Gleam then, like the lightning-bug,
Tempt him to the den that 's dug
For the foul and famish'd brood
Of the she-wolf, gaunt for blood!
Or, unto the dangerous pass
O'er the deep and dark morass,
Where the trembling Indian brings
Belts of porcelain, pipes, and rings,
Tributes to be hung in air
To the fiend presiding there!
Then, when night's long labour past,
Wilder'd, faint, he falls at last,
Sinking where the causeway's edge
Moulders in the slimy sedge,
There let every noxious thing
Trail its filth and fix its sting;
Let the bull-toad taint him over,
Round him let musquitoes hover,
In his ears and eye-balls tingling,
With his blood their poison mingling,
Till, beneath the solar fires,
Rankling all, the wretch expires!
TO THE HONOURABLE W. R. SPENCER.
FROM BUFFALO, UPON LAKE ERIE,
THOU oft hast told me of the fairy hours
Thy heart has number'd in those classic bowers
Where fancy sees the ghost of ancient wit
'Mid cowls and cardinals profanely flit,
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 talk'd 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;
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!
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-polish'd and half-barbarous life;
Where every ill the ancient world can brew
Is mix'd 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?
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,
Without one breath of soul, divinely strong,
One ray of heart to thaw them into song!
Yet, yet forgive me, O 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 lore
The exile saw upon the sandy shore,
*This epithet was suggested by Charlevoix's striking description of the confluence of the Missouri with the Mississippi.
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 wander'd, O 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 chain'd by choice nor damn'd 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-
Oh! but for such, Columbia's days were done;
Rank without ripeness, quicken'd without sun,
Crude at the surface, rotten at the core,
Her fruits would fall before her spring was o'er !
Believe me, Spencer, while I wing'd 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 sigh for England-oh! these weary feet
Have many a mile to journey, ere we meet!
I KNEW by the smoke that so gracefully curl'd
Above the green elms, that a cottage was near,
And I said, "If there's peace to be found in the world,
A heart that is humble might hope for it here!"
It was noon, and on flowers that languish'd around
In silence reposed the voluptuous bee;
Every leaf was at rest, and I heard not a sound
But the woodpecker tapping the hollow beech-tree.
And "Here in this lone little wood," I exclaim'd,
"With a maid who was lovely to soul and to eye, Who would blush when I praised her, and weep if I blamed, How blest could I live, and how calm could I die!
By the shade of yon sumach, whose red berry dips
In the gush of the fountain, how sweet to recline,
And to know that I sigh'd upon innocent lips,
Which had never been sigh'd on by any but mine!"
WRITTEN ON THE RIVER ST LAWRENCE.
FAINTLY as tolls the evening chime,
Our voices keep tune and our oars keep time.
Soon as the woods on shore look dim,
We'll sing at St Ann's our parting hymn.
Row, brothers, row, the stream runs fast,
The rapids are near, and the day-light's past!
Why should we yet our sail unfurl?
There is not a breath the blue wave to curl!
But when the wind blows off the shore,
Oh! sweetly we'll rest our weary oar.
Blow, breezes, blow, the stream runs fast,
The rapids are near, and the daylight's past!
Utawas tide! this trembling moon
Shall see us float over thy surges soon.
Saint of this green isle! hear our prayers,
Oh! grant us cool heavens and favouring airs.
Blow, breezes, blow, the stream runs fast,
The rapids are near, and the daylight's past!
TO THE LADY CHARLOTTE RAWDON.
FROM THE BANKS OF THE ST LAWRENCE.
Nor many months have now been dream'd away
Since yonder sun (beneath whose evening ray
We rest our boat among these Indian isles)
Saw me, where mazy Trent serenely smiles
Through many an oak, as sacred as the groves
Beneath whose shade the pious Persian roves,
And hears the soul of father, or of chief,
Or loved mistress, sigh in every leaf!
There listening, Lady! while thy lip hath sung
My own unpolish'd lays, how proud I've hung
On every mellow'd number! proud to feel
That notes like mine should have the fate to steal,
As o'er thy hallowing lip they sigh'd along,
Such breath of passion and such soul of song.
Oh! I have wonder'd, like the peasant boy
Who sings at eve his Sabbath strains of joy,
And when he hears the rude, luxuriant note
Back to his ear on softening echoes float,
Believes it still some answering spirit's tone,
And thinks it all too sweet to be his own!
I dream'd not then that, ere the rolling year
Had fill'd its circle, I should wander here
In musing awe; should tread this wondrous world,
See all its store of inland waters hurl'd
In one vast volume down Niagara's steep,
Or calm behold them, in transparent sleep,
Where the blue hills of old Toronto shed
Their evening shadows o'er Ontario's bed!—
Should trace the grand Cadaraqui, and glide
Down the white rapids of his lordly tide
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