WRITTEN ABOARD THE BOSTOn frigate, 28TH APRIL.'
WHEN freshly blows the northern gale,
And under courses snug we fly;
When lighter breezes swell the sail,
And royals proudly sweep the sky;
'Longside the wheel, unwearied still
I stand, and as my watchful eye
Doth mark the needle's faithful thrill,
I think of her I love, and cry,
Port, my boy! port.
When calms delay, or breezes blow
Right from the point we wish to steer;
When by the wind close-haul'd we go,
And strive in vain the port to near;
I think 't is thus the Fates defer
My bliss with one that's far away,
And while remembrance springs to her,
I watch the sails, and sighing say,
Thus, my boy! thus.
But see the wind draws kindly aft,
All hands are up the yards to square, And now the floating stu'n-sails waft
Our stately ship through waves and air. Oh! then I think that yet for me
Some breeze of Fortune thus may spring, Some breeze to waft me, love, to thee! And in that hope I smiling sing, Steady, boy! so.
IMITATED FROM MARTIAL.
I COULD resign that eye of blue,
Howe'er it burn, howe'er it thrill me;
And, though your lip be rich with dew,
To lose it, Cloe, scarce would kill me.
That snowy neck I ne'er should miss,
However warm I've twined about it!
And though your bosom beat with bliss,
I think my soul could live without it.
In short, I've learn'd so well to fast,
That, sooth my love, I know not whether
I might not bring myself at last
To-do without you altogether!
TO THE FIRE-FLY."
THIS morning, when the earth and sky
Were burning with the blush of spring,
I left Bermuda in the Boston, about the middle of April, in company with the Cambrian and Leander, aboard the latter of which was the Admiral, Sir Andrew Mitchell, who divides his year between Halifax and Bermuda, and is the very soul of society and good-fellowship to both. We separated in a few days, and the Boston after a short cruise proceeded to New York.
The lively and varying illumination, with which these fire-flies light np the woods at night, gives quite an idea of enchantment:Puis ces mouches se développant de l'obscurité de ces arbres et s'approchant de nous, nous les voyions sur les orangers voisins, qu'ils mettaient tout en feu, nous rendant la vue de leurs beaux fruits dorés que la nuit avait ravie, etc. etc.-See Histoire des Antilles, art. 2, ch. 4, liv. a.
And many a rose-leaf, cull'd 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 loth, Thou likest the form of either tie,
And hold'st 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 flow'rets be Sweet 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 flow'rets touch,
And all their glow, their tints, are faded! Sweet Fanny, what would Rapture do,
When all her blooms had lost their grace? Might she not steal a rose or two
From other wreaths, to fill their place?— Oh! better to be always free, Than thus to bind my love to me.
For I have thought of former hours, When he who first thy soul possess'd, Like me awaked its witching powers,
Like me was loved, like me was blest!
Upon his name thy murmuring tongue
Perhaps hath all as sweetly dwelt;
For him that snowy lid hath hung
In ecstasy, as purely felt!
For him-yet why the past recal
To wither blooms of present bliss?
Thou 'rt now my own, I clasp thee all,
And Heaven can grant no more than this!
Forgive me, dearest, oh! forgive;
I would be first, be sole to thee; Thou shouldst but have begun to live The hour that gave thy heart to me.
Thy book of life till then effaced,
Love should have kept that leaf alone,
On which he first so dearly traced
That thou wert, soul and all, my own!
FROM THE CITY OF WASHINGTON.
THE timid girl now hung her head,
And, as she turn'd an upward glance,
I saw a doubt its twilight spread
Along her brow's divine expanse.
Just then the garland's dearest rose
Gave one of its seducing sighs-
Oh! who can ask how Fanny chose,
That ever look'd in Fanny's eyes! The wreath, my life, the wreath shall be The tie to bind my soul to thee!
AND hast thou mark'd the pensive shade That many a time obscures my brow, 'Midst all the blisses, darling maid,
Which thou canst give, and only thou?
Oh! 't is not that I then forget
The endearing charms that round me twine
There never throbb'd a bosom yet
Could feel their witchery, like mine!
When bashful on my bosom hid,
And blushing to have felt so blest, Thou dost but lift thy languid lid,
Again to close it on my breast!
Oh! these are minutes all thine own, Thine own to give, and mine to feel, Yet, even in them, my heart has known The sigh to rise, the tear to steal.
Και μη θαυμασεις μητ' ει μακροτέραν γέγραφα την επιςολήν, μηδ' ει τι περιεργότερον η πρεσβυτικω τερον ειρηκαμεν εαυτη.
IF former times had never left a trace
Of human frailty in their shadowy race,
Nor o'er their pathway written, as they ran,
One dark memorial of the crimes of man;
If every age, in new unconscious prime,
Rose, like a phoenix, from the fires of time,
To wing its way unguided and alone,
The future smiling and the past unknown;
Then ardent man would to himself be new,
Earth at his foot and heaven within his view;
Well might the novice hope, the sanguine scheme
Of full perfection prompt his daring dream,
Ere cold Experience, with her veteran lore,
Could tell him, fools had dream'd as much before!
But tracing, as we do, through age and clime,
The plans of virtue 'midst the deeds of crime,
The thinking follies and the reasoning rage
Of man, at once the idiot and the sage;
When still we see, through every varying frame
Of arts and polity, his course the same,
And know that ancient fools but died to make
A space on earth for modern fools to take;
"T is strange, how quickly we the past forget;
That Wisdom's self should not be tutor'd yet,
Nor tire of watching for the monstrous birth
Of pure perfection, midst the sons of earth!
Oh! nothing but that soul which God has given,
Could lead us thus to look on earth for heaven;
O'er dross without to shed the flame within,
And dream of virtue while we gaze on sin!
Even here, beside the proud Potowmac's stream,
Might sages still pursue the flattering theme
Of days to come, when man shall conquer Fate,
Rise o'er the level of his mortal state,
Belie the monuments of frailty past,
And stamp perfection on this world at last!
Here, might they say, shall Power's divided reign
Evince that patriots have not bled in vain.
Here god-like Liberty's herculean youth,
Cradled in peace, and nurtured up by truth
To full maturity of nerve and mind,
Shall crush the giants that bestride mankind!
Here shall Religion's pure and balmy draught,
In form no more from cups of state be quaff'd,
But flow for all, through nation, rank, and sect,
Free as that heaven its tranquil waves reflect.
Around the columns of the public shrine
Shall growing arts their gradual wreath entwine,
Nor breathe corruption from their flowering braid,
Nor mine that fabric which they bloom to shade.
No longer here shall Justice bound her view,
Or wrong the many, while she rights the few;
But take her range through all the social frame,
Pure and pervading as that vital flame
Which warms at once our best and meanest part,
And thrills a hair while it expands a heart!»
Oh golden dream! what soul that loves to scan
The brightness rather than the shades of man,
That owns the good, while smarting with the ill,
And loves the world with all its frailty still-
What ardent bosom does not spring to meet
The generous hope with all that heavenly heat,
Which makes the soul unwilling to resign
The thoughts of growing, even on earth, divine!
Yes, dearest Forbes, I see thee glow to think
The chain of ages yet may boast a link
Of purer texture than the world has known,
And fit to bind us to a Godhead's throne!
But, is it thus? doth even the glorious dream
Borrow from truth that dim uncertain gleam,
Which bids us give such dear delusion scope,
As kills not reason, while it nurses hope?
No, no, believe me, 't is not so-even now,
While yet upon Columbia's rising brow
The showy smile of young presumption plays,
Her bloom is poison'd and her heart decays!
Even now, in dawn of life, her sickly breath
Burns with the taint of empires near their death,
And, like the nymphs of her own withering clime,
She's old in youth, she's blasted in her prime!2
Already has the child of Gallia's school,
The foul Philosophy that sins by rule,
With all her train of reasoning, damning arts,
Begot by brilliant heads or worthless hearts,
Like things that quicken after Nilus' flood,
The venom'd birth of sunshine and of mud!
Already has she pour'd her poison here
O'er every charm that makes existence dear,
Already blighted, with her blackening trace,
The opening bloom of every social grace,
And all those courtesies that love to shoot
Round Virtue's stem, the flow'rets of her fruit'
Oh! were these errors but the wanton tide
Of young luxuriance or unchasten'd pride;
The fervid follies and the faults of such
As wrongly feel, because they feel too much;
Then might experience make the fever less,
Nay, graft a virtue on each warm excess;
But no; 't is heartless, speculative ill,
All youth's transgression with all age's chill,
The apathy of wrong, the bosom's ice,
A slow and cold stagnation into vice'
Long has the love of gold, that meanest rage
And latest folly of man's sinking age,
Which, rarely venturing in the van of life,
While nobler passions wage their heated strife,
Comes skulking last, with selfishness and fear,
And dies, collecting lumber in the rear!
Long has it palsied every grasping hand
And greedy spirit through this bartering land;
Turn'd life to traffic, set the demon gold
So loose abroad, that Virtue's self is sold,
And conscience, truth, and honesty, are made
To rise and fall, like other wares of trade!1
Already in this free, this virtuous state,
Which, Frenchmen tell us, was ordain'd by Fate,
To show the world what high perfection springs
From rabble senators and merchant kings-
Even here already patriots learn to steal
Their private perquisites from public weal,
And, guardians of the country's sacred fire,
Like Afric's priests, they let the flame for hire!
Those vaunted demagogues, who nobly rose
From England's debtors to be England's foes,2
Who could their monarch in their purse forget,
And break allegiance but to cancel debt,3
memorial may be found in PORCUPINE's Works, vol. i, p. 179.
mains a striking monument of republican intrigue on one side, and
republican profligacy on the other; and I would recommend the
perusal of it to every honest politician who may labour under a mo
ment's delusion with respect to the purity of American patriotism
« Nous voyons que dans les pays où l'on n'est affecté que de l'es-
prit de commerce, on trafique de toutes les actions humaines et de
toutes les vertus morales.-MONTESQUIEU, de l'Esprit des Lois, liv.
20. chap. 2.
Thus MORSE: Here the sciences and the arts of civilized life are to receive their highest improvements: bere civil and religious * I trust I shall not be suspected of a wish to justify those arbiliberty are to flourish, unchecked by the cruel band of civil or ec- trary steps of the English government which the Colonies found it clesiastical tyranny; here genius, aided by all the improvements of so necessary to resist; my only object here is to expose the selfish former ages, is to be exerted in humanizing mankind, in expand-motives of some of the leading American demagogues. ing and enriching their minds with religious and philosophical know- The most persevering enemy to the interests of this country ledge, etc. etc. p. 56g.
2 What will be the old age of this government, if it is thus early decrepit! Such was the remark of FAUCHET, the French minister at Philadelphia, in that famous dispatch to his government which was intercepted by one of our cruizers in the year 1794. This curious
amongst the politicians of the western world, has been a Virginian merchant, who, finding it easier to settle his conscience than his debts, was one of the first to raise the standard against Great Britain, and has ever since endeavoured to revenge upon the whole country the obligations which he lies under to a few of its merchants.
Have proved at length the mineral's tempting hue,
Which makes a patriot, can unmake him too.'
Oh! Freedom, Freedom, how I hate thy cant!
Not Eastern bombast, nor the savage rant
Of purpled madmen, were they number'd all
From Roman Nero down to Russian Paul,
Could grate upon my ear so mean, so base,
As the rank jargon of that factious race,
Who, poor of heart and prodigal of words,
Born to be slaves and struggling to be lords,
But pant for license, while they spurn control,
And shout for rights, with rapine in their soul!
Who can, with patience, for a moment see
The medley mass of pride and misery,
Of whips and charters, manacles and rights,
Of slaving blacks and democratic whites,2
And all the pye-bald polity that reigns
In free confusion o'er Columbia's plains?
To think that man, thou just and gentle God!
Should stand before thee, with a tyrant's rod
O'er creatures like himself, with soul from thee,
Yet dare to boast of perfect liberty:
Away, away-I'd rather hold my neck
By doubtful tenure from a sultan's beck,
In climes where liberty has scarce been named,
Nor any right but that of ruling claim'd,
Than thus to live, where bastard freedom waves
Her fustian flag in mockery over slaves;
Where (motley laws admitting no degree
Betwixt the vilely slaved and madly free)
Alike the bondage and the license suit,
The brute made ruler and the man made brute!
But, oh my Forbes! while thus, in flowerless song,
I feebly paint what yet I feel so strong-
The ills, the vices of the land, where first
Those rebel fiends that rack the world were nurst!
Where treason's arm by royalty was nerv'd,
And Frenchmen learn'd to crush the throne they serv'd-
Thou, gently lull'd in dreams of classic thought,
By bards illumin'd and by sages taught,
Pant'st to be all, upon this mortal scene,
That bard hath fancied or that sage hath been!
Why should I wake thee? why severely chase
The lovely forms of virtue and of
grace,
That dwell before thee, like the pictures spread
By Spartan matrons round the genial bed,
Moulding thy fancy, and with gradual art
Brightening the young conceptions of thy heart!
Forgive me, Forbes-and should the song destroy One generous hope, one throb of social joy,
• See PORCUPINE'S Account of the Pensylvania Insurrection in 1794. In short, see Porcupine's works throughout, for ample corroboration of every sentiment which I have ventured to express. In saying this, I refer less to the comments of that writer, than to the occurrences which he has related and the documents which he has preserved. Opinion may be suspected of bias, but facts speak for themselves.
In Virginia the effects of this system begin to be felt rather seriously. While the master raves of liberty, the slave cannot but catch the contagion, and accordingly there seldom elapses a month without some alarm of insurrection amongst the negroes. The accession of Louisiana, it is feared, will increase this embarrassment; as the numerous emigratious, which are expected to take place from the southern states to this newly-acquired territory, will considerably diminish the white population, and thus strengthen the proportion of negroes to a degree which must ultimately be ruinous.
One high pulsation of the zeal for man,
Which few can feel, and bless that few who can!
Oh! turn to him, beneath whose kindred eyes
Thy talents open and thy virtues rise,
Forget where Nature has been dark or dim,
And proudly study all her lights in him!
Yes, yes, in him the erring world forget,
And feel that man may reach perfection yet!
THE wreath you wove, the wreath you wove
Is fair-but oh! how fair,
If Pity's hand had stolen from Love
One leaf to mingle there!
If every rose with gold were tied,
Did gems for dew-drops fall,
One faded leaf where Love had sigh'd
Were sweetly worth them all!
The wreath you wove, the wreath you wove
Our emblem well may be;
Its bloom is yours, but hopeless love
Must keep its tears for me!
Che con le lor bujie pajon divini. MAURO D'ARCANO.
I DO confess, in many a sigh
My lips have breathed you many a lie,
And who, with such delights in view,
Would lose them for a lie or two.
Nay-look not thus, with brow reproving;
Lies are, my dear, the soul of loving!
If half we tell the girls were true,
If half we swear to think and do,
Were aught but lying's bright illusion,
The world would be in strange confusion!
If ladies' eyes were, every one,
As lovers swear, a radiant
Astronomy should leave the skies,
To learn her lore in ladies' eyes!
Oh no!-believe me, lovely girl,
When Nature turns your teeth to pearl,
Your neck to snow, your eyes to fire,
Your yellow locks to golden wire,
Then, only then, can Heaven decree
That you should live for only me,
Or I for you, as, night and morn,
We've swearing kiss'd, and kissing sworn!
BLEST infant of eternity!
Before the day-star learn'd to move,
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. Timæus held Form to be the father, and Matter the mother of the World; Elion and Berouth, I think, are Sanchoniatho's first spiritual lovers, and Manco-Capac and his wife introduced creation amongst the Peruvians. In short, Harlequin seems to have studied cosmogonies, when he said tutto il mondo è fatto come la nostra famiglia..
|