TO MRS. …….

To see thee every day that came,
And find thee still each day the same;
In pleasure's smile or sorrow's tear
To me still ever kind and dear;—
To meet thee early, leave thee late,
Has been so long my bliss, my fate,
That life, without this cheering ray,
Which came, like sunshine, every day,
And all my pain, my sorrow chased,
Is now a lone, a loveless waste.

Where are the chords she used to touch?
The airs, the songs she loved so much?
Those songs are hushed, those chords are still,
And so, perhaps, will every thrill
Of feeling soon be lulled to rest,
Which late I waked in Anna's breast.
Yet, no—the simple notes I played
From memory's tablet soon may fade;
The songs, which Anna loved to hear,
May vanish from her heart and ear;
But friendship's voice shall ever find
An echo in that gentle mind,
Nor memory lose nor time impair
The sympathies that tremble there.

TO LADY HEATHCOTE,

ON AN OLD RING FOUND AT TUNBRIDGE-WELLS.

"Tunnebridge est à la même distance de Londres, que Fontainebleau l'est de Paris. Ce qu'il y a de beau et de galant dans l'un et dans l'autre sexe s'y rassemble au terns des eaux. La compagnie," etc. —See Memoires de Grammont, Second Part, chap. iii.

Tunbridge Wells.

When Grammont graced these happy springs,
  And Tunbridge saw, upon her Pantiles,
The merriest wight of all the kings
  That ever ruled these gay, gallant isles;

Like us, by day, they rode, they walked,
  At eve they did as we may do,
And Grammont just like Spencer talked,
  And lovely Stewart smiled like you.

The only different trait is this,
  That woman then, if man beset her,
Was rather given to saying "yes,"
  Because,—as yet, she knew no better.

Each night they held a coterie,
  Where, every fear to slumber charmed,
Lovers were all they ought to be,
  And husbands not the least alarmed.

Then called they up their school-day pranks,
  Nor thought it much their sense beneath
To play at riddles, quips, and cranks,
  And lords showed wit, and ladies teeth.

As—"Why are husbands like the mint?"
  Because, forsooth, a husband's duty
Is but to set the name and print
  That give a currency to beauty.

"Why is a rose in nettles hid
  Like a young widow, fresh and fair?"
Because 'tis sighing to be rid
  Of weeds, that "have no business there!"

And thus they missed and thus they hit,
  And now they struck and now they parried;
And some lay in of full grown wit.
  While others of a pun miscarried,

'Twas one of those facetious nights
  That Grammont gave this forfeit ring
For breaking grave conundrumrites,
  Or punning ill, or—some such thing;—

From whence it can be fairly traced,
  Through many a branch and many a bough,
From twig to twig, until it graced
  The snowy hand that wears it now.

All this I'll prove, and then, to you
  Oh Tunbridge! and your springs ironical,
I swear by Heathcote's eye of blue
  To dedicate the important chronicle.

Long may your ancient inmates give
  Their mantles to your modern lodgers,
And Charles's loves in Heathcote live,
  And Charles's bards revive in Rogers.

Let no pedantic fools be there;
  For ever be those fops abolished,
With heads as wooden as thy ware,
  And, heaven knows! not half so polished.

But still receive the young, the gay.
  The few who know the rare delight
Of reading Grammont every day,
  And acting Grammont every night.

THE DEVIL AMONG THE SCHOLARS,

A FRAGMENT.

* * * * *

But, whither have these gentle ones,
These rosy nymphs and black-eyed nuns,
With all of Cupid's wild romancing,
Led by truant brains a-dancing?
Instead of studying tomes scholastic,
Ecclesiastic, or monastic,
Off I fly, careering far
In chase of Pollys, prettier far
Than any of their namesakes are,—
The Polymaths and Polyhistors,
Polyglots and all their sisters.

So have I known a hopeful youth
Sit down in quest of lore and truth,
With tomes sufficient to confound him,
Like Tohu Bohu, heapt around him,—
Mamurra[1] stuck to Theophrastus,
And Galen tumbling o'er Bombastus.[2]
When lo! while all that's learned and wise
Absorbs the boy, he lifts his eyes,
And through the window of his study
Beholds some damsel fair and ruddy,
With eyes, as brightly turned upon him as
The angel's[3] were on Hieronymus.
Quick fly the folios, widely scattered,
Old Homer's laureled brow is battered,
And Sappho, headlong sent, flies just in
The reverend eye of St. Augustin.
Raptured he quits each dozing sage,
Oh woman, for thy lovelier page:
Sweet book!—unlike the books of art,—
Whose errors are thy fairest part;
In whom the dear errata column
Is the best page in all the volume![4]
But to begin my subject rhyme—
'Twas just about this devilish time,
When scarce there happened any frolics
That were not done by Diabolics,
A cold and loveless son of Lucifer,
Who woman scorned, nor saw the use of her,
A branch of Dagon's family,
(Which Dagon, whether He or She,
Is a dispute that vastly better is
Referred to Scaliger[5] et coeteris,)
Finding that, in this cage of fools,
The wisest sots adorn the schools,
Took it at once his head Satanic in,
To grow a great scholastic manikin,—
A doctor, quite as learned and fine as
Scotus John or Tom Aquinas,
Lully, Hales Irrefragabilis,
Or any doctor of the rabble is.
In languages, the Polyglots,
Compared to him, were Babelsots:
He chattered more than ever Jew did;—
Sanhedrim and Priest included,
Priest and holy Sanhedrim
Were one-and-seventy fools to him.
But chief the learned demon felt a
Zeal so strong for gamma, delta,
That, all for Greek and learning's glory,[6]
He nightly tippled "Graeco more,"
And never paid a bill or balance
Except upon the Grecian Kalends:—
From whence your scholars, when they want tick,
Say, to be Attic's to be on tick.
In logics, he was quite Ho Panu;
Knew as much as ever man knew.
He fought the combat syllogistic
With so much skill and art eristic,
That though you were the learned Stagyrite,
At once upon the hip he had you right.
In music, though he had no ears
Except for that amongst the spheres,
(Which most of all, as he averred it,
He dearly loved, 'cause no one heard it,)
Yet aptly he, at sight, could read
Each tuneful diagram in Bede,
And find, by Euclid's corollaria,
The ratios of a jig or aria.
But, as for all your warbling Delias,
Orpheuses and Saint Cecilias,
He owned he thought them much surpast
By that redoubted Hyaloclast[7]
Who still contrived by dint of throttle,
Where'er he went to crack a bottle.

  Likewise to show his mighty knowledge, he,
On things unknown in physiology,
Wrote many a chapter to divert us,
(Like that great little man Albertus,)
Wherein he showed the reason why,
When children first are heard to cry,
If boy the baby chance to be.
He cries O A!—if girl, O E!—
Which are, quoth he, exceeding fair hints
Respecting their first sinful parents;
"Oh Eve!" exclaimeth little madam,
While little master cries "Oh Adam!"

  But, 'twas in Optics and Dioptrics,
Our daemon played his first and top tricks.
He held that sunshine passes quicker
Through wine than any other liquor;
And though he saw no great objection
To steady light and clear reflection,
He thought the aberrating rays,
Which play about a bumper's blaze,
Were by the Doctors looked, in common, on,
As a more rare and rich phenomenon.
He wisely said that the sensorium
Is for the eyes a great emporium,
To which these noted picture-stealers
Send all they can and meet with dealers.
In many an optical proceeding
The brain, he said, showed great good breeding;
For instance, when we ogle women
(A trick which Barbara tutored him in),
Although the dears are apt to get in a
Strange position on the retina,
Yet instantly the modest brain
Doth set them on their legs again!

  Our doctor thus, with "stuft sufficiency"
Of all omnigenous omnisciency,
Began (as who would not begin
That had, like him, so much within?)
To let it out in books of all sorts,
Folios, quartos, large and small sorts;
Poems, so very deep and sensible
That they were quite incomprehensible
Prose, which had been at learning's Fair,
And bought up all the trumpery there,
The tattered rags of every vest,
In which the Greeks and Romans drest,
And o'er her figure swollen and antic
Scattered them all with airs so frantic,
That those, who saw what fits she had,
Declared unhappy Prose was mad!
Epics he wrote and scores of rebuses,
All as neat as old Turnebus's;
Eggs and altars, cyclopaedias,
Grammars, prayer-books—oh! 'twere tedious,
Did I but tell thee half, to follow me:
Not the scribbling bard of Ptolemy,
No—nor the hoary Trismegistus,
(Whose writings all, thank heaven! have missed us,)
E'er filled with lumber such a wareroom
As this great "porcus literarum!"

[1] Mamurra, a dogmatic philosopher, who never doubted about anything, except who was his father.

[2] Bombastus was one of the names of that great scholar and quack Paracelsus. He used to fight the devil every night with a broadsword, to the no small terror of his pupil Oporinus, who has recorded the circumstance.

[3] The angel, who scolded St. Jerome for reading Cicero, as Gratian tells the story in his "concordantia discordantium Canonum," and says, that for this reason bishops were not allowed to read the Classics.

[4] The idea of the Rabbins, respecting the origin of woman, is not a little singular. They think that man was originally formed with a tail, like a monkey, but that the Deity cut off this appendage, and made woman of it.

[5] Scaliger.—Dagon was thought by others to be a certain sea-monster, who came every day out of the Red Sea to teach the Syrians husbandry.

[6] It is much to be regretted that Martin Luther, with all his talents for reforming, should yet be vulgar enough to laugh at Camerarius for writing to him in Greek, "Master Joachim (says he) has sent me some dates and some raisins, and has also written me two letters in Greek. As soon as I am recovered, I shall answer them in Turkish, that he too may have the pleasure of reading what he does not understand."

[7] Or Glass-breaker—Morhofius has given an account of this extraordinary man, in a work, published 1682.

* * * * *

POEMS RELATING TO AMERICA

TO FRANCIS, EARL OF MOIRA.

GENERAL IN HIS MAJESTY'S FORCES, MASTER-GENERAL OF THE ORDNANCE, CONSTABLE OF THE TOWER, ETC.

MY LORD,

It is impossible to think of addressing a Dedication to your Lordship without calling to mind the well-known reply of the Spartan to a rhetorician, who proposed to pronounce an eulogium on Hercules. "Oh Hercules!" said the honest Spartan, "who ever thought of blaming Hercules?" In a similar manner the concurrence of public opinion has left to the panegyrist of your Lordship a very superfluous task. I shall, therefore, be silent on the subject, and merely entreat your indulgence to the very humble tribute of gratitude which I have here the honor to present.

I am, my Lord,
With every feeling of attachment and respect,
Your Lordship's very devoted Servant,

THOMAS MOORE.

37 Bury Street, St. James's, April 10, 1806.

PREFACE.[1]

The principal poems in the following collection were written during an absence of fourteen months from Europe. Though curiosity was certainly not the motive of my voyage to America, yet it happened that the gratification of curiosity was the only advantage which I derived from it. Finding myself in the country of a new people, whose infancy had promised so much, and whose progress to maturity has been an object of such interesting speculation, I determined to employ the short period of time, which my plan of return to Europe afforded me, in travelling through a few of the States, and acquiring some knowledge of the inhabitants.

The impression which my mind received from the character and manners of these republicans, suggested the Epistles which are written from the city of Washington and Lake Erie.[2] How far I was right in thus assuming the tone of a satirist against a people whom I viewed but as a stranger and a visitor, is a doubt which my feelings did not allow me time to investigate. All I presume to answer for is the fidelity of the picture which I have given; and though prudence might have dictated gentler language, truth, I think, would have justified severer.

I went to America with prepossessions by no means unfavorable, and indeed rather indulged in many of those illusive ideas, with respect to the purity of the government and the primitive happiness of the people, which I had early imbibed In my native country, where, unfortunately, discontent at home enhances every distant temptation, and the western world has long been looked to as a retreat from real or imaginary oppression; as, in short, the elysian Atlantis, where persecuted patriots might find their visions realized, and be welcomed by kindred spirits to liberty and repose. In all these flattering expectations I found myself completely disappointed, and felt inclined to say to America, as Horace says to his mistress, "intentata nites." Brissot, in the preface to his travels, observes, that "freedom in that country is carried to so high a degree as to border upon a state of nature;" and there certainly is a close approximation to savage life not only in the liberty which they enjoy, but in the violence of party spirit and of private animosity which results from it. This illiberal zeal imbitters all social intercourse; and, though I scarcely could hesitate in selecting the party, whose views appeared to me the more pure and rational, yet I was sorry to observe that, in asserting their opinions, they both assume an equal share of intolerance; the Democrats consistently with their principles, exhibiting a vulgarity of rancor, which the Federalists too often are so forgetful of their cause as to imitate.

The rude familiarity of the lower orders, and indeed the unpolished state of society in general, would neither surprise nor disgust if they seemed to flow from that simplicity of character, that honest ignorance of the gloss of refinement which may be looked for in a new and inexperienced people. But, when we find them arrived at maturity in most of the vices, and all the pride of civilization, while they are still so far removed from its higher and better characteristics, it is impossible not to feel that this youthful decay, this crude anticipation of the natural period of corruption, must repress every sanguine hope of the future energy and greatness of America.

I am conscious that, in venturing these few remarks, I have said just enough to offend, and by no means sufficient to convince; for the limits of a preface prevent me from entering into a justification of my opinions, and I am committed on the subject as effectually as if I had written volumes in their defence. My reader, however, is apprised of the very cursory observation upon which these opinions are founded, and can easily decide for himself upon the degree of attention or confidence which they merit.

With respect to the poems in general, which occupy the following pages, I know not in what manner to apologize to the public for intruding upon their notice such a mass of unconnected trifles, such a world of epicurean atoms as I have here brought in conflict together. To say that I have been tempted by the liberal offers of my bookseller, is an excuse which can hope for but little indulgence from the critic; yet I own that, without this seasonable inducement, these poems very possibly would never have been submitted to the world. The glare of publication is too strong for such imperfect productions: they should be shown but to the eye of friendship, in that dim light of privacy which is as favorable to poetical as to female beauty, and serves as a veil for faults, while it enhances every charm which it displays. Besides, this is not a period for the idle occupations of poetry, and times like the present require talents more active and more useful. Few have now the leisure to read such trifles, and I most sincerely regret that I have had the leisure to write them.

[1] This Preface, as well as the Dedication which precedes it, were prefixed originally to the miscellaneous volume entitled "Odes and Epistles," of which, hitherto, the poems relating to my American tour have formed a part.

[2] Epistles VI., VII., and VIII.

POEMS RELATING TO AMERICA.

TO LORD VISCOUNT STRANGFORD.

ABOARD THE PHAETON FRIGATE, OFF THE AZORES, BY MOONLIGHT.

Sweet Moon! if, like Crotona's sage,[1]
  By any spell my hand could dare
To make thy disk its ample page,
  And write my thoughts, my wishes there;
How many a friend, whose careless eye
Now wanders o'er that starry sky,
Should smile, upon thy orb to meet
The recollection, kind and sweet,
The reveries of fond regret,
The promise, never to forget,
And all my heart and soul would send
To many a dear-loved, distant friend.

How little, when we parted last,
I thought those pleasant times were past,
For ever past, when brilliant joy
Was all my vacant heart's employ:
When, fresh from mirth to mirth again,
  We thought the rapid hours too few;
Our only use for knowledge then
  To gather bliss from all we knew.
Delicious days of whim and soul!
  When, mingling lore and laugh together,
We leaned the book on Pleasure's bowl,
  And turned the leaf with Folly's feather.
Little I thought that all were fled,
That, ere that summer's bloom was shed,
My eye should see the sail unfurled
That wafts me to the western world.

And yet, 'twas time;—in youth's sweet days,
To cool that season's glowing rays,
The heart awhile, with wanton wing,
May dip and dive in Pleasure's spring;
But, if it wait for winter's breeze,
The spring will chill, the heart will freeze.
And then, that Hope, that fairy Hope,—
  Oh! she awaked such happy dreams,
And gave my soul such tempting scope
  For all its dearest, fondest schemes,
That not Verona's child of song,
  When flying from the Phrygian shore,
With lighter heart could bound along,
  Or pant to be a wanderer more!

  Even now delusive hope will steal
Amid the dark regrets I feel,
Soothing, as yonder placid beam
  Pursues the murmurers of the deep,
And lights them with consoling gleam,
  And smiles them into tranquil sleep.
Oh! such a blessed night as this,
  I often think, if friends were near,
How we should feel, and gaze with bliss
  Upon the moon-bright scenery here!
The sea is like a silvery lake,
  And, o'er its calm the vessel glides
Gently, as if it feared to wake
  The slumber of the silent tides.
The only envious cloud that lowers
  Hath hung its shade on Pico's height,[2]
Where dimly, mid the dusk, he towers,
  And scowling at this heaven of light,
Exults to see the infant storm
  Cling darkly round his giant form!

Now, could I range those verdant isles,
  Invisible, at this soft hour,
And see the looks, the beaming smiles,
  That brighten many an orange bower;
And could I lift each pious veil,
  And see the blushing cheek it shades,—
Oh! I should have full many a tale,
  To tell of young Azorian maids.[3]
Yes, Strangford, at this hour, perhaps,
  Some lover (not too idly blest,
Like those, who in their ladies' laps
  May cradle every wish to rest,)
Warbles, to touch his dear one's soul,
  Those madrigals, of breath divine,
Which Camoens' harp from Rapture stole
  And gave, all glowing warm, to thine.[4]
Oh! could the lover learn from thee,
  And breathe them with thy graceful tone,
Such sweet, beguiling minstrelsy
  Would make the coldest nymph his own.

  But, hark!—the boatswain's pipings tell
'Tis time to bid my dream farewell:
Eight bells:—the middle watch is set;
Good night, my Strangford!—ne'er forget
That far beyond the western sea
Is one whose heart remembers thee.

[1] Pythagoras; who was supposed to have a power of writing upon the Moon by the means of a magic mirror.—See Boyle, art. Pythag.

[2] A very high mountain on one of the Azores, from which the island derives its name. It is said by some to be as high as the Peak of Teneriffe.

[3] I believe it is Gutherie who says, that the inhabitants of the Azores are much addicted to gallantry. This is an assertion in which even Gutherie may be credited.

[4] These islands belong to the Portuguese.

STANZAS.

A beam of tranquillity smiled in the west,
 The storms of the morning pursued us no more;
And the wave, while it welcomed the moment of rest.
 Still heaved, as remembering ills that were o'er.

Serenely my heart took the hue of the hour,
  Its passions were sleeping, were mute as the dead;
And the spirit becalmed but remembered their power,
  As the billow the force of the gale that was fled.

I thought of those days, when to pleasure alone
  My heart ever granted a wish or a sigh;
When the saddest emotion my bosom had known,
  Was pity for those who were wiser than I.

I reflected, how soon in the cup of Desire
  The pearl of the soul may be melted away;
How quickly, alas, the pure sparkle of fire
  We inherit from heaven, may be quenched in the clay;

And I prayed of that Spirit who lighted the flame,
  That Pleasure no more might its purity dim;
So that, sullied but little, or brightly the same,
  I might give back the boon I had borrowed from Him.

How blest was the thought! it appeared as if Heaven
  Had already an opening to Paradise shown;
As if, passion all chastened and error forgiven,
  My heart then began to be purely its own.

I looked to the west, and the beautiful sky
  Which morning had clouded, was clouded no more:
"Oh! thus," I exclaimed, "may a heavenly eye
  "Shed light on the soul that was darkened before."

TO THE FLYING-FISH.[1]

When I have seen thy snow-white wing
From the blue wave at evening spring,
And show those scales of silvery white,
So gayly to the eye of light,
As if thy frame were formed to rise,
And live amid the glorious skies;
Oh! it has made me proudly feel,
How like thy wing's impatient zeal
Is the pure soul, that rests not, pent
Within this world's gross element,
But takes the wing that God has given,
And rises into light and heaven!

But, when I see that wing, so bright,
Grow languid with a moment's flight,
Attempt the paths of air in vain,
And sink into the waves again;
Alas! the flattering pride is o'er;
Like thee, awhile, the soul may soar,
But erring man must blush to think,
Like thee, again, the soul may sink.

Oh Virtue! when thy clime I seek,
Let not my spirit's flight be weak;
Let me not, like this feeble thing,
With brine still dropping from its wing,
Just sparkle in the solar glow
And plunge again to depths below;
But, when I leave the grosser throng
With whom my soul hath dwelt so long,
Let me, in that aspiring day,
Cast every lingering stain away,
And, panting for thy purer air,
Fly up at once and fix me there.

[1] It is the opinion of St. Austin upon Genesis, and I believe of nearly all the Fathers, that birds, like fish, were originally produced from the waters; in defence of which idea they have collected every fanciful circumstance which can tend to prove a kindred similitude between them. With this thought in our minds, when we first see the Flying-Fish, we could almost fancy, that we are present at the moment of creation, and witness the birth of the first bird from the waves.

TO MISS MOORE.

FROM NORFOLK, IN VIRGINIA, NOVEMBER, 1803.

In days, my Kate, when life was new,
When, lulled with innocence and you,
I heard, in home's beloved shade,
The din the world at distance made;
When, every night my weary head
Sunk on its own unthorned bed,
And, mild as evening's matron hour,
Looks on the faintly shutting flower,
A mother saw our eyelids close,
And blest them into pure repose;
Then, haply if a week, a day,
I lingered from that home away,
How long the little absence seemed!
How bright the look of welcome beamed,
As mute you heard, with eager smile,
My tales of all that past the while!

Yet now, my Kate, a gloomy sea
Bolls wide between that home and me;
The moon may thrice be born and die,
Ere even that seal can reach mine eye.
Which used so oft, so quick to come,
Still breathing all the breath of home,—
As if, still fresh, the cordial air
From lips beloved were lingering there.
But now, alas,—far different fate!
It comes o'er ocean, slow and late,
When the dear hand that filled its fold
With words of sweetness may lie cold.

But hence that gloomy thought! at last,
Beloved Kate, the waves are past;
I tread on earth securely now,
And the green cedar's living bough
Breathes more refreshment to my eyes
Than could a Claude's divinest dyes.
At length I touch the happy sphere
To liberty and virtue dear,
Where man looks up, and, proud to claim
His rank within the social frame,
Sees a grand system round him roll,
Himself its centre, sun, and soul!
Far from the shocks of Europe—far
From every wild, elliptic star
That, shooting with a devious fire,
Kindled by heaven's avenging ire,
So oft hath into chaos hurled
The systems of the ancient world.

The warrior here, in arms no more
Thinks of the toil, the conflict o'er,
And glorying in the freedom won
For hearth and shrine, for sire and son,
Smiles on the dusky webs that hide
His sleeping sword's remembered pride.
While Peace, with sunny cheeks of toil,
Walks o'er the free, unlorded soil,
Effacing with her splendid share
The drops that war had sprinkled there.
Thrice happy land! where he who flies
From the dark ills of other skies,
From scorn, or want's unnerving woes.
May shelter him in proud repose;
Hope sings along the yellow sand
His welcome to a patriot land:
The mighty wood, with pomp, receives
The stranger in its world of leaves,
Which soon their barren glory yield
To the warm shed and cultured field;
And he, who came, of all bereft,
To whom malignant fate had left
Nor hope nor friends nor country dear,
Finds home and friends and country here.

Such is the picture, warmly such,
That Fancy long, with florid touch.
Had painted to my sanguine eye
Of man's new world of liberty.
Oh! ask me not, if Truth have yet
Her seal on Fancy's promise set;
If even a glimpse my eyes behold
Of that imagined age of gold;—
Alas, not yet one gleaming trace![1]
Never did youth, who loved a face
As sketched by some fond pencil's skill,
And made by fancy lovelier still,
Shrink back with more of sad surprise,
When the live model met his eyes,
Than I have felt, in sorrow felt,
To find a dream on which I've dwelt
From boyhood's hour, thus fade and flee
At touch of stern reality!

But, courage, yet, my wavering heart!
Blame not the temple's meanest part,[2]
Till thou hast traced the fabric o'er;—
As yet, we have beheld no more
Than just the porch to Freedom's fame;
And, though a sable spot may stain
The vestibule, 'tis wrong, 'tis sin
To doubt the godhead reigns within!
So here I pause—and now, my Kate,
To you, and those dear friends, whose fate
Touches more near this home-sick soul
Than all the Powers from pole to pole,
One word at parting,—in the tone
Most sweet to you, and most my own,
The simple strain I send you here,
Wild though it be, would charm your ear,
Did you but know the trance of thought
In which my mind its numbers caught.
'Twas one of those half-waking dreams,
That haunt me oft, when music seems
To bear my soul in sound along,
And turn its feelings all to song.
I thought of home, the according lays
Came full of dreams of other days;
Freshly in each succeeding note
I found some young remembrance float,
Till following, as a clue, that strain
I wandered back to home, again.

Oh! love the song, and let it oft
Live on your lip, in accents soft.
Say that it tells you, simply well,
All I have bid its wild notes tell,—
Of Memory's dream, of thoughts that yet
Glow with the light of joy that's set,
And all the fond heart keeps in store
Of friends and scenes beheld no more.
And now, adieu!—this artless air,
With a few rhymes, in transcript fair,
Are all the gifts I yet can boast
To send you from Columbia's coast;
But when the sun, with warmer smile.
Shall light me to my destined isle.[3]
You shall have many a cowslip-bell,
Where Ariel slept, and many a shell,
In which that gentle spirit drew
From honey flowers the morning dew.

[1] Such romantic works as "The American Farmer's Letters," and the account of Kentucky by Imlay, would seduce us into a belief, that innocence, peace, and freedom had deserted the rest of the world for Martha's Vineyard and the banks of the Ohio.

[2] Norfolk, it must be owned, presents an unfavorable specimen of America. The characteristics of Virginia in general are not such as can delight either the politician or the moralist, and at Norfolk they are exhibited in their least attractive form. At the time when we arrived the yellow fever had not yet disappeared, and every odor that assailed us in the streets very strongly accounted for its visitation.

[3] Bermuda.

A BALLAD.

THE LAKE OF THE DISMAL SWAMP.

WRITTEN AT NORFOLK, IN VIRGINIA.

"They tell of a young man, who lost his mind upon the death of a girl he loved, and who, suddenly disappearing from his friends, was never afterwards heard of. As he had frequently said, in his ravings, that the girl was not dead, but gone to the Dismal Swamp, it is supposed he had wandered into that dreary wilderness, and had died of hunger, or been lost in some of its dreadful morasses."—Anon.

    "La Poesie a ses monstres comme la nature."
    D'ALEMBERT.

"They made her a grave, too cold and damp
  "For a soul so warm and true;
"And she's gone to the Lake of the Dismal Swamp,[1]
  "Where, all night long, by a firefly lamp,
"She paddles her white canoe.

"And her fire-fly lamp I soon shall see,
  "And her paddle I soon shall hear;
"Long and loving our life shall be,
"And I'll hide the maid in a cypress tree,
  "When the footstep of death is near."

Away to the Dismal Swamp he speeds—
  His path was rugged and sore,
Through tangled juniper, beds of reeds,
Through many a fen, where the serpent feeds,
  And man never trod before.

And, when on the earth he sunk to sleep
  If slumber his eyelids knew,
He lay, where the deadly vine doth weep
Its venomous tear and nightly steep
  The flesh with blistering dew!

And near him the she-wolf stirred the brake,
  And the copper-snake breathed in his ear,
Till he starting cried, from his dream awake,
"Oh! when shall I see the dusky Lake,
  "And the white canoe of my dear?"

He saw the Lake, and a meteor bright
  Quick over its surface played—
"Welcome," he said, "my dear one's light!"
And the dim shore echoed, for many a night,
  The name of the death-cold maid.

Till he hollowed a boat of the birchen bark,
  Which carried him off from shore;
Far, far he followed the meteor spark,
The wind was high and the clouds were dark,
  And the boat returned no more.

But oft, from the Indian hunter's camp
  This lover and maid so true
Are seen at the hour of midnight damp
To cross the Lake by a fire-fly lamp,
  And paddle their white canoe!

[1] The Great Dismal Swamp is ten or twelve miles distant from Norfolk, and the Lake in the middle of it (about seven miles long) is called Drummond's Pond.

TO THE MARCHIONESS DOWAGER OF DONEGALL.

FROM BERMUDA, JANUARY, 1804.

Lady! where'er you roam, whatever land
Woos the bright touches of that artist hand;
Whether you sketch the valley's golden meads,
Where mazy Linth his lingering current leads;[1]
Enamored catch the mellow hues that sleep,
At eve, on Meillerie's immortal steep;
Or musing o'er the Lake, at day's decline,
Mark the last shadow on that holy shrine,[2]
Where, many a night, the shade of Tell complains
Of Gallia's triumph and Helvetia's chains;
Oh! lay the pencil for a moment by,
Turn from the canvas that creative eye,
And let its splendor, like the morning ray
Upon a shepherd's harp, illume my lay.

Yet, Lady, no—for song so rude as mine,
Chase not the wonders of your art divine;
Still, radiant eye, upon the canvas dwell;
Still, magic finger, weave your potent spell;
And, while I sing the animated smiles
Of fairy nature in these sun-born isles,
Oh, might the song awake some bright design,
Inspire a touch, or prompt one happy line,
Proud were my soul, to see its humble thought
On painting's mirror so divinely caught;
While wondering Genius, as he leaned to trace
The faint conception kindling into grace,
Might love my numbers for the spark they threw,
And bless the lay that lent a charm to you.

Say, have you ne'er, in nightly vision, strayed
To those pure isles of ever-blooming shade,
Which bards of old, with kindly fancy, placed
For happy spirits in the Atlantic waste?
There listening, while, from earth, each breeze that came
Brought echoes of their own undying fame,
In eloquence of eye, and dreams of song,
They charmed their lapse of nightless hours along:—
Nor yet in song, that mortal ear might suit,
For every spirit was itself a lute,
Where Virtue wakened, with elysian breeze,
Pure tones of thought and mental harmonies.

Believe me, Lady, when the zephyrs bland
Floated our bark to this enchanted land,—
These leafy isles upon the ocean thrown,
Like studs of emerald o'er a silver zone,—
Not all the charm, that ethnic fancy gave
To blessed arbors o'er the western wave,
Could wake a dream, more soothing or sublime,
Of bowers ethereal, and the Spirit's clime.

  Bright rose the morning, every wave was still,
When the first perfume of a cedar hill
Sweetly awaked us, and, with smiling charms,
The fairy harbor woo'd us to its arms.[3]
Gently we stole, before the whispering wind,
Through plaintain shades, that round, like awnings, twined
And kist on either side the wanton sails,
Breathing our welcome to these vernal vales;
While, far reflected o'er the wave serene,
Each wooded island shed so soft a green
That the enamored keel, with whispering play,
Through liquid herbage seemed to steal its way.

  Never did weary bark more gladly glide,
Or rest its anchor in a lovelier tide!
Along the margin, many a shining dome,
White as the palace of a Lapland gnome,
Brightened the wave;—in every myrtle grove
Secluded bashful, like a shrine of love,
Some elfin mansion sparkled through the shade;
And, while the foliage interposing played,
Lending the scene an ever-changing grace,
Fancy would love, in glimpses vague, to trace
The flowery capital, the shaft, the porch,[4]
And dream of temples, till her kindling torch
Lighted me back to all the glorious days
Of Attic genius; and I seemed to gaze
On marble, from the rich Pentelio mount,
Gracing the umbrage of some Naiad's fount.

  Then thought I, too, of thee, most sweet of all
The spirit race that come at poet's call,
Delicate Ariel! who, in brighter hours,
Lived on the perfume of these honied bowers,
In velvet buds, at evening, loved to lie,
And win with music every rose's sigh.
Though weak the magic of my humble strain
To charm your spirit from its orb again,
Yet, oh, for her, beneath whose smile I sing,
For her (whose pencil, if your rainbow wing
Were dimmed or ruffled by a wintry sky.
Could smooth its feather and relume its dye.)
Descend a moment from your starry sphere,
And, if the lime-tree grove that once was dear,
The sunny wave, the bower, the breezy hill,
The sparkling grotto can delight you still,
Oh cull their choicest tints, their softest light,
Weave all these spells into one dream of night,
And, while the lovely artist slumbering lies,
Shed the warm picture o'er her mental eyes;
Take for the task her own creative spells,
And brightly show what song but faintly tells.

[1] Lady Donegall, I had reason to suppose, was at this time still in Switzerland, where the well-known powers of her pencil must have been frequently awakened.

[2] The chapel of William Tell on the Lake of Lucerne.

[3] Nothing can be more romantic than the little harbor of St. George's. The number of beautiful islets, the singular clearness of the water, and the animated play of the graceful little boats, gliding for ever between the islands, and seeming to sail from one cedar-grove into another, formed altogether as lovely a miniature of nature's beauties as can be imagined.

[4] This is an illusion which, to the few who are fanciful enough to indulge in it, renders the scenery of Bermuda particularly interesting. In the short but beautiful twilight of their spring evenings, the white cottages, scattered over the islands, and but partially seen through the trees that surround them, assume often the appearance of little Grecian temples; and a vivid fancy may embellish the poor fisherman's hut with columns such as the pencil of a Claude might imitate. I had one favorite object of this kind in my walks, which the hospitality of its owner robbed me of, by asking me to visit him. He was a plain good man, and received me well and warmly, but I could never turn his house into a Grecian temple again.

TO GEORGE MORGAN, ESQ. OF NORFOLK, VIRGINIA.

FROM BERMUDA, JANUARY, 1804.

Oh, what a sea of storm we've past!—
  High mountain waves and foamy showers,
And battling winds whose savage blast
  But ill agrees with one whose hours
  Have past in old Anacreon's bowers,
Yet think not poesy's bright charm
Forsook me in this rude alarm;[1]—
When close they reefed the timid sail,
  When, every plank complaining loud,
We labored in the midnight gale;
And even our haughty mainmast bowed,
Even then, in that unlovely hour,
The Muse still brought her soothing power,
And, midst the war of waves and wind,
In song's Elysium lapt my mind.
Nay, when no numbers of my own
Responded to her wakening tone,
She opened, with her golden key,
  The casket where my memory lays
Those gems of classic poesy,
  Which time has saved from ancient days.
Take one of these, to Lais sung,—
I wrote it while my hammock swung,
As one might write a dissertation
Upon "Suspended Animation!"

Sweet is your kiss, my Lais dear,
But, with that kiss I feel a tear
Gush from your eyelids, such as start
When those who've dearly loved must part.
Sadly you lean your head to mine,
And mute those arms around me twine,
Your hair adown my bosom spread,
All glittering with the tears you shed.
In vain I've kist those lids of snow,
For still, like ceaseless founts they flow,
Bathing our cheeks, whene'er they meet.
Why is it thus? Do, tell me, sweet!
Ah, Lais! are my bodings right?
Am I to lose you? Is to-night
Our last—go, false to heaven and me!
Your very tears are treachery.

Such, while in air I floating hung,
  Such was the strain, Morgante mio!
The muse and I together sung,
  With Boreas to make out the trio.
But, bless the little fairy isle!
  How sweetly after all our ills.
We saw the sunny morning smile
  Serenely o'er its fragrant hills;
And felt the pure, delicious flow
Of airs that round this Eden blow
Freshly as even the gales that come
O'er our own healthy hills at home.

Could you but view the scenery fair,
  That now beneath my window lies,
You'd think, that nature lavished there
  Her purest wave, her softest skies,
To make a heaven for love to sigh in,
For bards to live and saints to die in.
Close to my wooded bank below,
  In grassy calm the waters sleep,
And to the sunbeam proudly show
  The coral rocks they love to steep.[2]
The fainting breeze of morning fails;
  The drowsy boat moves slowly past,
And I can almost touch its sails
  As loose they flap around the mast.
The noontide sun a splendor pours
That lights up all these leafy shores;
While his own heaven, its clouds
and beams,
  So pictured in the waters lie,
That each small bark, in passing, seems
  To float along a burning sky.

Oh for the pinnace lent to thee,[3]
  Blest dreamer, who in vision bright,
Didst sail o'er heaven's solar sea
  And touch at all its isles of light.
Sweet Venus, what a clime he found
Within thy orb's ambrosial round—
There spring the breezes, rich and warm,
  That sigh around thy vesper car;
And angels dwell, so pure of form
  That each appears a living star.
These are the sprites, celestial queen!
  Thou sendest nightly to the bed
Of her I love, with touch unseen
  Thy planet's brightening tints to shed;
To lend that eye a light still clearer,
  To give that cheek one rose-blush more.
And bid that blushing lip be dearer,
  Which had been all too dear before.

But, whither means the muse to roam?
'Tis time to call the wanderer home.
Who could have thought the nymph would perch her
Up in the clouds with Father Kircher?
So, health and love to all your mansion!
  Long may the bowl that pleasures bloom in,
The flow of heart, the soul's expansion,
  Mirth and song, your board illumine.
At all your feasts, remember too,
  When cups are sparkling to the brim,
That here is one who drinks to you,
  And, oh! as warmly drink to him.

[1] We were seven days on our passage from Norfolk to Bermuda, during three of which we were forced to lay-to in a gale of wind. The Driver sloop of war, in which I went, was built at Bermuda of cedar, and is accounted an excellent sea-boat. She was then commanded by my very regretted friend Captain Compton, who in July last was killed aboard the Lily in an action with a French privateer. Poor Compton! he fell a victim to the strange impolicy of allowing such a miserable thing as the Lily to remain in the service: so small, crank, and unmanageable, that a well-manned merchantman was at any time a match for her.

[2] The water is so clear around the island, that the rocks are seen beneath to a very great depth; and, as we entered the harbor, they appeared to us so near the surface that it seemed impossible we should not strike on them. There is no necessity, of course, for having the lead; and the negro pilot, looking down at the rocks from the bow of the ship, takes her through this difficult navigation, with a skill and confidence which seem to astonish some of the oldest sailors.

[3] In Kircher's "Ecstatic Journey to Heaven." Cosmel, the genius of the world, gives Theodidacticus a boat of asbestos, with which he embarks into the regions of the sun.