Whether above the horizon dim,

Along whose verge our spirits stray
(Half sunk within the shadowy brim,
Half brightened by the eternal ray),1

Thou risest to a cloudless pole!

Or, lingering here, dost love to mark
The twilight walk of many a soul
Through sunny good and evil dark;

Still be the song to Psyche dear,
The song, whose dulcet tide was given
To keep her name as fadeless here
As nectar keeps her soul in Heaven!

IMPROMPTU,

UPON LEAVING SOME FRIENDS.

O dulces comitum valete cœtus!-Catullus.

No, never shall my soul forget

The friends I found so cordial-hearted;
Dear shall be the day we met,

And dear shall be the night we parted!

Oh! if regrets, however sweet,

Must with the lapse of time decay,
Yet still, when thus in mirth you meet,
Fill high to him that's far away!

Long be the flame of memory found
Alive within your social glass;

Let that be still the magic round
O'er which oblivion dares not pass!

EPISTLE VIII.

TO THE HONOURABLE W. R. SPENCER.

Nec venit ad duros musa vocata Getas.-Ovid. ex Ponto, lib. i. ep. 5.

FROM BUFFALO, UPON LAKE ERIE.

THOU oft hast told me of the fairy hours

Thy heart has numbered, in those classic bowers
Where fancy sees the ghost of ancient wit
'Mid cowls and cardinals profanely flit,

By this image the Platonists expressed the middle state of the soul between sensible and intellectual existence,

And pagan spirits, by the Pope unlaid,
Haunt every stream and sing through every shade!
There still the bard, who (if his numbers be

His tongue's light echo) must have talked like thee,
The courtly bard, from whom thy mind has caught
Those playful, sunshine holidays of thought,
In which the basking soul reclines and glows,
Warm without toil and brilliant in repose.
There still he roves, and laughing loves to see
How modern monks with ancient rakes agree;
How mitres hang where ivy wreaths might twine,
And heathen Massic's damned for stronger wine!
There too are all those wandering souls of song
With whom thy spirit hath communed so long,
Whose rarest gems are every instant hung
By memory's magic on thy sparkling tongue.
But here, alas! by Erie's stormy lake,
As far from thee my lonely course I take,
No bright remembrance o'er the fancy plays,
No classic dream, no star of other days,
Has left that visionary glory here,

That relic of its light, so soft, so dear,

Which gilds and hallows even the rudest scene,
The humblest shed, where genius once has been!

1

All that creation's varying mass assumes
Of grand or lovely, here aspires and blooms;
Bold rise the mountains, rich the gardens glow,
Bright lakes expand, and conquering rivers flow;
Mind, mind alone, without whose quickening ray,
The world's a wilderness, and man but clay,
Mind, mind alone, in barren, still repose,
Nor blooms, nor rises, nor expands, nor flows!
Take Christians, Mohawks, Democrats, and all
From the rude wigwam to the congress-hall,
From man the savage, whether slaved or free,
To man the civilised, less tame than he !
'Tis one dull chaos, one unfertile strife
Betwixt half-polished and half-barbarous life;
Where every ill the ancient world can brew
Is mixed with every grossness of the new;
Where all corrupts, though little can entice,
And nothing's known of luxury but vice!
Is this the region, then, is this the clime
For golden fancy? for those dreams sublime,
Which all their miracles of light reveal
To heads that meditate and hearts that feel?

This epithet was suggested by Charlevoix's striking description of the confluence of the Missouri with the Mississippi:-'I believe this is the finest confluence in the world. The two rivers are much of the same breadth, each about half a league; but the Missouri is by far the most rapid, and seems to enter

the Mississippi like a conqueror, through which it carries its white waves to the opposite shore without mixing them: afterwards it gives its odour to the Mississippi, which it never loses again, but carries quite down to the sea,'-Letter xxvii.

No, no-the Muse of inspiration plays
O'er every scene; she walks the forest-maze,
And climbs the mountain; every blooming spot
Burns with her step, yet man regards it not!
She whispers round, her words are in the air,
But lost, unheard, they linger freezing there,1
Without one breath of soul, divinely strong,
One ray of heart to thaw them into song!

Yet, yet forgive me, oh you sacred few!

Whom late by Delaware's green banks I knew;
Whom, known and loved through many a social eve,
'Twas bliss to live with, and 'twas pain to leave !?
Less dearly welcome were the lines of yore
The exile saw upon the sandy shore,

When his lone heart but faintly hoped to find
One print of man, one blessed stamp of mind!
Less dearly welcome than the liberal zeal,
The strength to reason, and the warmth to feel,
The manly polish and the illumined taste,
Which, 'mid the melancholy, heartless waste
My foot has wandered, oh you sacred few!
I found by Delaware's green banks with you.
Long may you hate the Gallic dross that runs
O'er your fair country and corrupts its sons;
Long love the arts, the glories which adorn
Those fields of freedom where your sires were born.
Oh! if America can yet be great,

If, neither chained by choice, nor damned by fate
To the mob-mania which imbrutes her now,

She yet can raise the bright but temperate brow
Of single majesty, can grandly place
An empire's pillar upon Freedom's base,
Nor fear the mighty shaft will feebler prove
For the fair capital that flowers above!—
If yet, released from all that vulgar throng,
So vain of dulness and so pleased with wrong,
Who hourly teach her, like themselves, to hide
Folly in froth, and barrenness in pride,
She yet can rise, can wreathe the attic charms
Of soft refinement round the pomp of arms,
And see her poets flash the fires of song,
To light her warriors' thunderbolts along!
It is to you, to souls that favouring Heaven
Has made like yours, the glorious task is given-

1 Alluding to the humorous paper about frozen words in the Spectator.

2 In the society of Mr. Dennie and his friends at Philadelphia, I passed the few agreeable moments which my tour through the States afforded me. Mr. Dennie has succeeded in diffusing through this elegant little circle that love for good literature and sound politics which he feels so zealously himself, and which is so very rarely

the characteristic of his countrymen. They will not, I trust, accuse me of illiberality for the picture which I have given of the ignorance and corruption that surround them. If I did not hate as I ought the rabble to which they are opposed, I could not value as I do the spirit with which they defy it; and in learning from them what Americans can be, I but see with the more indignation what Americans are.

Oh! but for such, Columbia's day were done;
Rank without ripeness, quickened without sun,
Crude at the surface, rotten at the core,

Her fruits would fall before her spring were o'er !

Believe me, Spencer, while I winged the hours
Where Schuylkill undulates through banks of flowers,
Though few the days, the happy evenings few,
So warm with heart, so rich with mind they flew,
That my full soul forgot its wish to roam,
And rested there, as in a dream of home!
And looks I met, like looks I loved before,
And voices too, which, as they trembled o'er
The chord of memory, found full many a tone
Of kindness there in concord with their own!
Oh! we had nights of that communion free,
That flush of heart, which I have known with thee
So oft, so warmly; nights of mirth and mind,
Of whims that taught, and follies that refined:
When shall we both renew them? when, restored
To the pure feast and intellectual board,
Shall I once more enjoy with thee and thine
Those whims that teach, those follies that refine ?.
Even now, as, wandering upon Erie's shore,
I hear Niagara's distant cataract roar,
I sighed for England-oh! these weary feet
Have many a mile to journey ere we meet !
Ω ΠΑΤΡΙΣ, ΩΣ ΣΟΥ ΚΑΡΤΑ ΝΥΝ ΜΝΕΙΑΝ ΕΧΩ.

A WARNING.

ΤΟ

OH! fair as Heaven and chaste as light!
Did Nature mould thee all so bright,
That thou shouldst ever learn to weep
O'er languid Virtue's fatal sleep,
O'er shame extinguished, honour 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 fire such heavenly lore,

That man should read them and adore !
Yet have I known a gentle maid
Whose early charms were just arrayed

In Nature's loveliness like thine,

And wore that clear, celestial sign,
Which seems to mark the brow that's fair
For Destiny's peculiar care!

Whose bosom, too, was once a zone
Where the bright gem of virtue shone ;
Whose eyes were talismans of fire
Against the spell of man's desire !
Yet, hapless girl, in one sad hour

Her charms have shed their radiant flower;
The gem has been beguiled away;
Her eyes have lost their chastening ray;
The simple fear, the guiltless shame,
The smiles that from reflection came,
All, all have fled, and left her mind
A faded monument behind!
Like some wave-beaten, mouldering stone,
To memory raised by hands unknown,
Which, many a wintry hour, has stood
Beside the ford of Tyra's flood,

To tell the traveller, as he crossed,
That there some lovèd friend was lost;
Oh! 'twas a sight I wept to see-

Heaven keep the lost one's fate from thee!

ΤΟ

"TIs time, I feel, to leave thee now, While yet my soul is something free; While yet those dangerous eyes allow

One moment's thought to stray from thee!

Oh! thou art every instant dearer-
Every chance that brings me nigh thee,
Brings my ruin nearer, nearer :

I am lost, unless I fly thee!

Nay, if thou dost not scorn and hate me,
Wish me not so soon to fall,
Duties, fame, and hopes await me,
Oh! that eye would blast them all!

Yes, yes, it would-for thou'rt as cold
As ever yet allured or swayed.
And wouldst, without a sigh, behold
The ruin which thyself had made!

Yet could I think that, truly fond,

That eye but once would smile on me, Good Heaven! how much, how far beyond Fame, duty, hope, 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!