"Beloved of Heaven! the smiling Muse shall shed
Her moonlight halo on thy beauteous head;
Shall swell thy heart to rapture unconfined,
And breathe a holy madness o'er thy mind.
I see thee roam her guardian power beneath,
And talk with spirits on the midnight heath;
Inquire of guilty wanderers whence they came,
And ask each blood-stained form his earthly name
Then weave in rapid verse the deeds they tell,
And read the trembling world the tales of hell.
"When Venus, throned in clouds of rosy hue,
Flings from her golden urn the vesper dew,
And bids fond man her glimmering noon employ,
Sacred to love and walks of tender joy;
A milder mood the goddess shall recall,
And soft as dew thy tones of music fall;
While Beauty's deeply-pictured smiles impart
A pang more dear than pleasure to the heart-
Warm as thy sighs shall flow the Lesbian strain,
And plead in Beauty's ear, nor plead in vain.
"Or wilt thou Orphean hymns more sacred deem,
And steep thy song in Mercy's mellow stream;
To pensive drops the radiant eye beguile--
For Beauty's tears are lovelier than her smile ;-
On Nature's throbbing anguish pour relief,
And teach impassioned souls the joy of grief?
"Yes; to thy tongue shall seraph words be given, And power on earth to plead the cause of heaven: The proud, the cold, untroubled heart of stone, That never mused on sorrow but its own, Unlocks a generous store at thy command,
Like Horeb's rocks beneath the prophet's hand. (ƒ)
The living lumber of his kindred earth,
Charmed into soul, receives a second birth;
Feels thy dread power another heart afford,
Whose passion-touched harmonious strings accord
True as the circling spheres to Nature's plan;
And man, the brother, lives the friend of man!
"Bright as the pillar rose at Heaven's command,
When Israel marched along the desert land,
Blazed through the night on lonely wilds afar,
And told the path—a never-setting star:
So, heavenly Genius, in thy course divine,
Hope is thy star, her light is ever thine.”
Propitious Power! when rankling cares annoy
The sacred home of Hymenean joy;
When doomed to Poverty's sequestered dell,
The wedded pair of love and virtue dwell,
Unpitied by the world, unknown to fame,
Their woes, their wishes, and their hearts the sameOh there, prophetic hope! thy smile bestow,
And chase the pangs that worth should never know—-
There, as the parent deals his scanty store
To friendless babes, and weeps to give no more,
Tell, that his manly race shall yet assuage
Their father's wrongs, and shield his later age.
What though for him no Hybla sweets distil,
Nor bloomy vines wave purple on the hill;
Tell, that when silent years have passed away,
That when his eyes grow dim, his tresses grey,
These busy hands a lovelier cot shall build,
And deck with fairer flowers his little field,
And call from Heaven propitious dews to breathe
Arcadian beauty on the barren heath;
Tell, that while Love's spontaneous smile endears
The days of peace, the sabbath of his years
Health shall prolong to many a festive hour
The social pleasures of his humble power.
Lo! at the couch where infant beauty sleeps,
Her silent watch the mournful mother keeps;
She, while the lovely babe unconscious lies,
Smiles on her slumb'ring child with pensive eyes,
And weaves a song of melancholy joy—
"Sleep, image of thy father, sleep, my boy:
No lingering hour of sorrow shall be thine;
No sigh that rends thy father's heart and mine;
Bright as his manly sire, the son shall be
In form and soul; but, ah! more blest than he!
Thy fame, thy worth, thy filial love, at last,
Shall soothe this aching heart for all the past-
With many a smile my solitude repay,
And chase the world's ungenerous scorn away.
"And say, when summoned from the world and thee, I lay my head beneath the willow tree,
Wilt thou, sweet mourner! at my stone appear,
And soothe my parted spirit ling'ring near?
Oh, wilt thou come, at evening hour, to shed
The tears of Memory o'er my narrow bed;
With aching temples on thy hand reclined,
Muse on the last farewell I leave behind,
Breathe a deep sigh to winds that murmur low,
And think on all my love, and all my wo?"
So speaks affection, ere the infant eye
Can look regard, or brighten in reply;
But when the cherub lip hath learnt to claim
A mother's ear by that endearing name;
Soon as the playful innocent can prove
A tear of pity, or a smile of love,
Or cons his murmuring task beneath her care,
Or lisps with holy look his ev'ning prayer,
Or gazing, mutely pensive, sits to hear
The mournful ballad warbled in his ear;
How fondly looks admiring Hope the while,
At every artless tear, and every smile!
How glows the joyous parent to descry
A guileless bosom, true to sympathy!
Where is the troubled heart, consigned to share
Tumultuous toils, or solitary care,
Unblest by visionary thoughts that stray
To count the joys of Fortune's better day!
Lo, nature, life, and liberty relume
The dim-eyed tenant of the dungeon gloom,
A long-lost friend, or hapless child restored,
Smiles at his blazing hearth and social board;
Warm from his heart the tears of rapture flow,
And virtue triumphs o'er remembered wo.
Chide not his peace, proud Reason! nor destroy The shadowy forms of uncreated joy,
That urge the lingering tide of life, and
Spontaneous slumber on his midnight hour.
Hark! the wild maniac sings, to chide the gale That wafts so slow her lover's distant sail;
She, sad spectatress, on the wintry shore
Watched the rude surge his shroudless corse that bore, Knew the pale form, and, shrieking in amaze,
Clasped her cold hands, and fixed her maddening gaze : Poor widowed wretch! 'twas there she wept in vain, Till memory fled her agonizing brain :
But Mercy gave, to charm the sense of wo,
Ideal peace, that truth; could ne'er bestow;
Warm on her heart the joys of Fancy beam,
And aimless Hope delights her darkest dream.
Oft when yon moon has climbed the midnight sky, And the lone seabird wakes its wildest cry,
Piled on the steep, her blazing faggots burn
To hail the bark that never can return;
And still she waits, but scarce forbears to weep,
That constant love can linger on the deep.
And, mark the wretch, whose wanderings never knew The world's regard, that soothes, though half untrue, Whose erring heart the lash of sorrow bore,
But found not pity when it erred no more.
Yon friendless man, at whose dejected eye
Th' unfeeling proud one looks-and passes by;
Condemned on Penury's barren path to roam,
Scorned by the world, and left without a home-
Ev'n he, at evening, should he chance to stray
Down by the hamlet's hawthorn-scented way,
Where, round the cot's romantic glade are seen
The blossomed bean-field, and the sloping green,
Leans o'er its humble gate, and thinks the while-
Oh! that for me some home like this would smile,
Some hamlet shade, to yield my sickly form,
Health in the breeze, and shelter in the storm!
There should my hand no stinted boon assign
To wretched hearts with sorrow such as mine!
That generous wish can soothe unpitied care,
And Hope half mingles with the poor man's prayer.
Hope' when I mourn, with sympathizing mind,
The wrongs of fate, the woes of human kind,
Thy blissful omens bid my spirit see
The boundless fields of rapture yet to be;
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