Billeder på siden
PDF
ePub

Oh! thou shalt own this universe divine

Is mine!

That I respire in all and all in me,

One mighty mingled soul of boundless harmony!

Welcome, welcome, mystic shell!
Many a star has ceased to burn,
Many a tear has Satan's urn

O'er the cold bosom of the ocean wept,
Since thy aërial spell

Hath in the waters slept!

I fly,

With the bright treasure, to my choral sky,
Where she, who waked its early swell,
The Syren, with a foot of fire,

Walks o'er the great string of my Orphic Lyre,
Or guides around the burning pole

The winged chariot of some blissful soul!
While thou,

O son of earth! what dreams shall rise for thee!
Beneath Hispania's sun,

Thou'lt see a streamlet run,

Which I have warm'd with dews of melody;
Listen!-when the night-wind dies
Down the still current, like a harp it sighs!
A liquid chord is every wave that flows,
An airy plectrum every breeze that blows!

There, by that wondrous stream,
Go, lay thy languid brow,

And I will send thee such a godlike dream,
Such-mortal! mortal! hast thou heard of him,
Who, many a night, with his primordial lyre,
Sat on the chill Pangæan mount,

And, looking to the orient dim,

Watch'd the first flowing of that sacred fount,
From which his soul had drunk its fire!
Oh! think what visions, in that lonely hour,
Stole o'er his musing breast!

What pious ecstacy

Wafted his prayer to that eternal Power.

Whose seal upon this world impress'd

The various forms of bright divinity!

Or, dost thou know what dreams I wove, 'Mid the deep horror of that silent bower. Where the rapt Samian slept his holy slumber?

When, free

From every earthly chain,

From wreaths of pleasure and from bonds of pain,
His spirit flew through fields above,
Drank at the source of Nature's fontal number,
And saw, in mystic choir, around him move
The stars of song, Heaven's burning minstrelsy!
Such dreams, so heavenly bright,

I swear

By the great diadem that twines my hair,
And by the seven gems that sparkle there,
Mingling their beams

In a soft iris of harmonious light,

O mortal! such shall be thy radiant dreams!

[merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small]

Он, what a tempest whirl'd us hither!?

Winds, whose savage breath could wither
All the light and languid flowers
That bloom in Epicurus' bowers!

Yet think not, George, that fancy's charm
Forsook me in this rude alarm.

His

1 This gentleman is attached to the British consulate at Norfolk. talents are worthy of a much higher sphere; but the excellent dispositions of the family with whom he resides, and the cordial repose he enjoys amongst some of the kindest hearts in the world, should be almost enough to atone to him for the worst caprices of fortune. The consul himself, Colonel Hamilton, is one among the very few instances of a man ardently loyal to his king, and yet beloved by the Americans. His house is the very temple of hospitality: and I sincerely pity the heart of that stranger who, warm from the welcome of such a board, and with the taste of such Madeira still upon his lips, "col dolce in bocca," could sit down to write a libel on his host in the true spirit of a modern philosophist.-See the Travels of the Duc de la Rochefoucault Liancourt, vol. ii.

2 We were seven days on our passage from Norfolk to Bermuda, during three of which we were forced to lav-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 much regretted friend Captain Compton, who, in July last, was killed aboard the Lilly 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 nierchantman was at any time a match for her.

When close they reef'd the timid sail,
When, every plank complaining loud,
We labour'd in the midnight gale.

And e'en our haughty main-mast bow'd!
The muse, in that unlovely hour,
Benignly brought her soothing power,
And, midst the war of waves and wind,
In songs elysian lapp'd my mind!
She open'd, with her golden key,
The casket where my memory lays
Those little gems of 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!"

SWEETLY you kiss, my Lais dear!
But, while you kiss, I feel a tear
Bitter, as those when lovers part,
In mystery from your eyelid start!
Sadly you lean your head to mine,
And round my neck in silence twine,
Your hair along my bosom spread,
All humid with the tears you shed!
Have I not kiss'd those lids of snow?
Yet still, my love, like 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 dewy morning smile
Serenely o'er its fragrant hills!

And felt the pure, elastic flow
Of airs, that round this Eden blow,
With honey freshness, caught by stealth,
Warm from the very lips of health!

Oh! could you view the scenery dear,
That now beneath my window lies,
You'd think, that Nature lavish'd here
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 glassy calm the waters sleep,
And to the sun-beam proudly show
The coral rocks they love to steep!

The fainting breeze of morning fails,
The drowsy boat moves slowly past,
And I can almost touch its sails

That languish idly round the mast.
The sun has now profusely given
The flashes of a noontide heaven,
And, as the wave reflects his beams,
Another heaven its surface seems!
Blue light and clouds of silvery tears
So pictured o'er the waters lie,
That every languid bark appears
To float along a burning sky!

Oh! for the boat the angel gave

To him who, in his heavenward flight,
Sail'd, o'er the sun's ethereal wave,
To planet-isles of odorous light!
Sweet Venus, what a clime he found
Within thy orb's ambrosial round!
There spring the breezes, rich and warm,
That pant around thy twilight car;
There angels dwell, so pure of form,
That each appears a living star!

These are the sprites, O radiant queen!
Thou send'st so often to the bed
Of her I love, with spell unseen,

Thy planet's brightening balm to shed; To make the eye's enchantment clearer, To give the cheek one rosebud more, And bid that flushing lip be dearer,

Which had been, oh! too dear before!

But, whither means the muse to roam?
'Tis time to call the wanderer home.
Who could have ever thought to search 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!
Fare you well-remember too,

When cups are flowing to the brim,
That here is one who drinks to you,
And, oh!—as warmly drink to him.

[blocks in formation]

No-Lady! Lady! keep the ring;
Oh! think, how many a future year,
Of placid smile and downy wing,
May sleep within its holy sphere!

Do not disturb their tranquil dream,

Though love hath ne'er the mystery warm'd, Yet Heaven will shed a soothing beam,

To bless the bond itself hath form'd.

But then, that eye, that burning eye!
Oh! it doth ask, with magic power,
If Heaven can ever bless the tie,
Where love inwreathes no genial flower!

Away, away, bewildering look!

Or all the boast of virtue 's o'er; Go-hie thee to the sage's book,

And learn from him to feel no more!

I cannot warn thee; every touch,
That brings my pulses close to thine,
Tells me I want thy aid as much,

Oh! quite as much, as thou dost mine!

Yet stay, dear love-one effort yet-
A moment turn those eyes away,
And let me, if I can, forget

The light that leads my soul astray!

« ForrigeFortsæt »