and dark;Nor yet even then, though sunk in earthly dross,Corrupted all, nor its ethereal touchQuite lost, but tasting of the fountain still.As some bright river, which has rolled alongThrough meads of flowery light and mines of gold,When poured at length into the dusky deep,Disdains to take at once its briny taint,Or balmy freshness, of the scenes it left.But keeps unchanged awhile the lustrous tinge,And here the old man ceased—a winged trainOf nymphs and genii bore him from our eyes.The fair illusion fled! and, as I waked,'Twas clear that my rapt soul had roamed, the while,To that bright realm of dreams, that spirit-world,Which mortals know by its long track of lightO'er midnight's sky, and call the Galaxy.[5]
[1] In Plutarch's Essay on the Decline of the Oracles, Cleombrotus, one of the interlocutors, describes an extraordinary man whom he had met with, after long research, upon the banks of the Red Sea. Once in every year this supernatural personage appeared to mortals and conversed with them; the rest of his time he passed among the Genii and the Nymphs.
[2] The celebrated Janus Dousa, a little before his death, imagined that he heard a strain of music in the air.
[3] Orpheus.—Paulinus, in his "Hebdomades, cap. 2,lib. iii, has endeavored to show, after the Platonists, that man is a diapason, or octave, made up of a diatesseron, which is his soul, and a dispente, which is his body. Those frequent allusions to music, by which the ancient philosophers illustrated their sublime theories, must have tended very much to elevate the character of the art, and to enrich it with associations of the grandest and most interesting nature.
[4] Lactantius asserts that all the truths of Christianity may be found dispersed through the ancient philosophical sects, and that any one who would collect these scattered fragments of orthodoxy might form a code in no respect differing from that of the Christian.
[5] According to Pythagoras, the people of Dreams are souls collected together in the Galaxy.