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J'iigrared hy J. C3ottt® 
 
THE POEMS 
 
 GEORGE D. PRENTICE 
 
 WITH A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 
 
 BY JOHN JAMES PIATT 
 
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 /\^\ji^^-\-\, <r>-v_ «_ 
 
 ^ NO.../3.07 7,^^ 
 
 CIXCINXATI 
 ROBERT CLARKE & CO 
 1S77 
 
 '7^ 
 

 Copyright, 1S75, by 
 ROBERT CLARKE & CO. 
 
 THIRD EDITION, REVISED AND ENLARGED. 
 
 Ogden, Campbell & Co., 
 Electrotype rs. 
 
DEDICATION. 
 
 TO P^UL R. pHIPM/^N, ZgQ. 
 
 REVERLY, X.J. 
 
 My Dear Siiipm.vn : 
 
 I take great pleasure in inscribing this volume 
 to you, and thus connecting ^vour name newly with that of 
 your old associate and friend. But for you I should, perhaps, 
 
 never have known hun myself; and but for you 1 think you 
 
 will understand what I can not here say. 
 
 Sincerely yours, 
 
 J- J- P- 
 
PREFACE TO THIRD EDITION. 
 
 A NUMBER of poems are included in the present vol- 
 ume which did not appear in the first and second editions. 
 Several of these are pieces which the editor had not seen 
 before, and which did not come into his hands until after 
 the second edition was published. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Biographical Sketch, ^. . . „ vii 
 
 The Closing Year, ....:...-. ^ , 49 
 At My Mother's Grave, .... = .00. S3 
 The River in the Mammoth Cave, . » . . , , c S5 
 
 To AN Absent AVife, „ ,58 
 
 Harvest Hymn, 60 
 
 An Infant's Grave, 62 
 
 The Isle and the Star, 64 
 
 The Bouqjjet's Compliments, 66 
 
 The Dead Mariner, . 63 
 
 The Stars, 70 
 
 Our Childhood, 73 
 
 To A Young Beauty, 75 
 
 The Charm of the Poet, 77 
 
 A Dirge, 79 
 
 Sent with a Rose, 8i 
 
 Sabbath Evening, 82 
 
 To a Lady, 85 
 
 On Revisiting Brown University, 87 
 
 Close of the Year 1832, 8g 
 
 Anniversary of a Friend's Wedding, 93 
 
 Memories, 94 
 
 Mammoth Cave, . 96 
 
 To Sue, 100 
 
 On a Warm Day near the Close of Winter, .... 102 
 
 A Wish, 104 
 
 To the Daughter of an Old Sweetheart, 105 
 
 Remembered Bmss .107 
 
 My Heart is with Thee, 109 
 
iv CONTENTS. 
 
 FAGB 
 
 My Mother, iia 
 
 Mary, o ..,,■.. 117 
 
 To A Bunch of Roses, „ . 119 
 
 A Night in June, 120 
 
 Lines to a Lady, 123 
 
 Birthday Reflections, 124 
 
 The Invalid's Reply, 127 
 
 Come to Me in Dreams, 132 
 
 To Rosa, 134 
 
 A Memory, 137 
 
 The Flight of Years, 139 
 
 To a Beautiful Authoress, 145 
 
 Henry Clay, 148 
 
 My Old Home, 151 
 
 Night in Cave Hill Cemetery, 157 
 
 To Miss Sallie M. Bryan, 163 
 
 Fannie, 166 
 
 A Farewell, ..... ....... 169 
 
 Young Adelaide, 171 
 
 A Night Scene, 17a 
 
 Raphael to Julia 174 
 
 The Parting 176 
 
 Lucy Merrill, 178 
 
 To Marian Prentice Piatt, 180 
 
 The Deathday of William Couktland Prentice, .... 182 
 
 Elegiac, 186 
 
 Lines to Alice McClure Griffin, 1S9 
 
 Lookout Mountain, . • X90 
 
 To a Political Opponent, 194 
 
 On a Book of Verses, 196 
 
 Violets, 198 
 
 Thoughts on the Far Past, ........ 200 
 
 To Little Vikgilie Griffin;, 203 
 
 On the Summit of the Sierra Madre, 205 
 
 New England, . 20S 
 
 Centennial Birthday of Washington, 210 
 
 On the Unveiling of the Clay Statue, 212 
 
 Address on the Opening of a New Theatre, 
 
 2JS 
 
' CONTENTS. ^ 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Rose, 219 
 
 At CnL"Kcn, 220 
 
 The Grave OF the Beautiful, 221 
 
 I MAY NOT Love Thee, 224 
 
 Isabel, 226 
 
 The Lock OF Hair, 22S 
 
 Leaving Home, 230 
 
 One abol't to Die, 231 
 
 Lines ON A Distant View OF THE Ocean, 232 
 
 Morning in Spring 236 
 
 The Hour of Love, 23S 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 
 
 GEORGE DENNISON PRENTICE was born 
 upon a farm in the township of Preston, New 
 London county, Connecticut, December i8, 1802. Ke 
 was the second of two sons, tlie only children of his 
 parents. His father, Rufus Prentice, was a man of fair 
 average English education, and his mother, Sarah Stan- 
 ton, is said to have had some literar}' culture and taste. 
 George D. had reached manhood before his father's 
 death, which took place in July, 1826; but his mother 
 died during his boyhood, in November, 1816. An in- 
 teresting and affecting record of her death may be found 
 in his blank-verse poem, entitled " My Molher," printed 
 in this volume. His tender and mournful regret for her 
 is also indicated in the more familiar lines, "At my 
 Mother's Grave," which, I believe, were writltcn be- 
 fore he entered college. She taught him to read in the 
 Bible at a very early age, and gave him religious im- 
 pressions which, I know, lasted throughout his life. 
 Mr. Prentice, one of whose earliest distinct recollections 
 was of the total eclipse of the sun in 1806, as he once 
 told me, remembered also to have read several chap- 
 
viii BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 
 
 ters of the Bible on the day of tliat eclipse, when he 
 was not quite three-and-a-half years old. His brother, 
 fourteen months his senior, who is still living, relates 
 that the neighbors visiting his father and mother, were 
 in the habit of asking to hear George read, and that 
 among them it was a common wonder so small a boy 
 should read so well. Young Prentice's school experi- 
 ence began at a country school -house, before he had 
 completed his fourth year ; he showed remarkable pre- 
 cocity in mastering the common English branches. His 
 father's means were small, it seems, and between his ninth 
 and fourteenth years he was kept at work upon the farm — 
 though somewhat delicate, doing a man's faithful serv- 
 ice ; but, his parents having meanwhile decided to give 
 him a collegiate education, he was then placed under the 
 instruction of a Presbyterian minister, previously a tutor 
 at Yale, and in six months made such extraordinary pro- 
 gress in classical and other studies that he .was fitted to 
 enter any New England college of the time. During 
 this marvelous half year, he began and completed the 
 study of English grammar, having Lindley Murray by 
 heart,within five days ; he then, for the fifst time, took 
 up a Latin gramn\ar. In a biographical sketch (written 
 hy Mr. Henry Watterson, I believe, from an auto- bio- 
 graphic note left by Mr. Prentice) published in the Louis- 
 ville Courier-Journal the morning after Mr. Prentice's 
 death, is the following statement, referring to this period : 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. ix 
 
 " lie and two boys from South Carolina, one of them of 
 his own age and the other two years older, were the cler- 
 gyman's only pupils. His companions had each studied 
 Latin two years, chiefly in their native State. They 
 were in Virgil. In five weeks he caught up with the 
 elder and more advanced, and the teacher, to save him- 
 felf trouble, instructed the two to learn their lessons to- 
 gether, and recite them together. This was very annoy- 
 ing to young Prentice, for he found his comrade, the 
 son of a wealthy planter, dull and slow. He remon- 
 strated with his teacher, who, after a little burst of anger, 
 gave him leave to go ahead in his own way. He went 
 ahead. He recited the whole of the Twelfth Book of 
 the yEneid, as a single half-day's lesson, to the Rev. 
 Daniel Waldo, the uncle of his regular teacher, and 
 cxtensivel}' known, a few years ago, as the venerable 
 Chaplain of Congress, who died, w'e believe, at the age 
 of more than a hundred. He completed the study of 
 Virgil, Horace, Sallust, Cicero's Orations, the Greek 
 Testament, •Xenophon, six books of Homer's Iliad, the 
 GriEca Minora, most of the Graeca Majora, and other 
 works, within six months after his first introduction to 
 English grammar." But lacking the means necessary 
 for beginning a college life, he now turned his attention 
 to teaching, and, not yet fifteen, took charge of a village 
 school, which he continued to teach for about two years. 
 In the Autumn of 1820, he entered the Sophomore class 
 
X BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 
 
 at Brown University, where he so distinguished himself 
 as a student, that Dr. Asa Messer, President of the Col- 
 lege, pronounced him the best scholar who had ever 
 been in the institution. Here he exhibited the same re- 
 markable power of memory manifested during his pre- 
 paratory course of study ; it is stated, on Mr. Prentice's 
 own authority, that he could recite verbatim the whole 
 of Kames's " Elements of Criticism," Blair's "Rhetoric," 
 and Dugald Stewart's "Mental Philosophy." He be- 
 came hardly less proficient in mathematics than in the 
 ancient classics and modern literature. Among his tutors 
 at Brown were Horace !Mann and Tristam Burges, both 
 afterwards distinguished in different spheres of public 
 life and action. One of his college-mates was Dr. 
 Samuel G. Howe, the well-known American philan- 
 thropist — and their early friendship continued throughout 
 Mr. Prentice's life. 
 
 Having graduated, in 1S23, Mr. Prentice taught in 
 a seminary at Smithfield, for a time, in order to earn 
 money sufficient for pursuing the study of law, which 
 he began at Canterbury, and continued at Jewett, two 
 Connecticut villages not far from his birth-place ; but 
 after his admission to the bar, and perhaps a brief 
 experience in the practice of law (not finding it to 
 his taste, I dare say), he was drawn, partly by acci- 
 dent, into active journalism. He had previously written 
 somewhat for the pi"ess, I believe. In 1827, on vis- 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. xi 
 
 iting his friend, John G. C. Brainard, the gentle poet 
 of the Connecticut, at New London, he was persuaded 
 to take charge of a local journal during its editor's two 
 weeks' absence, and made such an impression in that 
 time, that several offers were made to secure him as 
 editor for various established or projected papers. He 
 finally accepted the offer of two gentlemen who pro- 
 posed to start a weekly paper at Hartford ; he agreed to 
 bcccme its editor, and it was called The New England 
 Review. Its first number was issued in the Autumn of 
 182S. It made at once a marked impression in New 
 England, on account of both its political and literary 
 character. It was the Louisville Journal, born in Con- 
 necticut. When its publication was begun, the opposing 
 political parties in Connecticut had, in convention, nom- 
 inated their Congressional tickets, the State being entitled 
 to six Representatives. Not pleased with the candidates 
 of his party, Mr. Prentice, upon his own responsibility, 
 nominated the six men whom he thought best qualified, 
 zealously urged their claims, and, in spite of vehement 
 opposition, secured the election of all. This was very 
 naturally regarded as a brilliant success. 
 
 In 1830, Mr. Prentice was induced by the Whigs of 
 Connecticut to make a journey to Kentucky, for the pur- 
 pose of visiting Ashland and preparing a life of Henry 
 Clay. Meanwhile John G. Whittier, the poet, had been 
 attracted, by the brightness, popular reputation and litei*- 
 
xii BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 
 
 ary quality of The New England Review, to send some 
 of his early poems as contributions to its columns ; these 
 had been published by Mr. Prentice, and so well liked 
 by him that on leaving Hartford for Kentucky he recom- 
 mended Mr. Whittier — then living at his father's house 
 in Haverhill, Mass. — as a proper successor ; and the latter 
 was surprised one morning to receive a letter from the 
 proprietors of The New England Review, asking his 
 acceptance of the position. Mr. Whittier accepted it at 
 once ; but he had never met Mr. Prentice — they were 
 strangers personally — and they did not afterwards meet 
 each other, though ]Mr. Prentice, I know, always admired 
 and honored the good Qiiaker poet of Amesbury, and 
 the latter, I am sure, must always have remembered 
 the generous compliment of Mr. Prentice. 
 
 The absence of ]\Ir. Prentice from New England, 
 when he came to Kentucky in 1830, was intended to be 
 temporary ; it was, so to speak, life-long. The biography 
 of Henry Clay was designed simply for cam^^aign uses 
 in New England : it was written hastily from the stand- 
 point of ardent partisanship, and it fulfilled its purpose ; 
 directly or indirectly, however, it served to make Mi*. 
 Prentice a citizen of Kentucky, for he had scarcely fin- 
 ished his task when he was persuaded, in connection with 
 a gentleman from Ohio, to undertake the establishment 
 of a new daily paper at Louisville, in opposition to the 
 Jackson Democracy, who were purposing and planning 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. xiii 
 
 to cany against Mr. Clay his own adopted State, Mr. 
 Prentice's prcfLicc to tlic life of Henry Clay was dated 
 November 14, 1S30, and on the 34th of the same month 
 the first number of the Louisville Journal appeared. 
 
 The newspaper of course at once became a warm 
 political supporter of Mr. Clay, between whom and Mr. 
 Prentice had begun an intimate personal friendship, which 
 ended only with the former's death. The Louisville 
 Journal soon began to attract attention, particularly by its 
 peculiar short, sharp, epigrammatic paragraphs, which, 
 as a general thing, flew to their mark like arrows — they 
 were the winged words so often mentioned by Homer. 
 
 It seemed a hazardous thing for a stranger, and es- 
 pecially, perhaps, a " Yankee schoolmaster," as Mr. 
 Prentice was called — on whom, 1 fancy, the Kentuckian 
 in those old days was inclined to look, as Halleck pic- 
 tures the Virginian doing, 
 
 " with as favorable eyes 
 
 As Gabriel on the devil in Paradise" — 
 
 to attempt such a style of editorial writing as jMr. Pren- 
 tice adopted ; but he had the fearless courage — always 
 mingled with generosity and good humor — necessary; 
 and, not shrinking from the ordeal, he went through it — 
 making enemies often, but generally in the end making 
 these enemies, if they were worthy ones, his friends. 
 He and Shadrach Pcnn, an able writer, who, in 1S30, 
 
xiv BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 
 
 was the recognized editorial champion of the Democratic 
 party in Kentuck}', conducting the Louisville Advertiser, 
 fought bitterly in print for ten or twelve years, when 
 the latter, who had been the aggressor, was compel- 
 led to leave the field of Kentucky journalism and emi- 
 grate to Missouri. But on the eve of his departure an 
 interview was arranged between the two long hostile 
 editors, by Dr. T. S. Bell, an eminent physician of Louis- 
 ville, the friend of both, when Mr. Prentice cordially 
 offered every influence in his power to render Mr. Penn's 
 removal unnecessary ; it being inevitable, he gave Mr. 
 Penn his warm God-speed privately and in print. Mr. 
 Penn established a new paper at St. Louis, but lived only 
 four years afterwards, during which time he and Mr. 
 Prentice remained personal friends. On Mr. Penn's 
 death, his old editorial enemy wrote a very tender and gen- 
 erous eulogy of him. He did the same thing, much more 
 recently, after the death of John H. Harney, for many 
 years editor of the Louisville Democrat, between whom 
 and Mr. Prentice a similar war of words was waged. 
 But paper bullets were not the only editorial missiles 
 used in Kentucky. Mr. Prentice was never disposed to 
 seek a personal collision with anj^body, but others were 
 sometimes quick to attack him — not always, perhaps, 
 without verbal aggravation, direct or indirect. Nearly 
 all his personal encounters, I believe, ended with grace 
 for himself. One particular affair of this kind is recorded, 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. XV 
 
 when a Kentucky editor named Trotter fired at Mr. 
 Prentice on the street in Louisville, without warning, and 
 wounded him near the heart. Mr. Prentice in a moment 
 seized his assailant, threw him to the ground, and, with 
 S. knife given him by a spectator, in one hand, held him 
 down with the other. "Kill him! kill him!" numbers 
 of the crowd, wdiich at once assembled, shouted. But 
 Mr. Prentice instantly loosened his hold, saying, " I 
 can not kill a disarmed and helpless man." Mr. Pren- 
 tice was never, I believe, a party in any duel, and as 
 early as 1854 he put on record his opinion of duelling so 
 clearly and emphatically that I think it worth repeating. 
 He had gone to Arkansas, to lend his influence toward 
 some large railroad enterprise in that State, writing while 
 there, for a Little Rock paper, articles in behalf of the 
 scheme. One of these articles referred, somewhat 
 pointedly, to arguments in opposition to the railroad 
 enterprise published by a man named Hewson, wdio 
 took oflcnse at Mr. Prentice's expressions, and demanded 
 their public withdrawal. Mr. Prentice answered that he 
 was only criticising Hewson's writings, and disclaimed 
 any intended imputation on his character or conduct. 
 Hewson insisted on the unconditional withdrawal of the 
 oflensivc expi-essions, intimating that otherwise Mr. 
 Prentice would be expected to meet him in the field. 
 Mr. Prentice repeated his disclaimer, adding : 
 
xvi BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 
 
 " I do not recognize any right or reason, on jour part, to ask 
 or expect more of me. This I deem quite as mucli due to m}'- 
 self as to you. 
 
 " Presuming that 3'our notes are wi-itten to me with a view to 
 a duel, I may as well say here that I have not jhe least thought 
 of accepting a challenge from you. I consider my strictures 
 upon 30ur writings entirely legitimate, and, at any rate, the 
 disclaimer that I have made ought to satisfy you. 
 
 "I came here, from a distant State, because many believed I 
 could do something to promote a great and important enterprise, 
 and as I have reason to think that my labors are not altogether 
 in vain, I do not intend to let myself be diverted from them. 
 There are some persons, and perhaps many, to whom my life is 
 valuable, and, however little or much value I may attach to it on 
 mv own account, I do not see fit, at present, to put it up volun- 
 taril}' against yours. 
 
 '*I am no believer in the duelling code. I would not call a 
 man to the field unless he had done me such a deadly wrong that 
 I desired to kill him, and I would not obey his call to the field 
 unless I had done him so mortal an injury as to entitle him, in 
 my opinion, to demand an opportunity of taking my life. I 
 have not the least desire to kill j'ou, or to harm a hair of your 
 head, and I am not conscious of having done anything to entitle 
 you to kill me. I do not want your blocd upon my hands, and 
 I do not want my own upon anybody's. I might yield much to 
 the demands of a strong public sentiment, but there is no public 
 sentiment, nor even any disinterested individual sentiment, that 
 requires me to meet you, or would justify me in doing so. 
 
 " I look upon the miserable code, that is said to require two men 
 to go cut and shoct at each other for what one of them may con- 
 sider a violation of etiquette or punctilio in the use of language, 
 with a scorn equal to that which is getting to be felt for it by 
 the whole civilized world of mankind. lam not afraid to express 
 such views in the enlightened capital of Arkansas, or anywhere 
 else. I am not so cowardly as to stand in dread of any imputa- 
 tion on my courage. I have always had courage enough to de- 
 fend my honor and myself, and I presume I alwaj-s shall have. 
 " Your most, etc., Geo. D. Prentice." 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. xvii 
 
 In the spring of 1835, Mr. Prentice married Miss 
 Henrietta Benham, daughter of Joseph Benham, then a 
 Uiwyer of some local distinction in Cincinnati and Louis- 
 ville. Ivlrs. Prentice was a native of Ohio. She had 
 great beauty of person in her youth, I have understood ; 
 in her middle life, when I first saw her, she was still 
 fine-looking, having a handsome and attractive face, a 
 stately figure, an elegant and gracious manner. With a 
 naturally fine intellect, and many accomplishments of ed- 
 ucation, she had a heart of unusual sensibility — she could 
 not listen without quick visible emotion to any talc of 
 distress or suffering, and her charities near home were 
 numerous. She enjoyed private distinction in Louisville 
 as a singer, having a voice of much power and beauty, 
 and showed talent as a composer of music. During her 
 life the house of Mr. Prentice was a center of whatever 
 was refined and graceful in Louisville society, Mrs. 
 Prentice being for many years a social leader in that 
 city. Mr. and Mrs. Prentice had in all four children, 
 two of whom, a son and daughter, died in childhood ; two 
 sons, William Courtland and Clarence Joseph, lived 
 until manhood. 
 
 I do not care to attempt any minute history of the 
 Louisville Journal's long political career. In Mr. Pren- 
 tice's hands it was always the most powerful and popular 
 exponent of the Whig party in the South and Wcsi: — 
 indeed, for a time, it may be said, in the whole country. 
 
xviii BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 
 
 It was for Mr. Prentice himself an engine of great 
 personal force and influence. Doubtless, its greatest 
 popularity and power were reached' between 1840, the 
 year of the great Whig triumph in Gen. Harrison's 
 election to the Presidency, and 1S60, when the war of 
 the Southern Rebellion began. This period includes the 
 Native American, or "Know Nothing" campaign, in 
 which it was a zealous advocate of the Native Ameri- 
 can doctrine. 
 
 From the first, as I have said, the Louisville Journal 
 attracted attention by its witty and epigrammatic para- 
 graphs, and the most widely diffused reputation of Mr. 
 Prentice, while living, was for the exhaustless wit and 
 humor manifested day by day, for many years, in these. 
 Only old men, or men now growing old, who were inter- 
 ested in the public affliirs and persons of those days, and 
 recall their atmosphere, know the wonderful vigor, effect, 
 and currency of the paragraphs with which the Jour- 
 nal's columns bristled, as it were, from fifteen to forty- 
 five years ago. They were copied and repeated far and 
 wide. They went everywhere. London and Paris pa- 
 pers made frequent quotations of them. A volume con- 
 taining selections from these paragraphs was published 
 in 1859, entitled Prcntlceaita (the publisher's title), re- 
 printed since Mr. Prentice's death. The volume was 
 taken from the files of the Journal up to the date of pub- 
 lication. Mr. Prentice had Ions: been urged to make 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. xix 
 
 such a collection, but had always declined, until at last it 
 became evident that if he did not make it himself, others 
 would attempt it, with far less regard for the feelings of 
 men formerly his enemies, but then his friends, than he 
 chose to exercise. When he finally compiled the volume, 
 he carefully excluded, out of deference to the sensibilities 
 of joersons whom he had come to esteem and love, 
 hundreds of the very passages which, at the time of their 
 appearance, did most to give the Louisville Journal its 
 fame, and suppressed very many of the names of indi- 
 viduals in the personal paragraphs retained. The copy 
 originally prepared embraced perhaps thrice the matter 
 printed in the book. This was submitted to two or three 
 friends successively, with the request that each sliould 
 suggest proper omissions, and the publishers were finally 
 empowered, I believe, to reduce the collection to the re- 
 quirements of the proposed volume ; so, gradually, I am 
 afraid, much of the best and most characteristic life passed 
 out of the whole body of the book. Many of these 
 paragraphs, however, removed from the day's columns, 
 where they had the familiar atmosphere of the day 
 about them, could hardly preserve the elusive something 
 which had been their temporary "excuse for being." Mr. 
 Prentice felt this when he wrote, in his modest preface : 
 " I have no doubt that a very considerable portion of 
 tliem, which, perhaps from partisan partiality, were 
 deemed ' good hits' at the time, will, now that the occa- 
 
XX BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 
 
 sion which called them forth has passed, be read with 
 comparatively little interest. I know that such things do 
 not keep well." Enough of them have kept well, how- 
 ever, to justify the reputatibn for abimdant wit and humor 
 which Mr. Prentice so long enjoyed — enough of them 
 worthy to rank with the best good sayings Avhich are 
 quoted from Hook, and Lamb, and Sidney Smith, and 
 Douglas Jerrold, or others of the famous wits of England. 
 Let me venture to repeat a few, (but it is so easy to miss 
 the best in such a collection, even when one thinks he 
 finds them,) as I happen to turn to them in the volume : 
 
 "The editor of the ' Statesman' says more villanv is on 
 
 foot. We suppose the editor has lost his horse." 
 
 "James Ray and John Parr have started a locofoco paper 
 in Maine, called the ' Democrat.' Parr, in all that pertains to 
 decency, is below zero ; and Ray is below Parr." 
 
 " ' Have I changed.-" exclaims Gov. P . We do n't know. 
 
 That depends on whether you ever were an honest man." 
 
 " The [Washington] ' Globe' says that such patriotism as Mr. 
 Clay's will not answer. True enough, for it can't be questioned." 
 
 "The editor of the speaks of his 'lying curled up in 
 
 bed these cold mornings.' This verifies what we said of him 
 some time ago — ' he lies like a dog.' " 
 
 "The Philadelphia 'Ledger' says that Clay, Calhoun, and 
 Webster are behipd the age. Then the age must be ' tail fore- 
 most.'" 
 
 "A 3'oung widow has established a pistol gallery in New 
 Orleans. Her qualifications as a teacher of the art of dueling 
 are of course undoubted; she has killed her man." 
 
 "Mr. William Hood was robbed near Corinth, Alabama, on 
 the 13th inst. The Corinth paper says that the name of the 
 highwayman is unknown, but there is no doubt that he was 
 Robbin' Hood." 
 
 <l 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. xxi 
 
 " A new Democratic paper in North Carolina is called 'The 
 Rising Day.' It ought rather to be called the Night, for it is the 
 shadow of the ' Globe.'" 
 
 "Mr. John Love, of Alabama, was recently lost during a 
 passage from Texas to Mexico. We had supposed tiiat no Love 
 would ever be lost between those countries." 
 
 "The 'Globe' says that 'Mr. Clay is a sharp politician.' No 
 doubt of it, but the editor of the ' Globe ' is a sharper." 
 
 "Messrs. Bell and Topp, of the ' N. C. Gazette,' say that 
 ' 'Prentices are made to serve masters.' Well, Eells were made to 
 be hung, and Topps to be whipped." 
 
 Of a more general character, a few witticisms and epi- 
 grams may be given : 
 
 " Wild rye and wild wheat grow in some regions sponta- 
 neously. We believe that wild oats are always sown." 
 
 " Men are deserters in adversity ; when the sun sets, and all 
 is dark, our very shadows refuse to follow us." 
 
 "A well-known writer says that a fine coat covers a multitude 
 of sins. It is still truer that such coats cover u multitude of 
 sinners." 
 
 " When a man's heart ossifies, or turns to bone, he dies at 
 once; but if it petrifies, or turns to stone, he invariably lives 
 too long for any useful purpose." 
 
 "'What would j'ou do, madam, if you were a gentleman?' 
 ' Sir, what would you do if you were one.-" ' " 
 
 " Whatever Midas touched was turned into gold ; in these days, 
 touch a man with gold and he'll turn into anything." 
 
 "The botanists tell us that there is no such thing as a black 
 flower. We suppose they never heard of the ' Coal-black Rose.' " 
 [This was the heroine of an old-time negro song.] 
 
 " The man who lives only for this world is a fool here, an j 
 there is danger that he will be (we speak it not profanely) a 
 d--d fool hereafter." 
 
xxii BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 
 
 The Louisville Journal was never exclusively a politi- 
 cal paper, although it was that chiefly. It gained, anil 
 for many vears retained,, a large literary reputation, es- 
 pecially as an avenue to the public for young poetical 
 writers. If, as I have suggested, the New England Re- 
 view was essentially the beginning of the Louisville 
 Journal, then the name of Mr. Whittier, followed per- 
 haps by that of Brainard, may head the long list of the 
 Journal's occasional contributors, which included, later, 
 the names of James Freeman Clarke, John Howard 
 Payne, William D. Gallagher, Mrs. L. H. Sigourney, 
 Mrs. Amelia Welby, Alice and Phoebe Gary, Mrs. C. A. 
 Warfield, Mrs. Rosa Vertner Jeffrey, Fortunatus Cosby, 
 William Ross Wallace, William W. Fosdick, William 
 D. Howells, William Wallace Harney, Forceythe Will- 
 son, Elizabeth Conwell Smith (afterward Mrs. Willson), 
 and others more or less known. I do not pretend to 
 think greatly of all these writers, but this partial list con- 
 tains several names sure of long life and honor in Ameri- 
 can literature. The late Forceythe Willson, for example, 
 one of the most remarkable poets 3'et born in this country, 
 first printed his peculiar verses in Mr. Prentice's paper. 
 Many of his poems show somewhat of the eccentricity 
 and strangeness found in the poetical writings of William 
 Blake ; but three or four of them, in their strong and 
 noble sanity, pathetic power, dramatic realism, lofty and 
 weird imagination, or tender beauty and delicacy of 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. sxih 
 
 fcelin<2^, may safely be said to be far more valuable than 
 all of Blake's best poetry, and hardly inferior to Edgar A. 
 Poe's half-dozen leading productions. Several of Mrs. 
 Welby's poems, which Mr. Prentice had originally pub- 
 lished and commended, Poe himself highly praised, saying 
 of her, in 1S4S: "Very few American poets are at all 
 comparable with her in the true poetical qualities. As 
 for our poetesses, . . few of them approach her." I do 
 not think poets are produced by encouragement, but many 
 a one already born has died and made no sign for lack 
 of it, and — in America, where recognition of delicate 
 and subtle genius in literature is slower than in other 
 lands, although that of coarser and more vulgar strain is 
 perhaps quicker and more instant than elsewhere — such 
 a disposition as Mr. Prentice, in the midst of busy politi- 
 cal engrossment, showed, and long continued to show, 
 sole of American editors before or since, to encourage 
 poetic manifestation, is memorable, and destined not to 
 be soon forgotten in the history of American literature. 
 As a specimen of his occasional private encouragement, 
 I will quote from a letter written b}^ him to a young girl, 
 who, as he thought, exhibited unmistakeable genius of 
 high order, and for whom he always cherished, until Iiis 
 death, the sincerest and highest regard. A friend had 
 shown him some of her girlish verses, which he had pub- 
 lished, and he had already written to her more briefly 
 concerning them. It will be observed that his confident 
 
sxiv BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH, 
 
 prophecy is well guarded by wise conditions, and his 
 criticism and advice are no less wise than gentle : 
 
 "Z>^c. 25, [1S55.] 
 " I am glad that my brief letter was gratifying to you. Having 
 heard that you are a little cynical, I did not know how you would 
 receive it. But, thinking that you perhaps needed, and knowing 
 that you deserved, encouragement, I resolved to express to you 
 mj appreciation of j'our genius. And I now say emphatically 
 to 3'ou again, as I believe I said to you then, that, if you are 
 entirely true to yourself, and if your life be spared, j'ou will, in 
 the maturity of your powers, be the first poet of your sex in the 
 United States. I say this, not as what I think, but as what I 
 know. 
 
 . . " It was far from my design to suggest to you not to 
 write poetry in your hours of sadness. We must all have hours 
 of mournful feeling, and probably it is the case with most poets 
 that their somber and melancholy thoughts and reflections are 
 more essentially poetical than their joyous ones. I would have 
 you utter all the poetical thoughts that arise in your soul except 
 the morbid and misanthropic ones A tender sorrow is as 
 healthful as joy, and as beautiful. Strike all that is sad from 
 the works of our greatest poets, and their fame would be more 
 than half destroyed. 
 
 ' Who would be doomed to look upon 
 A sky without a cloud ? ' 
 
 ..." I have no doubt that your mind, as you intimate, has 
 felt the unhealthful influences of the pages of Byron. I have, 
 like 3'ourself, an almost boundless admiration for the genius of 
 that extraordinary man, but I do believe that it would have been 
 better for mankind if he had never lived. I think that he made 
 his mighty gifts a curse to the world. It is unfortunate that 
 greatness ever exists without goodness — that there should ever 
 be a great soul that neither loves man nor worships God. The 
 glitter of the genius of an unhallowed nature is like the flashes 
 of the lightning on a rock-bound coast, revealing only wreck 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. xxv 
 
 and desolation. Read Byron, if jou will, but do not yield 
 yourself up to the fascinations of the deadly serpent that coils 
 among the beautiful and glorious flowers upon his page. 
 
 "The nerves of my fingers are so diseased that I usually do all 
 my writing by an amanuensis. This is the longest letter that I 
 have written with my own hand for fifteen j'ears. I hope you 
 will write to me. Your friend, 
 
 " Geo. D. Prentice." 
 
 The allusion in the closing paragraph was to a paraly- 
 sis in his writing fingers, (a disease known profession- 
 ally, I believe, as chorea scriptorum^ which, during the 
 last twenty-five years of his life, made dictation to an 
 amanuensis necessary for the great mass of his editorial 
 writing. By painful exertion, however, he often wrote 
 paragraphs and brief notes Vv'ith his own hand. At one 
 time he learned to use the pen in his left hand, and at 
 another he tried a writing-machine. The letter from 
 which I have quoted, like many later ones in my posses- 
 sion, appears in his own neat, delicate, and always care- 
 fully punctuated and legible manuscript. 
 
 During his lifetime the reputation which Mr. Prentice 
 enjoyed for his own poetry was hardly less than that 
 which his wit and humor gave him. I have already said 
 that the lines entitled "At my Mother's Grave," which 
 Ikivc been highly praised for their melodious tenderness 
 and mournful beauty of feeling, were written, while their 
 author was yet in his boyhood, before he entered college. 
 Mr. Prentice certainly began his career as a poet, but, like 
 
XXVi BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 
 
 William Cullen Bryant, he made journalism the business 
 of his life. I doubt if Mr. Bryant has ever given him- 
 self up so entirely to his public profession as did Mr. 
 Prentice. The latter, as an editor, was always a great 
 worker — rising early (as I remember him in some of the 
 closing years of his life) and going to his editorial table, 
 while merchants' clerks were yet at breakfast ; then 
 sitting, with brief intervals, throughout the day, and 
 often until late at night, devoting himself to his end- 
 less task-work. But all along, from youth to the ap- 
 proach of old age, he retained his early freshness of feel- 
 ing and appetite for poetry, and continued to write it. 
 Although he produced his most distinctive and popular 
 poems while young, many of his later pieces seem 
 hardly inferior to his best early ones. 
 
 I am disposed to think there is no other American 
 poet, except Mr. Bryant, who has so finely handled blank 
 verse as Mr. Prentice has done in several of his princi- 
 pal poems. His blank verse, indeed, occasionally sug- 
 gests a resemblance to that of Mr. Bryant, although 
 much more of emotional element and warmth of color — 
 the visible life of human passion — are noticeable in it. 
 He lacked that careful eye for the little half-secrets of 
 Nature shown by Mr. Bryant, but his real love of 
 Nature was no less true. Born in the country, he never 
 lost its early influence in the dust and heat of the city, 
 as one may clearly read in the fragments (which I have 
 
 il 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. xxvii 
 
 found only under distinct heads, but have placed together 
 under one) entitled " !My Old Home." In nearly all of 
 Mr. Prentice's more serious poetr}- — especially in his 
 blank-verse poems — the current of feeling is in sympathy 
 with the great works of Nature ; we find frequent allu- 
 sions to the stars, the ocean, mountains, clouds, winds, 
 storms, and rainbows — to the beautiful and wonderful 
 facts and phenomena of earth and sky. 
 
 If " Thanatopsis" is Mr. Bryant's representative poem 
 in blank verse, " The Closing Year " may be said to be 
 that of Mr. Prentice — it has long been so at least in popu- 
 lar regard. I do not know where there may be found 
 a more stately and solemn meditation on the flight of 
 Time, and the changes wrought thereby, than this poem 
 presents ; and I doubt if in English poetry there exists 
 a more striking or loftier personification of Time, and 
 allusion to his conquests, than its concluding lines afford. 
 One of Mil. Prentice's faults in this, as in many other 
 of his pieces, is an overstrong tendency to rhetorical 
 movement and effect. " The River in the Mammoth 
 Cave" is freer from this fault, though it has in one of its 
 lines another fault, too frequent in Mr. Prentice's j^oetry 
 — unhappy use of metaphor. He is speaking of the vari- 
 ous formations in the great cavern resembling flowers, 
 
 " Carved by the va^'gxc fingers of the drops." 
 
 But this poem seems to me one of his best, and I pre- 
 
xxviii BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 
 
 fer it to " The Closing Year : " it has a peculiar som- 
 berness of quiet feeHng — its current of sentiment is as 
 mournfully toned as the weird river it celebrates. " The 
 Mammoth Cave " is more cheerful in its teaching, but 
 is hardly less striking. 
 
 Among others of Mr. Prentice's poems in blank verse 
 may be mentioned the piece entitled " My Mother," 
 which is in parts very tender and touching, with great 
 beauty of expression, and indicates the strong hold his 
 mother's memory had upon his heart during his busy, 
 striving, and stormy manhood. I think it hardly inferior 
 to Cowper's lines referring to his mother's picture — the 
 experience given in them, the remembrance of a mother's 
 death in early boyhood, is similar. ''The Grave of the 
 Beautiful " is touched with lovely and delicate hues of 
 feeling, as is also " The Invalid's Reply." The last- 
 named has passages of exquisite beauty and tenderness. 
 "Lookout Mountain," " Thoughts on the Far Past," and 
 "On the Summit of the Sierra Madre" are among the 
 latest poems in blank verse by Mr. Prentice. They 
 were all written during the last ten 3"ears of his life. 
 The first of the three pieces just mentioned realizes 
 with much vigor the desperate fight described — the battle 
 above the clouds ; and each of them has passages of fine 
 quality, which it would be difficult to surpass with quo- 
 tation from recent American or English blank verse. 
 
 Among his many poems in rhyme, the verses "To an 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. xxix 
 
 Absent Wife," — written, while Mr. Prentice was visit- 
 ing a water-cure establishment on the Gulf of Mexico, 
 many years ago, in ill health — have been deservedly 
 pox^ular ; the last stanza is particularly terse and beau- 
 tiful : 
 
 "I sink in dreams : — low, sweet, and clear, 
 
 Thj own dear voice is in my car; 
 
 Around my neck thy tresses twine; 
 
 Thj' own loved hand is clasped in mine; 
 
 Thy own soft lip to mine is pressed ; 
 
 Thy head is pillowed on my breast: — 
 
 Oh! I have all my heart holds dear, 
 
 And I am happy — thou art here ! " 
 
 Of other pieces tender in sentiment, but referring to 
 more youthful experience — and written in his youth — 
 there are several, of which the one entitled "Memories" 
 is perhaps the most pleasing. 
 
 Mr. Prentice wrote many poems merely sentimental, 
 without any real root in the heart ; and not a few of 
 these, some of which are included in this volume, are 
 commonplace ; too many of them contain identical aUu- 
 sions and figures — indeed, he had an easy disposition to 
 repeat himself, especially in the many pieces which he 
 addressed to persons. But several of his sentimental 
 poems are very delicately finished — " To a Bunch of 
 Roses," and "Lines to a Lady," for example. The first 
 named, particularly, is exquisite, and both show the poet's 
 terseness and epigrammatic felicity of expression. Two 
 or three pieces of still lighter quality may be mentioned 
 
XXX BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 
 
 as good specimens of vers de societe — " The Bouquet's 
 Compliments," "Fanny," and "To the Daughter of an 
 Old Sweetheart." 
 
 Mr. Prentice was always modest regarding his poetic 
 gift, as he was indeed modest regarding all his gifts. I 
 remember to have heard him say, soon after I first knew 
 him, that he did not think himself entitled to the name 
 of poet, for which he had an exalted respect. Yet from 
 first to last, something of the poetic distinction was 
 always observable even in his more serious prose, which 
 has here and there poetic color and cadence — and indeed 
 it shows itself occasionally in his volume of paragraphs. 
 He was often persuaded to publish his poems in book 
 form, many years before his death, but always declined, 
 preferring they should only appear in this shape after 
 that event. 
 
 It must not be supposed that Mr. Prentice's editorial 
 writing was confined to his myriad brief paragraphs. 
 These were but the quick skirmishers of his moving 
 and active force. He wrote long and earnest, often elo- 
 quent and powerful, leading articles, throughout his edi- 
 torial career, on all themes of large general or political 
 interest. Having great fertility of resources, he would 
 sometimes produce, in a single day, matter enough for 
 use in several successive numbers of the Journal. Be- 
 sides doing this work addressed directly to the public, 
 and besides writing his poems, he was always a frequent 
 
 I 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. xxxi 
 
 Icttcr-vviitcr. Knowing intimately most of the leading 
 public men of his day — statesmen, politicians, editors, 
 military men, artists, and authors — they were his occa- 
 sional correspondents. He wrote numerous letters to 
 ladies — very many of whom, distinguished in literature 
 or society, were his acquaintances and friends ; I dare 
 say that his best and most characteristic letters were of 
 the latter class. From a number which lie before me, I 
 will copy three or four, in whole or part, to show the 
 quality of his epistolary writing; in doing so I shall inci- 
 dentally illustrate the gentler social and domestic side of 
 his character. These letters are full of familiar gossip, 
 playful wit, and humorous pleasantry. His correspon- 
 dent was the same young lady to whom a letter already 
 quoted was addressed two or three years earlier. Be- 
 tween her and the ladies of his household — which, be- 
 sides Mrs. Prentice, included his brother's daughter and 
 the sister cf his most valued and confidential editorial 
 associate — there was a friendly intimacy, and she had 
 recently visited them : 
 
 "Oc/. 21, [1858.] 
 " Mrs. Prentice and the young ladies are delighted to hear from 
 
 you, and all send jou their love. Mr. B is now one of us, and 
 
 I trust that he ■will not soon leave us. His genial feelings, his 
 quiet wit, his gentle manners, and his keen appreciation of the 
 beautiful and the good make him a very charming companion. 
 But I believe I need not praise him to you. 
 
xxxii BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 
 
 "We have had some good laughs about jour Memphis ad- 
 mirer, who, I believe, is really a very clever fellow. A couple of 
 
 days after you left here, he addressed a formal note to H , 
 
 informing her, in words ominous of a solemn intent, that he 
 wished to call and see her at a particular hour. He made the call, 
 and afterward came to me and asked my consent to let him in- 
 vite her to the theater. He got my consent, but failed to get hers, 
 and she has not seen him since. So she will not be at all in 
 your way." 
 
 The illness mentioned in the following letter was an 
 erysipelas which attacked Mr. Prentice in his face, and 
 confined him to a darkened room for several weeks. 
 The mock-earnest allusion to young men and women 
 playing at cross-purposes in love is charming, and very 
 characteristic ; it recalls that little poem of Moschus, 
 which Shelley has translated, beginning : 
 
 " Pan loved his neighbor, Echo — but that child," etc. 
 
 . ''Nov. 13, [1S58.] 
 
 "I have been hoping all along to be able to come to N 
 
 for M S to-day, but I am disappointed. Her brother goes 
 
 for her, and I send by him this little missive of memory and 
 affection. 
 
 " I was out of my prison for a little while three or four days ago, 
 but I am back in it now, without any stiong hope of a speedj' re- 
 lease. My patience; which was considerable, is utterly exhausted, 
 and I almost wish to die. I requested my barber, when he 
 visited me this morning, to cut my throat for me; but he de- 
 clined doing it, and somehow I don't altogether like to do it my- 
 self. Not unfrequently, howeyer, I find myself repeating, with 
 vehement gesture, the soliloquy of the Danish gentleman whc 
 saw his father's ghost, ' To be or not to be — that is the question.' 
 " I had engagements abroad for the present month, which would 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. xxxiii 
 
 have been worth nearly thousand dollars to me, but I have 
 
 had to abandon tlicm aU. This poor, pitiful maiad\-, which has 
 not even the dignity- of being dangerous, has compelled me to 
 give them up, and may force me to give up those of December 
 and January. I do not know of any one who guards his health 
 more vigilantly than I do mine, and certainly I know of no one 
 whose vigilance is more indifferently rewarded. 'Tis very hard, 
 but, I suppose, perfectly right. Tliis sounds very much like resig- 
 nation — docs n't it? But I am /lot resigned, and I can not be. 
 
 " Mr. S will tell you that we arc all well except m^-self. We 
 
 all retain a sweet memory of your visit, and cherish the hope that 
 
 you will ere long come to us again. Mr. B has been getting 
 
 ready to paint portraits, and expects to be able to open his room 
 on Monday. I regret deeply that I can not be out, for I should 
 be able to bring him at once as much work as he can do. 
 I have no doubt, however, that, even if I have to lie here, he 
 will do well, for he is a fine artist, and has a great manj' ad- 
 nr.irers r.nd friends. You seem to have objected to his addressing 
 
 a piece of poetrj' to ' -' [a pseudonym]. Ah, j'ou were a 
 
 little jealous, I suppose. However, you need n't have been, for 
 
 you perhaps saw, from a subsequent number of the , that, 
 
 although he was in love with ' ,' there was no chance of a 
 
 match in the case, inasmuch as ' ' is desperately in love 
 
 with me. How 3'oung men and women do play at cross-pur- 
 poses. Here's poor Mr. B. in love with ' ' and poor 
 
 ' ' in love with me, and poor I in love with you, and 
 
 poor jou in love with somebody else, or rather a dozen some- 
 body elses. The Lord pity us! 
 
 "I had a letter from A j'esterday, and have had three 
 
 or four from her quite recently. She tells me that she has just 
 written to 3'ou, and uses many words of love and endearment in 
 speaking of you. . . . She is a young girl with many of a 
 j-oung girl's weaknesses, but, in view of her genius, I almost feel 
 toward her, whether absent from her or present with her, the 
 awe that a glorious young prophetess would inspire. 
 
 "Won't you send me a few lines by M S ? Do, foi 
 
xxxiv BIOGRAPHICAI^ SKETCH. 
 
 jour words will come like sweet tones of music into my sad 
 
 room Devotedly your friend, 
 
 " Geo. D. Prentice." 
 
 In this next letter the writer has recovered from his 
 iUness, and makes humorous allusion to its nature. The 
 letter is full of gayety and brightness ; Mr. Prentice's 
 wit and humor show themselves at genial play through- 
 out. In each of these quoted letters, since I present them 
 only as specimens of his writing, I have removed the 
 real names, or veiled them under initials : 
 
 ''Nov. 20, [1858.] 
 " I am out of my sick room at last, and looking handsomer 
 than 3'ou ever saw me in your life. It seems I did not bear my 
 maladj' with as much fortitude as you would have expected of 
 me. Well, I acknowledge that fortitude and patience did give 
 way. I could have borne the pain well enough, and, if the 
 malady had been dangerous, I suppose I could have stood that 
 tolerably well for a sinner, but then, you see, the foul fiend at- 
 tacked my beauty, and, even if I had been as good a Christian as 
 you are, I should no doubt have murmured and grumbled at 
 that. 
 
 "You complain that I do not answer your questions. Well, 
 I will, so far as I can remember them, though I do n't think you 
 
 always mean much by them. I think that Mr. , of Memphis, 
 
 was really inconsolable. He did not go off at the time he had 
 intended, nor for ten days afterward, although he had no busi- 
 ness here. Several times, when 11 was shopping, he walked 
 
 back and forth on the opposite side of the street, to obtain the 
 small comfort of a look at her, though he never ventured to call 
 upon her after his repulse. Byron says that 
 
 . . . ' There is nothing so consoles a man 
 As rum and true religion,' 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. xxxv 
 
 and, as Mr. does not enjoj the consolations of religion, I 
 
 rather think he betook himself slightly to nim. 
 
 "I have not seen Gov. M since jou left us. I have had 
 
 two letters from him, and in each of them he talks about R , 
 
 but sajs not a word about you. Hang him ! he has no taste, 
 and I will never support him again for Governor or anything 
 
 else — unless, indeed, R bids me do it; for jou know I could 
 
 refuse nothing to her. Judge , until your visit here, was a 
 
 most indefatigable beau, but I have not heard of his visit to a 
 lady since. He looks very melancholy-, and sighs like a bellows 
 — pining himself to death, I fear, for that pretty curl of yours. 
 He thought the curl troublesome to you, but it has no doubt been 
 a thousand times more troublesome to him — poor fellow ! I learn 
 that three or four prisoners have been sent to the penitentiary 
 simply from his absence of mind or inattention to his duties upon 
 
 the bench; and I think you ought to ask Gov. M for their 
 
 pardon, or rather to persuade R — '— to do so. What say you? 
 
 " We often talk of you in our family as familiarly and affec- 
 tionately as if you belonged to it — and I wish to Heaven you did. 
 
 You ask why Mr. , while all the rest send love to you, never 
 
 sends even his compliments. I think the reason must be — first 
 that he is very far from being a ' demonstrative' j'oung gentle- 
 man, and secondly, that he probably never knows when 1 am 
 going to write to j'ou. He certainly admires your genius very 
 much. He was the first person that ever mentioned you to me. 
 
 On his return from N , about three years ago, he exclaimed 
 
 to me, with as near an approach to enthusiasm as he ever makes, 
 ' I have discovered a new poet.' 
 
 "M S will probably write you to-day, and I believe 
 
 she has redeemed her promise in regard to Z • Mr. B 
 
 thinks jour poem to him [a pleasantry of make-believe senti- 
 ment, written in company witii the young ladies of Mr. Pren- 
 tice's household, which accidentally got into print,] the sweetest 
 thing in the world, and I suppose he will attempt a retort, of 
 course. You have probably observed that, in his poetry, he 
 has recently been going into the love-making line pretty exten- 
 
XXX vi BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 
 
 sively. I never write love poetry to the ladies now. If I let 
 them write it tome, I think 'tis quite as much as they can rea- 
 sonably expect." 
 
 Of more serious expressions than are found in the 
 foregoing, not a few quotations might be made. Here 
 is one in which Mr. Prentice refers to his rch'gious 
 faith — the letter from which it is taken, though addressed 
 to the same person, was written a year or two before 
 those last quoted : 
 
 < "I rejoice, my little friend, that you are a believer. For my 
 
 own part, I have no doubt either of the truths of Christianity, or 
 of the momentous and infinite importance of those truths. I hear 
 a thousand things from the 'pulpit that make me smile, yet I 
 would rather be a Christ'an of the very humblest order of intel- 
 lect than the most gloriously-gifted infidel that ever blazed like 
 a comet through the atmosphere of earth." y 
 
 And here is an earnest and eloquent passage concern- 
 ing " the fame that men pant after in their lives," with 
 which I may fitly close my quotations, and return to the 
 current of Mr. Prentice's life : 
 
 " I think, my young friend, that 3'ou mean to be a little satiri- 
 cal when you allude to what I said about j'our ability to win a 
 fame that might shine like a star above your tomb. The figure 
 may not be a happy one, but I am sure there is in your heart, as 
 in all high hearts, a craving to be remembered among men. 
 There is a mighty hunger of the soul, which only the dream 
 cf fame can appease. . . . You may call fame an ' ignis 
 fatuiis,^ but the greatest of the sons of men have worshiped, and 
 will ever worship it, as devoutly as the Persian bowed to the 
 eternal fires of the sky." 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. xxxvii 
 
 During several years immediately preceding the 
 Soiitb.ern Rebellion, Mr. Prentice appeared at seasons 
 as a public lecturer, delivering two or three discourses 
 on national politics in many of the Northern and South- 
 ern cities. One of his lectures had for its theme the 
 American Statesmanship of the day. In this he pre- 
 sented a gloomy outlook at the future of the country. 
 A life-long admirer and friend of Henry Clay, lie la- 
 mented the hitter's comparatively recent departure : — 
 "Ulysses," he said, "has gone upon his wandering, and 
 there is none left in all Ithaca to bend his bow." He 
 predicted wide public misfortune, and his dark prophe- 
 cies were criticised as morbidly melancholy ; but the 
 result proved their groundwork of truth. The South- 
 ern secession movement was already brooding, and 
 soon the storm fell. Mr. Prentice opposed the South- 
 ern movement earnestly, in private conversation and in 
 print, from the first. He had no doubt, he often said, 
 of the result of the civil war whicli he thought would 
 certainly follow the election of Abraham Lincoln, and 
 the consequent secession of the South ; but the Bell 
 and Everett party — the temporary Conservative Union 
 party, which he warmly supjjorted— having failed, he 
 recognized no other course but to accept, and, if neces- 
 sary, support the Republican Union administration of 
 Lincoln. 
 
 Strong efforts were made by the Southern leaders to 
 
xxxviii BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 
 
 secure the Journal's powerful influence in behalf of the 
 Confederacy ; but, although one or^'two of his business 
 associates were not indisposed to accept the overtures, 
 Mr. Prentice persistently turned his face away. After- 
 ward, I remember, he told me that he might have be- 
 come very wealthy if he had joined the fortunes of the 
 Rebellion. The importance of keeping the Louisville 
 Journal as an active support of the Union cause in Ken- 
 tucky, was recognized at the national capital, and its 
 large immediate loss of Southern patronage was in part 
 compensated by the Federal government. ' Mr. Prentice 
 visited Washington several times during the years iS6i 
 and 1863, and was always treated with distinction by 
 the President and his cabinet. President Lincoln, who 
 had been an early reader and admirer of the Louis- 
 ville Journal, held its editor in high esteem, and, during 
 the early months of Mr. Lincoln's administration, Mr. 
 Prentice had strong personal influence with him. At 
 a dinner given to Mr. Prentice, in Washington, early 
 in 1S63, by a prominent Republican official, various 
 members of the cabinet being present, he was toasted 
 by the Secretary of War as having himself charge of the 
 War Department in Kentucky. The Louisville Journal 
 was largely instrumental in keeping Kentucky within 
 the Union. 
 
 Mr. Prentice's course, however, though it was his path 
 of duty, was a painful one. Both of his sons were 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. xxxix 
 
 eagerly Southern in feeling, each having been educated 
 in part at Southern military schools. The younger, 
 Clarence, could not be restrained from Joining the Con- 
 federate army at the start. Mr. Prentice's elder son, 
 Courtland, who had been persuaded to remain upon a 
 farm which his father had given him, near Louisville, 
 during the early months of the Rebellion, kft it — much 
 to his father's regret and disappointment — in September, 
 1S62, and entered a company belonging to Morgan's 
 cavalry. !Mrs. Prentice, I believe, sent her heart with 
 her boys, sympathizing with the cause they had adopted. 
 Less than a month after Courtland joined the Confed- 
 erate army, his dead body was brought home for burial. 
 He was killed in battle, at Augusta, Ky. Mr. Prentice 
 loved his sons warmly, and the death of this one gave 
 him great sorrow. He wrote to me a few weeks later, 
 saying : " I am grateful to- you for your sympathy. I 
 need it, and I need God's pity. I feel very, very deso- 
 late. The wind of death has swept over my life and left 
 it a desert, but in my sadness I will try to do my duty." 
 And, again, somewhat later, he said : " I am in bad 
 spirits, my dear friend, for my own sake and our coun- 
 try's. My son is dead, and sometimes I almost fear that 
 my country, too, may perish. I see no palm-tree upon 
 the desert which surrounds me." His younger son's 
 early connection with the Rebellion did not seem to have 
 grieved him so much. Although he was devotedly 
 
xl BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 
 
 attached to both his sons, the elder seemed to be his 
 favorite. 
 
 Meanwhile, during the few days of Courtland's mili- 
 tary life in an invading ami}', (for this was during the 
 Confederate occupation of Kentucky,) Mr. Prentice him- 
 self — in a city where his dearest friends by hundreds 
 were Confederates — was one of the easily-counted tens 
 willing to shoulder his gun as a volunteer home- 
 guard, to protect that city from the same invading 
 army. Long afterward, he told me — as something which 
 then struck him humorously — of a midnight alarm, 
 during this brief period of his volunteer service, when 
 it was supposed the enemy was advancing upon the 
 city ; the bells were rung, a premeditated signal, and 
 out of hundreds who came to the rendezvous, there 
 were but about sixty besides himself to go into the 
 ranks for instant duty. The alarm, however, proved 
 a false one. 
 
 At the return of peace Mr. Prentice was an old man, 
 and the days of his popularity and power were gone. 
 Mrs. Prentice died in April, 1868. After her death he 
 lived for a time with his son Clarence — who had con- 
 tinued in the Confederate service, gaining the rank of 
 a Colonel, until the close of the Rebellion — at his. old 
 home in Louisville ; but, Clarence having exchanged 
 the city property, which had been given him by his 
 parents, for a farm several miles out of town, Mr. 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. xli 
 
 Prentice, during the remainder of his Hfe, occupied a 
 small room at the Journal (then recently become the 
 Courier-Journal) office — working, eating, sleeping there, 
 and, since he was in ill health and feeble much of the 
 time, seldom going out. Though the control of the 
 newspaper had passed into other hands, he still worked 
 steadfastly on in the old way. He had suffered occa- 
 sionally for many years from a heart disease, which, 
 afflicted him seriously during the last 3'ear of his life, 
 and it would hardly have been strange if he had been 
 found dead some morning at his writing-table. But, 
 a day or two before Christmas, 1S69, he started from 
 Louisville, during a season of bitter w^inter weather, to 
 visit the farm of his son, and, riding in an open car- 
 riage, contracted a severe cold, which, developing into 
 pneumonia, was the direct cause of his death. He died 
 on the morning of January 23, 1S70. A lady who was 
 present during his last moments asked me subsequently : 
 " What do you suppose Mr. Prentice meant in his last 
 expressions? Just before his death he seemed to arouse 
 himself and said — we heard him distinctly — 'I want 
 an 0;' and then, again, ' I want an /.' We at first 
 supposed he said, ' I want to go,' and these were re- 
 ported to have been his last words ; but I have often 
 thought of these expressions, and wondered what could 
 have been their meaning." Knowing Mr. Prentice's 
 long habit of dictation in writing, and his manner 
 
I 
 
 xlii BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 
 
 of correcting his manuscript, which he always seemed 
 carefully to overlook while walking to and fro, or sitting 
 at the table opposite his amanuensis, it occurred to me 
 that he may have been at the time in a slight delirium, 
 and supposed himself dictating an article. I think this 
 explanation was perhaps a just one, and that the tireless 
 old editor died in a dream of correcting his copy. Yet 
 he had always kept in sight his earl}' religious education, 
 and I know that he anticipated his death, and, I believe, 
 did not dread it. 
 
 In person Mr. Prentice was slightly above the medium 
 stature, with a figure, when in vigorous health, inclined 
 to stoutness. His features were not regular, but his face 
 was for the most part pleasing ; often, when animated, 
 it seemed handsome. His head was finely shaped, hav- 
 ing a particularly noble and impi'essive forehead. His 
 hair was black, but somewliat thin — retaining its black- 
 ness until quite late in his life. He had dark-brown 
 eyes, rather small, full of light and sparkle when he was 
 in a happy mood, though they could express fierceness 
 and severity. The engraved likeness of him in this vol- 
 ume is from a daguerreotype taken about the year 1856 
 or 1S57, when he was between fifty-four and fifty-five 
 years old. It represents him at his best, as I remember 
 him. His voice was low and agreeable in its general 
 tone. Among strangers he was apt to be reserved, some- 
 times embarrassed ; but with chosen friends his conver- 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. xliii 
 
 tion was fluent and free— often full of characteristic 
 brightness and humor; at other times — when touching 
 the loftier themes of poetry and philosophy — seriously 
 sweet and eloquent. 
 
 The leading traits of Mr. Prentice's character have 
 been illustrated, I believe, in the facts of his life and 
 the quotations from his writings which I have given. 
 A man of the true genus irrltabile, he was quickly im- 
 pulsive, but his impulses were full of generosity. One 
 of his friends once said of him to me : " He has the larg- 
 est heart that ever beat." Mr. G. W. Griffin, who pub- 
 lished a sketch of Mr. Prentice's life some years ago, re- 
 lates, on the authority of Fortunatus Cosby, the poet, an 
 anecdote which gives happy emphasis to what I have 
 
 said of his generosity of impulse. A man named 
 
 who had started certain scandalous reports concerning 
 Mr. Prentice, which the latter had not troubled himself 
 to notice, had the boldness to call upon him at his office 
 several years afterward, with outworn, unclean garments, 
 and in a repulsive personal condition. Mr. Cosby being 
 
 present, called Mr. Prentice aside, and, after a little 
 
 conversation, left the room. Mr. Cosby, a familiar friend 
 of Mr. Prentice, asked the name of his unsightly visitor. 
 
 " He is Thomas Jefferson . He told me he was in 
 
 distress, and that he wanted two dollars and a half, for the 
 purpose of going to see his mother." "Yes," answered 
 Mr. Cosby, " and I suppose you were silly enough to give 
 
xliv BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 
 
 it to him ? " " No," replied Mr. Prentice ; " I recollected 
 that I had a mother, and asked myself the question, what 
 she woLTld have thought of me had I appeared before her 
 in such a condition. I gave him twenty-five dollars, and 
 told him to go and see his mother in the dress of a gentle- 
 man." Thousands of dollars were given away, first and 
 last, by Mr. Prentice in a similar manner, to needy young 
 men passing through Louisville. Mr. Prentice was a 
 warm and steadfast friend, and a noble enemy. That 
 he was not without faults I need not deny. One of his 
 chief faults, as he once confessed to me pleasantly, was 
 a life-long inabilty to say "No" with sufficient distinct- 
 ness. But whatever his faults may have been, he was 
 always cordial in acknowledging the virtues of others. 
 
 Upon the death of Mr. Prentice, great immediate 
 respect was shown to his memory in Louisville, and 
 throughout the country. The Legislatures of Kentucky 
 and Tennessee, then in session, each passed resolutions 
 calling his death a public grief The Kentucky Legisla- 
 ture invited Mr. Henry Watterson, the friend and asso- 
 ciate of his latter years, to prepare and deliver an ad- 
 dress before it on Mr. Prentice's career and character: — 
 this Mr. Watterson did very ably, a few days later. 
 
 Mr. Prentice was a Mason, and his body, removed 
 from his son's house to Louisville, was permitted to lie 
 in state during one day in the Masonic Temple, where 
 thousands of his fellow-citizens — men, women, and 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. xlv 
 
 children — thronged to take their last look at his familiar 
 
 face. He was buried with Masonic honors in Cave Hill 
 
 Ccmctcr\-, by the side of his wife and near the graves of 
 
 his children. No monument at present marks his grave, 
 
 luiless a rose-bush which stands at his head be one. 
 
 Once, when I visited it, several years ago, a violet, 
 
 planted by some tender hand, was growing above the 
 
 poet's breast, recalling his early lines on his mother's 
 
 grave : 
 
 " Tlie violet, with its blossoms blue and mild, 
 Waves o'er thy head ; when shall it wave 
 Above thj child.?" 
 
 But there is in course of execution, at Louisville, a 
 statue, considerably larger than life-size, in Carrara mar- 
 ble, representing Mr. Prentice sitting in his editorial 
 chair in an accustomed meditative attitude, which is 
 destined to stand, supported by granite pillars, at an ele- 
 vation of nearly forty feet, in front of the new Courier- 
 Journal building, adjoining the Public Library of Ken- 
 tucky, and look down upon the busy street which so long 
 knew and honored Mr. Prentice in life. This will be a 
 fitting local monument of him in his public capacity as 
 an editor, statesman, and patriot ; but a book is not con- 
 fined to a city, and I believe there is something in this 
 volume of his poems, which, although it may not be a 
 moving and active force in the busy world, will survive 
 the marble effigy in the memory of men. 
 
POEMS 
 
 GEORGE D. PRENTICE. 
 
I 
 
THE CLOSING YEAR. 
 
 'r j ^ IS midnight's holy hour — and silence now 
 
 A^ Is brooding-, like a gentle spirit, o'er 
 The still and pulseless world. Hark ! on the winds 
 The bell's deep notes are swelling. 'Tis the knell 
 Of the departed Year. 
 
 No funeral train 
 Is sweeping past ; yet on the stream and wood, 
 With melancholy light, the moonbeams rest, 
 Like a pale, spotless shroud ; the air is stirred, 
 As by a mourner's sigh ; and on 3on cloud, 
 That floats so still and placidly through heaven, 
 The spirits of the seasons seem to stand — 
 Young Spring, bright Summer, Autumn's solemn form, 
 And Winter with his aged locks — and breathe 
 In mournful cadences, that come abroad 
 Like the far wind-harp's wild and touching wail, 
 A melancholy dirge o'er the dead Yeai', 
 Gone from the earth forever. 
 
 'Tis a time 
 For memory and for tears. Within the deep, 
 Still chambers of the heart, a specter dim. 
 
50 THE CLOSING TEAR. 
 
 Whose tones are like the wizard voice of Time, 
 
 Heard from the tomb of ages, points its cold 
 
 And solemn finger to the beautiful 
 
 And holy visions that have passed away 
 
 x\nd left no shadow of their loveliness 
 
 On the dead waste of life. That specter lifts 
 
 The coffin-lid of hope, and joy, and love. 
 
 And, bending mournfully above the joale 
 
 Sweet forms that slumber there, scatters dead flowers 
 
 O'er what has passed to nothingness. 
 
 The Year 
 Has gone, and, with it, many a glorious throng 
 Of happy dreams. Its mark is on each brow, 
 Its shadow in each heart. In its swift course, 
 It waved its scepter o'er the beautiful, 
 And they are not. It laid its pallid hand 
 Upon the strong man, and the haughty form 
 Is fallen, and the flashing eye is dim. 
 It trod the hall of revelry, where thronged 
 The bright and joyous, and the tearful wail 
 Of stricken ones is heard, where erst the song 
 And reckless shout resounded It passed o'er 
 The battle-plain, where sword and spear and shield 
 Flashed in the light of midday — and the strength 
 Of serried hosts is shivered, and the grass. 
 Green from the soil of carnage, waves above 
 The crushed and mouldering skeleton. It came 
 
 4 
 
THE CLOSING TEAR. 51 
 
 And faded like a wreath of mist at eve ; 
 Yet, ere it melted in the viewless air, 
 It heralded its millions to their home 
 In the dim land of dreams. 
 
 Remorseless Time ! — 
 Fierce spirit of the glass and scythe ! — what power 
 Can sta}' him in his silent course, or melt 
 His iron heart to pity? On, still on 
 He presses, and forever. The proud bird, 
 The condor of the Andes, that can soar 
 Through heaven's unfathomable depths, or brave 
 The fury of the northern hurricane 
 And bathe his plumage in the thunder's home, 
 Furls his broad wings at nightfall, and sinks down 
 To rest upon his mountain-crag — but Time 
 Knows not the weight of sleep or weariness. 
 And night's deep darkness has no chain to bind 
 His rushing pinion. Revolutions sweep 
 O'er carlh, like troubled visions o'er the breast 
 •Of dreaming sorrow ; cities rise and sink. 
 Like bubbles on the water ; fiery isles 
 Spring, blazing, from the ocean, and go back 
 To their mysterious caverns; mountains rear 
 To heaven their bald and blackened cliffs, and bow 
 Their tall heads to the plain ; new empires rise, 
 Gathering the strength of hoary centuries. 
 And rush down like the Alpine avalanche. 
 
52 
 
 THE CLOSING TEAR. 
 
 Startling the nations ; and the very stars, 
 Yon bright and burning bLizonry of God, 
 Glitter awhile in their eternal depths. 
 And, like the Pleiad, loveliest of their train, 
 Shoot from their glorious spheres, and pass away, 
 To darkle in the trackless void : yet Time, 
 Time the tomb-builder, holds his fierce career, 
 Dark, stern, all-pitiless, and pauses not 
 Amid the mighty wrecks that strew his path, 
 To sit and muse, like other conquerors, 
 Upon the fearful ruin he has wrought. 
 
AT MY MOTHER'S GRAVE. 
 
 THE trembling dew-drops fall 
 Upon the shutting flowers ; like souls at rest, 
 The stars shine gloriouslj-^ : and all, 
 Save me, are blest. 
 
 Mother, I love thy grave ! 
 The violet, with its blossoms blue and mild, 
 Waves o'er thy head ; when shall it wave 
 Above thy child? 
 
 'Tis a sweet flower, yet must 
 Its bright leaves to the coming tempest bow ; 
 Dear mother, 'tis thine emblem — dust 
 Is on thy brow. 
 
 And I could love to die : 
 To leave untastcd life's dark, bitter streams — 
 By thee, as erst in childhood, lie. 
 And share thy dreams. 
 
 Arid must I linger here, 
 To stain the plumage of my sinless years, 
 And mourn the hopes to childhood dear 
 With bitter tears? 
 
54 AT MT MOTHER'S GRA VE. 
 
 Aye, must I linger here, 
 A lonely branch upon a withered tree, 
 Whose last frail leaf, untimely sere, 
 Went down with thee? 
 
 Oft from life's withered bower, 
 In still communion with the Past, I turn, 
 And muse on thee, the only flower 
 In Memory's urn. 
 
 And, when the evening pale 
 Bows, like a mourner, on the dim blue wave, 
 I stray to hear the night-winds wail 
 Around thy grave. 
 
 Where is thy spirit flown .'' 
 I gaze above — thy look is imaged there ; 
 I listen — and thy gentle tone 
 Is on the air. 
 
 Oh, come, while here I press 
 My brow upon thy grave ; and, in those mild 
 And thrilling tones of tenderness, 
 Bless, bless thy child ! 
 
 Yes, bless thy weeping child ; 
 And o'er thine urn — Religion's holiest shrine — 
 Oh, give his spirit, undefiled, 
 To blend with thine. 
 
THE RIVER IN TPIE MAMMOTH CAVE. 
 
 OH, dark, mysterious stream, I sit by thee 
 In awe profound, as myriad wanderers 
 Have sat before. I see thy waters move 
 From out the ghostly glimmerings of my lamp 
 Into the dark beyond, as noiselessly 
 As if thou wert a somber river drawn 
 Upon a spectral canvas, or the stream 
 Of dim Oblivion flowing through the lone 
 And shadow}' vale of death. There is no wave 
 To whisper on thy shore, or breathe a wail, 
 Wounding its tender bosom on thy sharp 
 And jagged rocks. Innumerous mingled tones, 
 The voices of the day and of the night. 
 Are ever heard through all our outer world, 
 For Nature there is never dumb ; but here 
 I turn and turn my listening ear, and catch 
 No mortal sound, save that of my own heart. 
 That 'mid the awful stillness throbs aloud, 
 Like the far sea-surf's low and measured beat 
 Upon its rocky shore. But when a cry. 
 Or sJiout, or song is raised, how wildly back 
 
56 THE RIVER IN THE MAMMOTH CA VE. 
 
 Come the weird echoes from a thousand rocks, 
 
 As if unnimibered airy sentinels, 
 
 The genii of the spot, caught up the voice, 
 
 Repeating it in wonder — a wild maze 
 
 Of spirit-tones, a wilderness of sounds. 
 
 Earth-born but all unearthly. 
 
 Thou dost seem, 
 O wizard stream, a river of the dead — 
 A river of some blasted, perished world. 
 Wandering forever in the mystic void. 
 No breeze e'er strays across thy solemn tide ; 
 No bird e'er breaks thy surface with his wing ; 
 No star, or sky, or bow, is ever glassed 
 Within thy depths ; no flower or blade e'er breathes 
 Its fragrance from th}' bleak banks on the air. 
 True, here are flowers, or semblances of flowers, 
 Carved by'the magic fingers of the drops 
 That fall upon thy rocky battlements — 
 Fair roses, tulips, pinks, and violets — 
 All white as cerements of the cofiined dead ; 
 But they are flowers of stone, and never drank 
 The sunshine or the dew. O somber stream. 
 Whence comest thou, and whither goest? Far 
 Above, upon the surface of old Earth, 
 A hundred rivers o'er thee pass and sweep. 
 In music and in sunshine, to the sea ; — 
 Thou art not born of them. Whence comest thou. 
 
THE RIVER IN THE MAMMOTH CAVE. 57 
 
 And whither goest ? None of earth can know. 
 
 No mortal e'er has gazed upon thy source — 
 
 No mortal seen where thy dark waters blend 
 
 With the abyss of Ocean. None may guess 
 
 The mysteries of thy course. Perchance thou hast 
 
 A hundred might}' cataracts, thundering down 
 
 Toward Earth's eternal center ; but their sound 
 
 Is not for ear of man. All we can know 
 
 Is that thy tide rolls out, a specter stream, 
 
 From yon stupendous, fi-owning wall of rock, 
 
 And, moving on a little way, sinks down 
 
 Beneath another mass of rock as dark 
 
 And frowning, even as life — our little life — 
 
 Born of one fathomless eternity, 
 
 Steals on a moment and then disappears 
 
 In an eternity as fathomless. 
 
TO AN ABSENT WIFE. 
 
 TTI IS Morn : — the sea-breeze seems to bring 
 
 JL Joy? health, and freshness on its wing; 
 Bright flowers, to me all strange and new, 
 Are glittering in the early dew, 
 And perfumes rise from every grove, 
 As incense to the clouds that move 
 Like spirits o'er yon welkin clear : 
 But I am sad — thou art not here ! 
 
 'Tis Noon : — a calm, unbroken sleep 
 Is on the blue waves of the deep ; 
 A soft haze, like a fairy dream, 
 Is floating over wood and stream ; 
 And many a broad magnolia flower. 
 Within its shadowy woodland bower, 
 Is gleaming like a lovely star : 
 But I am sad — thou art afar ! 
 
 'T is Eve :— on earth the sunset skies 
 Are painting their own Eden dyes ; 
 The stars come down, and trembling glow 
 Like blossoms on the waves below ; 
 
TO AN ABSENT WIFE. 59 
 
 And, like an unseen spirit, the breeze 
 Seems lingering 'midst these orange trees, 
 Breathing its music round the spot : 
 But I am sad — I see thee not ! 
 
 'T is Midnight : — with a soothing spell, 
 The far tones of the ocean swell. 
 Soft as a mother's cadence mild, 
 Low bending o'er her sleeping child ; 
 And on each wandering breeze are heard 
 The rich notes of the mocking-bird. 
 In many a wild and wondrous lay : 
 But I am sad — thou art away ! 
 
 I sink in dreams : — low, sweet, and clear, 
 Thy own dear voice is in my ear ; 
 Around my neck thy tresses twine — 
 Thy own loved hand is clasped in mine — 
 Thy own soft lip to mine is pressed — 
 Thy head is pillowed on my breast : — 
 Oh ! I have all my heart holds dear, 
 And I am happy — thou art here ! 
 
HARVEST HYMN. 
 
 AT Carmel's mount the prophet laid 
 - His offering on the altar-stone, 
 And fire descended from the skies, 
 And round the holy altar shone ; 
 And thus, when Spring went smiling past, 
 Our off'erings on the earth were cast, 
 And God's own blessing has come down, 
 Our sacrifice of faith to crown. 
 
 No conqueror o'er our fields has gone, 
 
 To blast with war our summer bowers, 
 And stain with blood of woe and guilt, 
 
 The soil that giveth life to flowers ; 
 But morning dews and evening rains 
 Have fallen on our beauteous plains. 
 And earth, through all her realms abroad, 
 Gives back the image of her God. 
 
 Bright with the Autumn's richest tints. 
 Each hill lifts up its head on high, 
 
 And spreads its fruits and blossoms out. 
 An offering meet beneath the sky ; 
 
HARVEST HYMN. Gl 
 
 And hill, and plain, and vale, and grove, 
 Join in the sacrifice of love, 
 And wind, and stream, and lake, and sea, 
 Lift high their hymns of ecstasy. 
 
 It is the festival of earth — 
 
 The flame of love o'er Nature burns, 
 And to the holy heavens goes up 
 
 Like incense from a thousand urns ; 
 And oh, let man's impassioned voice, 
 With Nature's self, in song rejoice, 
 Lentil the blended notes of love 
 Ring from the temple-arch above. 
 
f 
 
 AN INFANT'S GRAVE * 
 
 NOT in the church-yard's hallowed gi^ound, 
 Where marble columns rise around, 
 By willow or by cypress shade, 
 Are thy poor little relics laid. 
 Thou sleepest here, all, all alone — 
 No other grave is near thine own. 
 'T is well, 't is well ; but oh, such fate 
 Seems very, very desolate. 
 
 We know not whence thy little form 
 
 Was borne through rain, and wind, and storm ; 
 
 We know not to what far-off wild 
 
 They sought to take tliee, lonely child. 
 
 We only know thy puny life 
 
 Was all unequal to the strife, 
 
 And that thy dust is sleeping here, 
 
 Unwet but by the stranger's tear. 
 
 *A few months ago, I stood in the forest of Arkansas, at the 
 grave of an uifant, buried from an einigrant's wagon. 
 
AiV INFANT'S GliAVE. 03 
 
 Alas, what bitter tear-drops stole 
 
 From thy poor mother's stricken soul, 
 
 When in tiiis dark and gloomy dell 
 
 The damp clods on thy bosom fell : 
 
 How throbbed her brain, how throbbed her heart, 
 
 When mournfully she turned to part 
 
 From the rude mound her dear one o'er. 
 
 To gaze upon it never more ! 
 
 But yet it matters not, poor child. 
 That thou must slccjo in this lone wild ; 
 Each Spring-time, as it wanders past, 
 Its buds and blooms will round thee cast ; 
 The thick-leaved boughs and moonbeams pale 
 Will o'er thee spread a solemn vxiil, 
 And softest dews and showers will lave 
 The blossoms on the infant's grave. 
 
 Farewell ! I've paused one little hour 
 To plant, lone child, this humble flower 
 Above thy dust, and now I grieve 
 To leave thee as all others leave. 
 Farewell ! farewell ! where'er I stray. 
 This mournful scene will with me stay — ■ 
 A picture hung upon the walls 
 Of memory's dim and somber halls. 
 
THE ISLE AND STAR. 
 
 IN the tropical seas 
 There's a beautiful isle, 
 Where storms never darken 
 
 The sunlight's soft smile. 
 There the hymn of the breeze 
 
 And the hymn of the stream 
 Are mingled in one, 
 
 Like sweet sounds in a dream. 
 There the song-birds at morn 
 
 From the thick shadows start, 
 Like musical thoughts 
 
 From the poet's full heart. 
 There the song-birds at noon, 
 
 Sit in silence unbroken. 
 Like an exquisite dream 
 
 In the bosom, unspoken. 
 There the flowers hang like rainbows 
 
 On wildwood and lea : — 
 O, say wilt thou dwell 
 
 In that sweet isle with me ? 
 
THE ISLE AND STAR. 
 
 G5 
 
 In the dcptli of the skv 
 
 There's a beautiful star, 
 Where no yew casts a shadow 
 
 The bright scene to mar. 
 There the rainbows ne'er fade, 
 
 And tlie dews are ne'er dry, 
 And a circle of moons 
 
 Ever shines in the sky- 
 There the songs of the blest, 
 
 And the songs of the spheres, 
 Are unceasingly heard 
 
 Through the infinite years. 
 There the soft airs float down 
 
 From the amaranth bowers, 
 All faint with the perfume 
 
 Of Eden's own flowers. 
 There truth, love, and beauty 
 
 Immortal will be : — 
 O, say, wilt thou dwell 
 
 In that sweet star with me ? 
 
THE BOUQUET'S COMPLIMENTS. 
 
 TO thee, the pure, the bright, the good, 
 We come, a gentle sisterhood, 
 From many a sweet and lovely spot, 
 From wood and. dell and fairy grot, 
 With dews from nature's diamond mine. 
 To worship at thy beauty's shrine, 
 And hail thee in this simple lay, 
 Our own enchanting Qiieen of May. 
 
 In our far homes by wood and dell 
 We often heard thy lovers tell 
 With gesture wild and frenzied start, 
 How very beautiful thou art. 
 They called thee sweeter, brighter far, 
 Than sweetest flower or brightest star ; 
 They said that language could not speak 
 The beauty of thy lip and cheek ; 
 They said the music of thy words 
 Was richer than the voice of birds ; 
 And we have come without a sigh 
 To see thee, hear thee, and to die. 
 
I 
 
 TFIE BOUQUET'S COMPLIMENTS. 67 
 
 And it is true, dear Qiieen of May, 
 
 All that we heard thy lovers say : 
 
 Our red rose, when with dews it drips, 
 
 Is not so red as thy red lips ; 
 
 Our violet 's bluer than the sky, 
 
 But not so blue as thy blue eye ; 
 
 Our jasmine's breath, though deemed divine, 
 
 Is not so sweet, fair one, as thine ; 
 
 The loveliest stars we used to see 
 
 Are dim and cold compared to thee ; 
 
 And there "s no bird, in field or grove. 
 
 Can match thy gentle tones of love. 
 
 And now, dear Qiieen, accept, we pray. 
 
 The homage we have come to pay ; 
 
 Our life, we know, is xery brief. 
 
 But yet in joy, and not in grief, 
 
 Our lids will close if we may glow 
 
 Awhile upon thy bosom's snow. 
 
 Or die, O loveliest of girls. 
 
 In the warm sunshine of thy curls. 
 
THE DEAD MARINER. 
 
 SLEEP on, sleep on ! above thy corse 
 The winds their Sabbath keep ; 
 The waves are round thee, and thy breast 
 
 Heaves witii the heaving deep. 
 O'er thee, mild eve her beauty flings, 
 And there the white gull lifts her wings ; 
 And the blue halcyon loves to lave 
 Her plumage in the deep, blue wave. 
 
 Sleep on ! no willow o'er thee bends 
 
 With melancholy air. 
 No violet springs, nor dewy rose 
 
 Its soul of love lays bare ; 
 But there the sea-flower, bright and young. 
 Is sweetly o'er thy slumbers flung ; 
 And, like a weeping mourner fair. 
 The pale flag hangs its tresses there. 
 
 Sleep on, sleep on ! the glittering depths 
 
 Of ocean's coral caves 
 Are thy bright urn — thy requiem 
 
 The music of its waves ; 
 
 I 
 
THE DEAD MARINER. 09 
 
 The purple gems forever burn 
 In fadeless beauty round thy urn ; 
 And, pine and deep as infant love, 
 The blue sea rolls its waves above. 
 
 Sleep on, sleep on ! the fearful wrath 
 
 Of mingling cloud and deep 
 May leave its wild and stormy track 
 
 Above thy place of sleep ; 
 But, when the wave has sunk to rest, 
 As now, 'twill min-mur o'er thy breast. 
 And the bright victims of the sea 
 Perchance will make their home with thee. 
 
 Sleep on ! thy corse is far away, 
 
 But love beVvails thee yet ; 
 For thee the heart-wrung sigh is breathed, 
 
 And lovely eyes are wet ; 
 And she, thy young and beauteous bride, 
 Her thoughts are hovering by thy side. 
 As oft she turns to view, with tears. 
 The Eden of departed years. 
 
THE STARS. 
 
 THOSE burning stars ! what are they ? I have dreamed 
 That they were blossoms from the tree of life, 
 Or glory flung back from the outspread wings 
 Of God's Archangels ; or that yon blue skies, 
 With all their gorgeous blazonry of gems, 
 Were a bright banner waving o'er the earth 
 From the far wall of Heaven ! And I have sat 
 And drank their gushing glory, till I felt 
 Their flash electric trembling with the deep 
 And strong vibration down the living wire 
 Of chainless passion ; and my e\''er3- pulse 
 Was beating high, as if a spring were there 
 To buoy me up, where I might ever roam 
 'Mid the unfathomed vastness of the sky, 
 And dwell with those bright stars, and see their light 
 Poured down upon the sleeping earth like dew 
 From the bright urns of Naiads ! 
 
 Beautiful stars ! 
 What are ye? There is in my heart of hearts 
 A fount that heaves beneath you, like the deep 
 Beneath the glories of the midnight moon ! 
 And list! — your Eden-tones are floating now 
 
THE STARS. 71 
 
 Around mc like an element : so slow, 
 
 So mildly beautiful, I almost deem 
 
 That ye are there, the living harps of God, 
 
 O'er which the incense -winds of Eden stray, 
 
 And wake such tones of mystic minstrelsy 
 
 As well might wander down to this dim world 
 
 To fashion dreams of Heaven ! Peal on, peal on, 
 
 Nature's high anthem ! for my life has caught 
 
 A portion of your purity and power, 
 
 And seems but as a sweet and glorious tone 
 
 Of wild star-music ! 
 
 Blessed, blessed things ! 
 Ye are in heaven, and I on earth. My soul. 
 Even with a whirlwind's rush, can w^ander off 
 To your immortal realms, but it must fall. 
 Like your own ancient Pleiad, from its height, 
 To dim its new-caught glories in the dust ! 
 This earth is very beautiful. I love 
 Its wilderness of flowers, its bright clouds, 
 The majesty of mountains, and the dread 
 Magnificence of ocean — for they come 
 Like visions on my heart ; but when I look 
 On your unfading loveliness, I feel 
 Like a lost infant gazing on its home, 
 And weep to die, and come where ye repose 
 Upon your boundless heaven, like parted souls 
 On an eternity of blessedness. 
 
^'■ 
 
 ^ OUR CHILDHOOD. 
 
 'rrn IS sad, yet sweet, to listen to the south wind's 
 
 J-. gentle swell, 
 
 And think we hear the music our childhood knew so 
 
 well ; 
 To gaze out on the even, and the boundless fields of 
 
 air, 
 And feel again our boyhood's wish to roam like angels 
 there. 
 
 There are many dreams of gladness that cling around 
 the Past, 
 
 And from the tomb of feeling old thoughts come throng- 
 ing fast ; 
 
 The forms we loved so dearly in the happy days now 
 gone, 
 
 The beautiful and lovely, so fair to look upon : — 
 
 Those bright and gentle maidens, who seemed so formed 
 
 for bliss, 
 Too glorious and too heavenly for such a world as 
 
 this— 
 
OUR CHILDHOOD. 73 
 
 Whose dark, soft eyes seemed swimming in a sea of 
 
 liquid light, 
 And whose locks of gold were streaming o'er brows so 
 sunny bright ; 
 
 AVhose smiles were like the sunsliine in the spring-time 
 of the year — 
 
 Like the cliangeful gleams of April, they followed every 
 tear : 
 
 They have passed — like hopes — away, and their love- 
 liness has fled ; 
 
 Oh ! many a heart is mourning that they are with the 
 dead. 
 
 Like the brightest buds of summer, they have fallen 
 with the stem ; 
 
 Yet, oh, it is a lovely deatli, to fade from earth like 
 them ! 
 
 And yet the thought is saddening to muse on such as 
 
 they. 
 And feel that all the beautiful are passing fast 
 
 away ; 
 That the fair ones whom we love grow to each loving 
 
 breast 
 Like the tendril of the clinging vine, then perish 
 
 where they rest. 
 
r4 OUR CHILDHOOD. 
 
 And we can but think of these, in the soft and gentle 
 
 Spring, ^ 
 
 When the trees are waving o'er us, and the flowers are 
 
 blossoming ; 
 And we know that Winter 's coming with his cold and 
 
 stormy sky. 
 And the glorious beauty round us is budding but to 
 
 die! 
 
TO A YOUNG BEAUTY. 
 
 THAT dark, bright eye — that dark, bright eye- 
 Where thoughts are pictured pure and high. 
 And love's young visions softly gleatxj 
 Like rose-tints on the twilight stream : 
 That dark, bright eye — oh, I have felt 
 
 The witchery of its magic rare 
 Come o'er me till I could have knelt 
 . To worship the bright Spirit there. 
 
 That raven hair — that raven hair — 
 That wooes the soft and amorous air, 
 And o'er thy brow's pure whiteness flows 
 Like clouds o'er morning's drifted snows : 
 That raven hair — I love to mark 
 
 Its clusters o'er thy temples rove, ' 
 While sweetly from its ringlets dark 
 
 Is breathing all the soul of love. 
 
 That lovely cheek — that lovely cheek — 
 Where joy and beauty seem to speak 
 From every lineament, and twine 
 Their flower-wreaths o'er its virgin shrine : 
 
76 TO A rOUNG BEAUTY. 
 
 That lovely cheek — how sweet to muse 
 On the dear tints that o'er it rise, 
 
 And, gazing on those breathing hues, 
 To dream of love and Paradise. 
 
 That floating form — that floating form — 
 With Heaven's own glowing spirit warm, 
 So beautiful, the vision fair 
 Seems a bright creature of the air: 
 That floating form — oh, I have dreamed 
 
 Such forms were in the bovvers above — 
 Too bright for earth the vision seemed, 
 
 A thing of ecstasy and love. 
 
THE CHARM OF THE POET. 
 
 ALL Nature seems more beautiful, 
 As pictured in thy song — her bowers 
 With gentler sounds the spirit lull, 
 
 And winds go lightlier o'er the flowers. 
 
 The spirit of the evening fills 
 
 The shutting rose with softer dew ; 
 
 A brighter dream is on the hills, 
 And on the waves a tenderer blue. 
 
 With lovelier hue at twilight hour 
 The banner of the sunset gleams, 
 
 And gentle birds and gentle flowers 
 Sink softlier to their blessed dreams. 
 
 The rainbow o'er the evening sky 
 With brighter, holier arch is thrown, 
 
 And the lone sea-shell's mournful sigh 
 Is swelling in a wilder tone. 
 
78 THE CHARM OF THE POET. 
 
 The music-voice of childhood flows 
 
 More ringingly upon the air, 
 And with a heavenlier fervor glows 
 
 The eloquence of praise and prayer. 
 
 The lost ones that we loved so well 
 Come back to our deserted bowers ; 
 
 Upon the breeze their voices swell, 
 
 And their dear hands are clasped in ours. 
 
 Thy genius wanders wild and free 
 'Mid all things beautiful and blest. 
 
 For thy young heart is like the sea 
 
 That wears Heaven's picture on its breast. 
 
A DIRGE. 
 
 'rnr^ WAS her fourth birth-day, and the morning rose 
 
 -L. Bright as a dream of Eden, but she lay 
 Within her snow-white shroud in cold repose, 
 
 A form of beautiful, unbreathing clay ; 
 Sweet spring-flowers lay beside her in their bloom, 
 
 And one unopened bud was in her hand, 
 An emblem of her doom — no, not /ler doom, 
 For she will blossom in the better land. 
 
 She came, and passed to her bright home above 
 
 Ere yet one cloud had darkened life's young springs, 
 Ere hope had faded in her heart, or love 
 
 Within her soul had shut its wounded wings ; 
 She was all truth, and love, and loveliness, 
 
 And it is well such pure, sweet ones should die, — 
 Upon the earth there is a blossom less, 
 
 But oh, there is an added star on high. 
 
 Though we be doomed a while on earth to stay, 
 'T is sin to mourn when sinless beings die ; 
 
80 
 
 A DIRGE. 
 
 To grieve when earth's frail beauty fades away 
 In the immortal beauty of the sky ; 
 
 To murmur when the young and lovely wake 
 From this dark sleep and all its tearful dreams, 
 
 And go, 'mid songs of cherub bands to take 
 Their angel plumage by the Eden streams. 
 
 4 
 
SENT WITH A ROSE. 
 
 On, take my rose, — 't is a lovely flower, 
 And 'twas plucked in the morning's earliest hour, 
 When a dew-drop lay at its heart of pearl 
 Like a dream in the breast of a sleeping girl. 
 
 Oh, jiress my rose, at thy own sweet home, 
 Between the leaves of thy favorite tome ; 
 Then keep it ever, for it •will be 
 A token of love from my heart to thee. 
 
 There 's a rose, dear lady, upon thy cheek, 
 Oh, fairer and brighter than words can speak ; 
 But treasure this precept within thy breast. 
 By none, save me, must that rose be pressed. 
 
SABBATH EVENING. 
 
 HOW calmly sinks the parting sun ! 
 Yet twilight lingers still ; 
 And beautiful as dreams of Heaven 
 
 It slumbers on the hill ; 
 Earth sleeps, with all her glorious things, 
 Beneath the Holy Spirit's wings, 
 And, rendering back the hues above, 
 Seems resting In a trance of love. 
 
 Round yonder rocks, the forest trees 
 
 In shadowy groups recline. 
 Like saints at evening bowed in prayer 
 
 Around their holy shrine ; 
 And through their leaves the night-winds blow, 
 'So calm and still, their music low 
 Seems the mysterious voice of prayer. 
 Soft echoed on the evening air. 
 
 And yonder western throng of clouds, 
 
 Retiring from the sky, 
 So calmly move, so softly glow. 
 
 They seem to Fancy's eye 
 
SA B BA Til E VENING. 83 
 
 Bright creatures of a better si^here, 
 Come clown at noon to worship here, 
 And from their sacrifice of love 
 Returning to their home above. 
 
 The blue isles of the golden sea, 
 
 The night-arch floating high, 
 The flowers that gaze upon the heavens. 
 
 The bright streams leaping by. 
 Are living with religion ; — deep 
 On earth and sea its glories sleep, 
 And mingle with the starlight rays. 
 Like the soft light of parted days. 
 
 The spirit of the holy eve 
 
 Comes through the silent air 
 To feeling's hidden spring, and wakes 
 
 A gush of music there ! 
 And the far depths of ether beam 
 So passing fair, we almost dream 
 That we can rise, and wander through 
 Their open paths of trackless blue. 
 
 Each soul is filled with glorious dreams, 
 
 Each pulse is beating wild ; 
 And thought is soaring to the shrine 
 
 Of glory unde filed ! 
 
84 
 
 SABBA TH E VENING. 
 
 And holy aspirations start, 
 Like blessed angels, from the heart. 
 And bind — for earth's dark tics are riven- 
 Our spirits. to the gates of Heaven. 
 
TO A LADY. 
 
 I THINK of thee when Alorniiig springs 
 From sleep with phi mage bathed in dew, 
 And, like a young bird, lifts her wings 
 Of gladness on the welkin blue. 
 
 And when, at noon, the breath of love 
 O'er flower and stream is wandering free. 
 
 And sent in music from the grove, 
 I think of thee, I think of thee. 
 
 I think of thee, when, soft and wide, 
 The Evening spreads her robes of light, 
 
 And, like a young and timid bride. 
 Sits bliishins: in the arms of Night. 
 
 And when the moon's sweet crescent springs 
 In light o'er heaven's deep, waveless sea, 
 
 And stars are forth, like blessed things, 
 I think of thee, I think of thee. 
 
1 
 
 86 
 
 TO A LAD 7'. 
 
 I think of thee : — that eye of flaine, 
 Those tresses, falhng bright and free, 
 
 That brow, where " Beauty writes her name* 
 I think of thee, I think of thee. 
 
 :f^^ 
 
ON REVISITING BROWN UNIVERSITY. 
 
 IT is the noon of night. On this cahn spot, 
 Where passed my boyhood's years, I sit me down 
 To wander througli the dim world of tlie Past. 
 
 The Past ! the silent Past ! pale Memory kneels 
 
 Beside her shadowy urn, and with a deep 
 
 And voiceless sorrow weeps above the grave 
 
 Of beautiful aflections. Her lone harp 
 
 Lies broken at her feet, and, as the wind 
 
 Goes o'er its moldering chords, a dirge-like sound 
 
 Rises upon the air, and all again 
 
 Is an unbreathing silence. 
 
 Oh, the Past ! 
 Its spirit as a mournful presence lives 
 In every ray that gilds those ancient s^oires, 
 And like a low and melancholy wind 
 Comes o'er yon distant wood, and faintly breathes 
 Upon my fevered spirit. Here I roved 
 Ere I had fiincied aught of life beyond 
 The poet's twilight imaging. Those years 
 Come o'er me like the breath of fading flowers, 
 And tones I loved fall on my heart as dew 
 
88 ON RE VISITING BRO WN UNIVERSITT. 
 
 Upon the withered rose-leaf. They were years 
 
 When the ricli sunlight blossomed in the air, 
 
 And fancy, like a blessed rainbow, spanned 
 
 The waves of Time, and joyous thoughts went off 
 
 Upon its beautiful unpillared arch 
 
 To revel there in cloud, and sun, and sky. 
 
 Within yon silent domes, how many hearts 
 
 Are beating high with glorious dreams. ' T is well ; 
 
 The rosy sunlight of the morn should not 
 
 Be darkened by the portents of the storm 
 
 That may not burst till eve. Those youthful ones, 
 
 Whose thoughts are woven of the hues of heaven, 
 
 Alay see their visions fading tint by tint. 
 
 Till naught is left upon the darkened air 
 
 Save the gray winter cloud ; the brilliant star 
 
 That glitters now upon their happy lives 
 
 May redden to a scorching flame and burn 
 
 Their every hope to dust ; yet why should thoughts 
 
 Of coming sorrows cloud their hearts' bright depths 
 
 With an untimely shade.? Dream on — dream on, 
 
 Ye thoughtless ones — dream on while 3'et ye maj^ ! 
 
 When life is but a shadow, tear, and sigli, 
 
 Ye will turn back to linger round these hours 
 
 Like stricken pilgrims, and ihcir music sweet 
 
 Will be a dear tliough melancholy tone 
 
 In Memory's car, sounding forever more. 
 
CLOSE OF THE YEAR 1S33. 
 
 LIKE a swift wave, the dying year 
 Down Time's dark flood has passed, 
 And its hist sigh is lingering now 
 
 Upon the sinking blast ; 
 Oh, while it sjiarkled in the sun, 
 It mirrored glories one by one, 
 
 Too beautiful to last ; 
 And these, lone year, are fled, like thee, 
 To the dim past's unfathom'd sea 
 
 How man}- a change is ours ! — the young, 
 Like Spring's fresh flowers, have died, 
 And manhood, like the Summer's flash. 
 
 Has faded in his pride ; 
 And aged ones, like withered leaves. 
 Through which the Autumn tempest grieves, 
 
 Have fallen, side by side ; 
 The wild wind wails o'er earth to-day 
 The dirge of millions passed away. 
 
 These stanzas were written (but not published) on the 31st of 
 December, 1832. In that year Sir Walter Scott and Charles 
 Carroll of Carrollton died, and Soutii Carolina Nullification 
 threatened the dissolution of the American Union. 
 
i)0 CLOSE OF THE TEAR 1S32. 
 
 Even he, the monarch of the heart, 
 
 The gifted and the pioud, 
 The wizard of old Scothmd's hills, 
 
 In common dust is bowed — 
 He, who on Mind's high steep could stand. 
 And marshal with his sceptered hand 
 
 The whirlwind and the cloud, 
 And write a name, too bright to die, 
 In lightning-traces on the sky. 
 
 In our own land has fallen one, 
 Whose fame at Time will mock — 
 
 Who set his name to Freedom's scroll. 
 And dared the battle-shock ; 
 
 The last of that proud band lies low 
 
 That bared their bosoms to the foe, 
 A living rampart rock, 
 
 And stood, the pro^^hets of the free, 
 
 At Liberty's Thermopylae. 
 
 Gone is our Spartan phalanx now — 
 
 In vain v/ere tear and prayer — 
 But list ! their awful voices still 
 
 Breathe, burn upon the air ! 
 They ring upon their country's ear 
 A tone of warning and of fear, 
 
 And bid her sons beware, 
 Nor madly quench the glorious star, 
 That nations worship from afar. 
 
CLOSE OF THE TEAR 1S32. 91 
 
 Time rushes still : another year, 
 
 Like that whose tale is told, 
 Is hurrying wildly past — and what 
 
 Will its dark months unfold ! 
 Like bale-fires on a stormy sea, 
 Visions of blooil perchance will be 
 
 Upon its chart unrolled ; 
 And strife may whet the sword of doom 
 E'en on the stone of Carroll's tomb. 
 
 A signal in the midnight heavens ! 
 
 Lo, where yon meteor-gleam 
 Is flashing from the far-off South 
 
 To old Potomac's stream ! 
 Its lurid and portentous smile 
 Is like that star o'er Patmos' isle, 
 
 Seen in the Prophet's dream. 
 That sank on hill, and vale, and flood, 
 And turned earth's waters into blood. 
 
 My country, oh my country, pause 
 
 Ere guilt has stained thy hand, 
 Pause 'mid thy perils, and invoke 
 
 The God of Freedom's land ; 
 Then if the war-cloud vail thy sun 
 The spirit of thy Washington 
 
 Upon that cloud will stand. 
 To scatter its red folds in air 
 And bend the bow of glory there. 
 
ANNIVERSARY OF A FRIEND'S WEDDING. 
 
 WE 'VE shared each other's smiles and tears 
 Through years of wedded life ; 
 And Love has blessed those fleeting years, 
 My own, my cherished wife. 
 
 And if, at times, the storm's dark shroud 
 
 Has rested in the air. 
 Love's beaming sun has kissed the cloud, 
 
 And left the rainbow there. 
 
 In all our hopes, in all our dreams, 
 
 Love is forever nigh, — 
 A blossom in our path it seems, 
 
 A sunbeam in our sky. 
 
 " One morning while suffering in this way [from paralysis of 
 his writing fingers], he composed a beautiful song for his friend, 
 Dr. T. S. Bell. Mr. Prentice's amanuensis was not in, and he 
 stepped over to the Doctor's office, and asked him to write some- 
 thing for him, saying : " It is for you and your wife." Mr. Pren- 
 tice then dictated the following beautiful lines, which were 
 afterward set to music by a distinguished artist of Poland." — 
 G. W. Griffin. 
 
AXXIVERSAR}' OF A WEDDING. 
 
 93 
 
 For all our joys of brightest hue 
 Grow brighter in Love's smile, 
 
 And there's no grief our hearts e'er knew 
 That Love could not beguile. 
 
MEMORIES. 
 
 ONCE more, once more, my ISfary dear, 
 I sit by that lone stream. 
 Where first within thy timid ear 
 
 I breathed love's burning dream. 
 The birds we loved still tell their tale 
 
 Of music, on each spray, 
 And still the wild-rose decks the vale — 
 But thou art far away. 
 
 In vain thy vanished form I seek, 
 
 By wood and stream and dell. 
 And tears of anguish bathe my cheek 
 
 Where tears of rapture fell ; 
 And yet beneath those wild-wood bowers 
 
 Dear thoughts my soul employ. 
 For in the memories of past hours 
 
 There is a mournful joy. 
 
 Upon the air thy gentle words 
 
 Around me seem to thrill, 
 Like sounds upon the wind harp's chords 
 
 When all the winds are still, 
 
MEMORIES. U;j 
 
 Or like the low and soul-like swell 
 
 Of that wild spirit-tone, 
 Which haunts the hollow of the bell 
 
 When its sad chime is done. 
 
 I seem to hear thee speak my name 
 
 In sweet, low murmurs now ; 
 I seem to feel thy breath of flame 
 
 Upon my cheek and brow ; 
 On my cold lips I feel thy kiss. 
 
 Thy heart to mine is laid — 
 Alas, that such a dream of bliss 
 
 Like other dreams must fade ! 
 
 -^t^^^ 
 
MAMMOTH CAVE. 
 
 ALL day, as day is reckoned on the earth, 
 I've wandered in these dim and awful aisles. 
 Shut from the blue and breezy dome of heaven, 
 While thoughts, wild, drear, and shadowy, have swept 
 Across my awe-struck soul, like specters o'er 
 The wizai'd's magic glass, or thunder-clouds 
 O'er the blue waters of the deep. And now • 
 I '11 sit me down upon yon broken rock 
 To muse upon the strange and solemn things 
 Of this mysterious realm. 
 
 All day my steps 
 Have been amid the beautiful, the wild, 
 The gloomy, the tei'rific. Crystal founts, 
 Almost invisible in their serene 
 And pure transparency ; high, pillared domes, 
 With stars and flowers all fretted like the halls 
 Of Oriental monarchs ; rivers dark 
 And drear and voiceless as Oblivion's stream, 
 That flows through Death's dim vale of silence ; gulfs 
 All fathomless, down which the loosened rock 
 Plunees until its far-off* echoes come 
 
MA MMO TH CA VE. 97 
 
 Fainter and fainter like the dying roll 
 
 Of thunders in the distance ; Stygian pools 
 
 Whose agitated waves give back a sound 
 
 Hollow and dismal, like the sullen roar 
 
 In the volcano's depths : — these, these have left 
 
 Their spell upon me, and tlieir memories 
 
 Have passed into my spirit, and are now 
 
 Blent with my being till they seem a part 
 
 Of my own immortality. 
 
 God's hand, 
 At the creation, hollowed out this vast 
 Domain of darkness, where no herb nor flower 
 E'er sprang amid the sands, nor dews, nor rains. 
 Nor blessed sunbeams fell with freshening power, 
 Nor gentle breeze its Eden message told 
 Amid the dreadful gloom. Six thousand years 
 Swept o'er the earth ere human footprints marked 
 This subterranean desert. Centuries 
 Like shadows came and past, and not a sound 
 Was in this realm, save when at intervals, 
 In the long lapse of ages, some huge mass 
 Of overhanging rock fell thundering down. 
 Its echoes sounding through these corridors 
 A moment, and then dying in a hush 
 Of silence, such as brooded o'er the earth 
 When earth was chaos. The great mastodon, 
 The dreaded monster of the elder world, 
 
98 MAMMOTH CAVE. 
 
 Passed o'er this mightv cavern, and his tread 
 Bent the old forest oaks like fragile reeds 
 And made earth tremble ; armies in their pride 
 Perchance have met above it in the shock 
 Of war, with shout and groan, and clarion blast, 
 And the hoarse echoes of the thunder gun ; 
 The storm, the whirlwind, and the hurricane 
 Have roared above it, and the bursting cloud 
 Sent down its red and crashing thunderbolt ; 
 Earthquakes have trampled o'er it in their wrath, 
 Rocking earth's surface as the storm-wind rocks 
 The old Atlantic ; — yet no sound of these 
 E'er came down to the everlasting depths 
 Of these dark solitudes. 
 
 How oft we gaze 
 With awe or admiration on the new 
 And unfamiliar, but pass coldly by 
 The lovelier and the mightier ! Wonderful 
 Is this lone world of darkness and of gloom. 
 But far more wonderful yon outer world 
 Lit by the glorious sun. These arches swell 
 Sublime in lone and dim magnificence, 
 But how sublimer God's blue canopy, 
 Beleaguered with his burning cherubim 
 Keeping their watch eternal ! Beautiful 
 Are all the thousand snow-white gems that lie 
 Tn these mysterious chambers, gleaminsr on*' 
 
MA MMO TH CA VE. 99 
 
 Amid the melancholy gloom, and wild 
 
 These rocky hills and clifls and gulfs, but far 
 
 More beautifid and wild the things that greet 
 
 The wanderer in our world of light : the stars 
 
 Floating on high like islands of the blest ; 
 
 The autumn sunsets glowing like the gate 
 
 Of far-ofV Paradise ; the gorgeous clouds 
 
 On which the glories of the earth and sky 
 
 Meet and commingle ; earth's unnumbered flowers 
 
 All turning up their gentle eyes to heaven ; 
 
 The birds, with bright wings glancing in the sun. 
 
 Filling the air with rainbow miniatures ; 
 
 The green old forests surging in the gale ; 
 
 The everlasting mountains, on whose peaks 
 
 The setting sun burns like an altar-flame ; 
 
 And ocean, like a pure heart rendering back 
 
 Heaven's perfect image, or in his wild wrath 
 
 Heaving and tossing like the stormy breast 
 
 Of a chained giant in his agony. 
 
TO SUE. 
 
 'rnri is. very sweet to sit and gaze, dear girl, 
 
 JL On thy fair face. 
 As glowing as a crimson-shaded pearl 
 
 Or lighted vase. 
 ■Young beauty brightens, like an Eden-dream, 
 
 On thy pure cheek. 
 And joy and love from every feature seem 
 To breathe and speak. 
 
 I love to kneel in worship to the Sprite 
 
 In thy dark eyes, 
 Dark as the fabled Stygian stream, and bright 
 
 As Paradise. 
 Not oft the radiance of such eyes is given 
 
 To light our way ; 
 And oh, to me there's not a star in heaven 
 
 So bright as they. 
 
 I 've known thee but a few brief days, and yet 
 
 Thou wilt remain 
 An image of undying beauty set 
 
 On heart and brain. 
 
TO SUE. 101 
 
 Each thought, each dream of thee, fair girl, will seem 
 
 Mid toil and strife, 
 A pure white lil}^ swaying on the stream 
 
 Of this dark life. 
 
 The months will pass, the flowers will soon he bright 
 
 On plain and hill. 
 And the young biids with voices of delight 
 
 The woodlands fill ; 
 Oh, in that fairy season thou shalt be — 
 
 Mid budding bowers — 
 My heart's young May-queen, and I '11 twine for thee 
 
 The heart's wild flowers. 
 
 May fortune's richest gifts be hourly strewn 
 
 Around thy feet ; 
 May every sound that greets thee be a tone 
 
 Of music sweet. 
 May every blessing rest upon thy heart 
 
 Like morning dew, 
 And no sad tear e'er from thy eyelids start, 
 
 My gentle Sue. 
 
ON A WARM DAY NEAR THE CLOSE OF 
 WINTER. 
 
 HOW soft this southern gale ! Its freshness falls 
 Upon my forehead like the light, warm touch 
 Of the dew-lips of Spring-time. It has been 
 In the far clime of blossoms, and it bears 
 A message of affection to our woods, 
 And vales, and streams. Spring, with her rose-air breath, 
 Is coming now upon her rainbow wing. 
 To waken the green earth to life and joy, 
 And the free air to music. She will weave 
 Her violet throne upon a thin, white cloud, 
 Soft floating in the middle-air, and call 
 Upon her thousand votaries to hail 
 Her coming with a song and smile. The waves 
 Will shout from rock and mountain, the blue lakes 
 Will tremble like the plumage of a dove 
 In the new gush of sun-light, and the birds 
 Will breathe their loves in music, and float off" — 
 A shower of blossoms in the atmosphere. 
 The young, gay leaves will weave their twilight hues 
 In grove and forest ; 'mid yon budding isles 
 
ON A WARM DA 7' IX WINTER. 
 
 lo: 
 
 The sea will sleep like a Circassian bride 
 Decked with her richest jewelry ; the sky 
 Will take a bluer tint, and seem to arch 
 More high and pure and beautiful above, 
 As if to let the spirit go abroad 
 In ampler journeyings ; and a deep spell 
 Of life and bliss will, like a blessing, rest 
 Upon the waking heart, and bid it float 
 Like a young flower upon the buo^vant wave 
 Of beautiful imaginings of Heaven. 
 
- A WISH. 
 
 IN Southern seas, there is an isle, 
 Where earth and sky forever smile ; 
 Where storms cast not their somber hue 
 Upon the welkin's holy blue ; 
 Where clouds of blessed incense rise 
 From myriad flowers of myriad dyes, 
 And strange, bright birds glance through the bowers, 
 Like winged stars or winged flowers. 
 
 Oh, dear one, would it were our lot 
 
 To dwell upon that lovely sjDot ; 
 
 To stray through woods with blossoms starred, 
 
 Bright as the dreams of seer or bard ; 
 
 To hear each other's whispered words 
 
 'Mid the wild notes of tropic birds, 
 
 And deem our lives, in those bright bowers, 
 
 One glorious dream of love and flowers. 
 
TO THE DAUGHTER OF AN OLD 
 SWEETHEART. 
 
 I LOVE thee, Juliet, for thy mother's sake, 
 And were I young should love thee for thine o\vn. 
 Afresh in thee her early charms awake, 
 
 And all her witcheries are round thee thrown ; 
 Thine are her girlhood's features, and I know 
 Her many virtues in thy bosom glow. 
 
 Thou art as lovely, though not yet as famed, 
 As that bright maid, the beautiful, the true, 
 
 The gentle being for whom thou wast named, 
 The Juliet that our glorious Shakspeare drew. 
 
 Thine is her magic loveliness — but, oh, 
 
 What fiery youth shall be thy Romeo? 
 
 Whoe'er he be, oh, may his lot and thine 
 Be happier than the lot of those of old ; 
 
 May ye, like them, bow low at 2:)assion's shrine, 
 May love within your bosoms ne'er grow cold ; 
 
 And may your paths be ne'er, like theirs, beset 
 
 By strifes of Montague and Capulet. 
 
106 DAUGHTER OF AX OLD SWEETHEART 
 
 Like his great prototype, thy Romeo, 
 
 Half-frenzied by his passion's raging flame, 
 
 And kindling with a poet's fervid glow, 
 
 May fancy he might cut thy beauteous frame 
 
 Into bright stars to deck the midnight sky — 
 
 But, gentle Juliet, may he never try ! 
 
 I paid the tribute of an humble lay 
 
 To thy fair mother in her girlhood bright. 
 
 And now this humbler ofTering I pay 
 
 To thee, oh, sweet young spirit of delight. 
 
 And may I not, tossed on life's stormy waters, 
 
 Live to make rhymes, dear Juliet, to thy daughters? 
 
REMEMBERED BLISS. 
 
 ALAS ! alas ! I did not think, 
 Amid past hours of deep deh'ght, 
 That aught could break the golden link 
 
 That then between us seemed so bright. 
 We little dream what time may bring : 
 The heart is a mysterious thing ; 
 A change came o'er thy gentle brow, 
 And we are but as strangers now. 
 
 Yet, sometimes in my sadder moods, 
 Amid the scenes of toil and strife, 
 
 And oft in woodland solitudes. 
 Afar from dark and busy life. 
 
 Thy image rises to my eye 
 
 As bright as in the days gone by ; 
 
 Thy voice, low, musical, and clear. 
 
 Steals like a spirit's on my ear ; 
 
 The vanished joys come wildly back 
 
 Along life's dark and arid track ; 
 
 Old thoughts within my bosom stir, 
 
 And I am still thy worshiper. 
 
108 REMEMBERED BLISS. 
 
 The bird that o'er my pathway flies, 
 
 The fleeting vision of a dream, 
 The star that lights awhile the skies, 
 
 Then turns away its silver beam — 
 These, these are emblems to my heart 
 Of what thou wast, of what thou art. 
 The bird, the dream, the star are flown, 
 And I am left alone — alone ; 
 Yet still I hear, with sweet delight. 
 The song the bird sang in her flight ; 
 The dream, with all its fairy train, 
 Still haunts the chambers of my brain ; 
 And often when I gaze afar. 
 
 Through tears, where beamed the vanished star, 
 It seems again to burn on high, 
 The glory of my clouded sky. 
 And on its lovel)/ disk I trace 
 The pictured image of thy face, 
 And kneel in worship, as when first 
 Its Eden-light upon me burst. 
 
 P^sr 
 
MY HEART IS WITH THEE. 
 
 WHEN the breeze with a whisper 
 Steals soft through the grove, 
 A sweet earnest lisper 
 
 Of music and love ; 
 When its gentle caressings 
 
 Away charm each sigh, 
 And the still dews, like blessings, 
 
 Descend from the sky ; 
 When a deep spell is lying 
 
 On hill, vale, and lea — 
 My warm heart is flying, 
 
 Sweet spirit, to thee. 
 
 When stars like sky-blossoms 
 
 Above seem to blow, 
 And waves like young bosoms 
 
 Are swelling below ; 
 When the voice of the river 
 
 Floats mournfully past, 
 
110 MT HE A RT IS UV T// THEE. 
 
 And the forest's low shiver 
 Is borne on the blast ; 
 
 When wild tones are swelling 
 From earth, air, and sea — 
 
 My warm heart is dwelling, 
 Sweet spirit, with thee. 
 
 When the night-clouds are riding. 
 
 Like ghosts, on the gale, 
 And the young moon is gliding. 
 
 Sweet, lonely, and pale ; 
 When the ocean is sobbing 
 
 In ceaseless unrest, 
 And its great heart is throbbing 
 
 All wild in its breast ; 
 When the strong wind is wrestling 
 
 With billow and tree — • 
 My warm heart is nestling. 
 
 Sweet spirit, with thee. 
 
 When in slumber thy fancies 
 
 In loveliness gleam. 
 And a thousand romances 
 
 Are bright in thy dream ; 
 When visions of brightness 
 
 Like young angels start 
 
iMT HEART IS WITH THEE. 
 
 Ill 
 
 In beautiful lightness 
 
 All wild from thy heart ; 
 
 When thy calm sleep is giving 
 Thy dream-wings to thee, 
 
 Oh, say art thou living. 
 Sweet spirit, with me? 
 
MY MOTHER. 
 
 MY mother, 'tis a long and weary time 
 Since last I looked vipon thy sad, sweet face, 
 And listened to the gentle spirit-tones 
 Of thy dear voice of music. I was then 
 A child, a bright-haired child. The fearful thought 
 Which slowly fastened on my throbbing brain, 
 Tliat thou wast passing from the earth away. 
 Was my young life's first sorrow. Through the long 
 And solemn watches of that awful night, 
 Kind friends, who dearly loved us, gathered round 
 Thy dying couch, and, in my agony, 
 I shrieked to them to save thee ; but with tears, 
 And in the tones of holy sympathy. 
 They told me thou wouldst die. 
 
 Ah, then I bowed 
 M}' head to God, whose worship thy dear lips 
 Had taught me, and to Him with bursting heart 
 I prayed that He would spare thee. And, as there 
 I knelt, a holy calm, as if from Heaven, 
 
MT MOTHER. 113 
 
 Came stealing o'er m}- spirit, and a voice 
 
 Floated into my soul. It said that thou 
 
 Must leave me, that thy home was in the sky, 
 
 But that thou still wouldst love and guard thy child, 
 
 And hover round him on thy angel-wings 
 
 In all his wanderings here. 
 
 My mother, then 
 I rose in. more than childhood's strength, and watched 
 The fading of thy life. Dear friends still hung 
 Around thy pillow, but I saw them not. 
 Wild lamentations and deep sobs were breathed 
 From hearts of anguish, but I heard them not. 
 A man of God poured forth his soul in prayer 
 For thy soul's welfare, but I heard him not. 
 I saw but thy wan cheek, thy parted lips, 
 Thy half-closed eyes, so meek and calm beneath 
 Their blue-veined lids ; thy bright, disheveled locks, 
 Thy pallid brow, damp with the dews of death, 
 And the faint heaving of thy breast, that oft 
 In happy hours had pillowed my young head 
 To sweet and gentle slumber ; and I heard 
 But the faint struggle of thy failing breath. 
 Thy stifling sighs, and the high, holy words 
 That seemed to fall like dew-drops on my soul 
 From out the blessed skies. All suddenly 
 Thy dark eyes opened, and a moment looked 
 Upon thy child with one fixed, burning gaze, 
 
114 MT MOTHER. 
 
 In which the deejD and hoarded love of years 
 
 Was all concentred ; a convulsive thrill 
 
 Shot through the fibres of thy v^^asted frame ; 
 
 And Death w^as there — aye, thou wast mine and Death's ; 
 
 And then my tears again gushed wildly forth ; 
 
 But light from Heaven broke through them with a soft 
 
 Prismatic glory, as I gazed above, 
 
 And saw thee mounting, like a new-made star, 
 
 Far up thy glowing pathway in the heavens. 
 
 Long years, my dear, lost mother, have gone by 
 
 Since thy death-hour. My childhood and my youth 
 
 Have passed since then, and my strong manhood's prime 
 
 Has faded like a vision, for my years 
 
 Far, far outnumber thine on earth. I've seen 
 
 Much, much of joy and sorrow ; I have felt 
 
 Life's storms and sunshine, but I ne'er have known 
 
 Such raptures as my full heart shared with thee 
 
 In childhood's fairy years. Now, Time no more 
 
 Scatters fresh roses round my feet ; — his hand 
 
 Lets fall upon my path but pale, torn flowers, 
 
 Dead blossoms, that the gentle dews of eve, 
 
 The morning sunlight and the noontide rains 
 
 Can ne'er revive. E'en thy dear image now, 
 
 The sunlight of my childhood, seems to fade 
 
 From Memory's vision. 'T is as some pale tint 
 
 Upon the twilight wave, a broken glimpse 
 
MY MOTHER. \\[ 
 
 Of something beautiful and dearly loved 
 
 In far-gone years ; a dim and tender dream, 
 
 That, like a faint bow on a darkened sky. 
 
 Lies on my clouded brain. But, oh ! thy voice — 
 
 Its tones can never perish in my soul ; 
 
 It visits me amid the strife of men 
 
 In the dark city's solitude. It comes. 
 
 Amid the silence of the midnight hour, 
 
 Upon my listening spirit like a strain 
 
 Of fairy music o'er the sea. And oft, 
 
 When at the eventide, amid a hush 
 
 Deep as the awful stillness of a dream, 
 
 I stray all lonely through the leafless woods. 
 
 And gaze upon the moon that seems to mourn 
 
 Her lonely lot in heaven, or on the trees. 
 
 That look like frowning Titans in the dim 
 
 And doubtful light, that unforgotteu voice 
 
 Swells on my ear like the low mournful tone 
 
 Imprisoned in the sea-shell, or the sound. 
 
 The melancholy sound, of dying gales 
 
 Panting upon the far-oft' tree-tops. 
 
 Yes, 
 My mother dear, though mountains, hills and streams 
 Divide me from thy grave, where I so oft 
 In childhood laid my bosom on the turf 
 That covered thine ; though the drear winter storms 
 Long, long have cast o'er thee their spotless shrouds, 
 
116 
 
 MT MOTHER. 
 
 And Night her pall, and though thine image sweet, 
 
 The one dear picture cherished through my life, 
 
 Grows dim and dimmer in my brain, thy voice 
 
 Is ever in my ear and in my heart, 
 
 To teach me love and gentleness and truth. 
 
 And warn me from the perils that surround 
 
 The paths of pilgrims o'er this desert earth. 
 
 iArS- 
 
MARY. 
 
 AGAIN the bright and joyous Spring 
 Is passing o'er the eartli, 
 And at her call the woodlands ring 
 
 With melody and mirth. 
 Her music gushes from the stream 
 
 And lingers in the bough, 
 And Natiu-e seems a fairy dream — 
 But, Mary, where art thou ? 
 
 The flowers that faded from our sight 
 
 In Autumn's chilling gale, 
 Again like earthly stars are bright 
 
 On hill and plain and vale. 
 The violet thy dear fingers nursed 
 
 Lifts up its timid brow. 
 And rose and lily bloom as erst — 
 
 But, Mary, where art thou ? 
 
 The many glories of the Spring, 
 
 Its music and its flowers. 
 Back on my saddened spirit bring 
 
 The thoughts of perished hours. 
 
118 MARl'. 
 
 The joy that had its source in thee 
 Seems steaHng o'er me now : 
 
 Alas ! 'tis all a mockery — 
 Sweet Mary, where art thou ? 
 
 Oh, bright ones still, though thou art fled, 
 
 Around my pathway shine, 
 With eyes as blue and lips as red, 
 
 And cheeks as fair as thine ; 
 And still to these, 'mid mirth and song 
 
 Proud men in worship bow : 
 Alas ! I can not join the throng — 
 
 Dear Mary, where art thou ? 
 
 Oft-times in solitude afar, 
 
 Where sin and strife are not, 
 I look on eveiy lovely star 
 
 To seek thy dwelling-spot ; 
 Oh, many round the midnight throne 
 
 Are burning brightly now. 
 But I would gaze on thine alone — 
 
 Dear Mary, where art thou? 
 
TO A BUNCH OF ROSES. 
 
 SWEET flowers, whilst ye impart 
 The fragrance of the spring-time, rich and rare, 
 Go, bear that errand to young Julia's heart, 
 Which only roses bear. 
 
 Go, tell her, lovely flowers, 
 That in my soul her own dear image gleams, 
 A light, a radiance in my waking hours, 
 
 A glory in my dreams. 
 
 Say, though my love is hers. 
 To her alone I can that love reveal ; 
 Among her many burning worshipers 
 
 I would, but may not kneel. 
 
 Tell her it were your bliss 
 Upon her gentle bosom to repose, 
 And she, perhaps, may give you one sweet kiss— 
 
 Oh, that I were a rose ! 
 
A NIGHT IN JUNE. 
 
 NIGHT steals upon the world ; the shades, 
 With silent flight, are sweeping down, 
 To steep, as day's last glory fades, 
 
 In tints of blue the landscape brown ; 
 The wave breaks not ; deep slumber holds 
 The dewy leaves ; the night-wind folds 
 Her melancholy wing ; and sleep 
 Is forth upon the pulseless deep. 
 
 The willows, mid the silent rocks. 
 Are brooding o'er the waters mild. 
 
 Like a fond mother's pendent locks 
 Hung sweetly o'er her sleeping child ; 
 
 The flowers that fringe the purple stream 
 
 Are sinking to their evening dream ; 
 
 And earth appears a lovely spot, 
 
 Where Sorrow's voice awakens not. 
 
 But see ! such pure, such beautiful, 
 And burning scenes awake to birth 
 
 In yon bright depths, they render dull 
 The loveliest tints that mantle earth ! 
 
A NIGHT IN JUNE. 121 
 
 The heavens are rolling blue and fair, 
 And the soft night-gems clustering there 
 Seem, as on high they breathe and burn, 
 Bright blossoms o'er day's shadowy urn. 
 
 At this still hour, when starry songs 
 
 Arc floating through night's glowing noon, 
 
 How sweet to view those radiant throngs 
 Glitter around the throne of June ! 
 
 To see them in their watch of love 
 
 Gaze from the holy heavens above, 
 
 And in their robes of brightness roam 
 
 Like angels o'er the eternal dome ! 
 
 Their light is on the ocean isles, 
 
 'T is trembling on the mountain stream ; 
 And the far hills, beneath their smiles. 
 
 Seem creatures of a blessed dream ! 
 Upon the deep their glory lies, 
 As if untreasurcd from the skies, 
 And comes soft-flashing from its v^^aves, 
 Like sea-gems from their sparry caves ! 
 
 ****** 
 Why gaze I thus ? — 't is worse than vain ! 
 
 'T was here I gazed in years gone by, 
 Ere life's cold winds had breathed one stain 
 
 On Fancy's rich and mellow sky. 
 
122 A NIGHT IN JUNE, 
 
 I feel, I feci those early years 
 Deep thrilling through the fount of tears, 
 And hurrying brightly, wildly back 
 O'er Memory's deep and burning track ! 
 
 "Twas here I gazed ! The night-bird still 
 
 Pours its sweet song ; the starlight beams 
 Still tinge the flower and forest hill ; 
 
 And music gushes from the streams ; 
 But I am changed ! I feel no more 
 The sinless joys that charmed before ; 
 And the dear years, so far departed. 
 Come but to " mock the broken-hearted ! " 
 
LINES TO A LADY. 
 
 LADY, r ve gazed on thee, 
 And thou art now a vision of the Past, 
 A spirit-star, whose holy light is cast 
 On memory's voiceless sea. 
 
 That star — it lingers there 
 As beautiful as 'twere a dewy flower. 
 Soft- wafted down from Eden's glorious bower, 
 
 And floating in mid-air. 
 
 It is, that blessed one, 
 The day-star of my destiny — the first 
 I e'er could worship as the Persian erst 
 
 Worshiped his own loved sun. 
 
 On all my years may lie 
 The shadow of the tempest, their dark flow 
 Be wild and drear, but that dear star will glow 
 
 Still beautiful on high. 
 
BIRTH-DAY REFLECTIONS. 
 
 IT will be over soon. Another 3'ear 
 Is gone, and its low knell is tolling now 
 O'er the wide ocean of the Past. 
 
 Alas ! 
 I am not as in boyhood. There were hours 
 Of joyousness that came like angel-shapes 
 Upon my heart, but they are altered now, 
 And rise on Memory's view like statues pale 
 By a dim fount of tears. And there were streams 
 Upon whose breasts the sweet young blossoms leaned, 
 To list the gush of music, but their depths 
 Are turned to dust. There, too, were blessed lights 
 That shone, sweet rainbows of the spirit, o'er 
 The skies of new existence, but their gleams. 
 Like the lost Pleiad of the olden time, 
 Have faded from the zenith, and are lost 
 'Mid earth's cold mockeries ! 
 
 How all is changed ! 
 The guardians of my young and sinless years 
 No more are dwellers of the earth. Their tones 
 
BIR TH-DA r REFL E C TIOXS. 1 25 
 
 Of love oft dwell upon the twilight breeze, 
 
 Or wander sweetly down through mists and dews, 
 
 At midnight's calm and melancholy hour. 
 
 But voice alone is there ! Ages of thought 
 
 Come o'er me then, and, with a spirit won 
 
 Back to mv earlier years, I kneel again 
 
 At young life's broken shrine. 
 
 The thirst of power 
 Has been a ffver to my spirit. Oft, 
 Even in my boyhood, I was wont to gaze 
 Upon the awful cataract rushing down 
 With its eternal thunder peal, the lone 
 Expanse of Ocean with its infinite 
 Of dark blue waters roaring to the heavens. 
 The night-storm fiercely rending the great oaks 
 From their rock-pinnacles, the giant-clouds 
 Waving their plumes like warriors in the sky. 
 And darting their quick lightning through the air 
 Like the red flash of swords — aye, I was wont 
 To gaze on these and almost weep to think 
 I could not match their strength. The same wild thirst 
 For power is yet upon me ; it has been 
 A madness in my day-dreams, and a curse 
 Upon my being ; it has led me on 
 To mingle in the strife of men ; and now 
 A myriad foes have left upon my name 
 The stain of their vile breaths. 
 
 # 
 
126 BIRTH-DAY REFLECTIONS. 
 
 Well, be it so ! 
 There is a silent purpose in my heart, 
 And neither love, nor hate, nor fear shall quell 
 That one fixed daring. Though my being's stream 
 Gives forth no music now, 't is passing back 
 To its great fountain in the skies, and there 
 'T will rest forever in the ocean-tide 
 Of God's immensity. I will not mourn 
 Life's shrouded memories. I can still drink in 
 The unshadowed beauties of the universe, 
 Gaze with a soul of pride upon the blue 
 Magnificence above, and hear the hymns 
 Of Heaven in all the starry beams, and fill 
 Glen, vale, and wood and mountain with the bright 
 And glorious visions poured from the deep home 
 Of an immortal mind. Past year, farewell! 
 
THE INVALID'S REPLY. 
 
 YES, clear one, I am dying. Hope at times 
 Has whispered to me, in her siren tones, 
 But now, alas ! I feel tlie tide of life 
 Fast ebbing from my heart. I know that soon 
 The green and flowery curtain of the grave 
 Will close as softly round my fading form 
 As the calm shadows of the evening hour 
 Close o'er the fading stream. 
 
 Oh ! there are times 
 When my heart's tears gush wildly at the thought 
 That, in the fresh, young morning-tide of life, 
 I must resign my breath. To me the earth 
 Is very beautiful. I love its flowers. 
 Its birds, its dews, its rainbows, its glad streams, 
 Its vales, its mountains, its green, wooing woods, 
 Its moonlight clouds, its sunsets, and its soft 
 And dewy twilights ; and I needs must mourn 
 To think that I so soon shall pass awa}^. 
 And see them nevermore. 
 
 But thou, the loved 
 And fondly cherished idol of my life, 
 
128 THE INVALID'S REPL7~. 
 
 Thou dear twin-spirit of my deathless soul, 
 
 'Twill be the keenest anguish of my heart 
 
 To part from thee. True, we have never loved 
 
 With the wild passion that fills heart and brain 
 
 With flame and madness, yet my love for thee 
 
 Is my life's life. A deeper, holier love 
 
 Has never sighed and wept beneath the stars, 
 
 Or glowed within the breasts of saints in heaven. 
 
 It does not seem a passion of my heart. 
 
 It is a portion of my soul. I feel 
 
 That I am but a softened shade of thee. 
 
 And that my spirit, parted from thine own, 
 
 Might fade and perish from the universe 
 
 Like a star-shadow when the star itself 
 
 Is hidden by the storm-cloud. Aye, I fear 
 
 That Heaven itself, though filled with love and God, 
 
 Will be to me all desolate, if thou, 
 
 Dear spirit, art not there. I 've often prayed 
 
 That I might die before thee, for I felt 
 
 I could not dwell without thee on the earth, 
 
 And now my heart is breaking at the thought 
 
 Of d3'ing while thou livest, for I feel, 
 
 M}^ life's dear idol, that I can not dwell 
 
 Without thee in the sk}'. Yet well I know 
 
 That love like ours, so holy, pure and high, 
 
 So far above the passions of the earth. 
 
 Can perish not with mortal life„ In Heaven 
 
THE INVALID'S REPLY. 129 
 
 'Twill brighten to a lovely star, and glow 
 
 In the far ages of eternity, 
 
 More beautiful and radiant than when first 
 
 'T was kindled into glory. Oh! I love, 
 
 I dearly love thee — these will be my last, 
 
 AIv dving words upon the earth, and thev 
 
 Will be my fnst when we shall meet in Heaven ; 
 
 And when ten thousand myriads of years 
 
 Shall fade into the past eternity, 
 
 M3' soul will breathe the same dear words to thine — 
 
 I love thee, oh ! I love thee ! 
 
 Weak and low 
 
 My pulse of life is fluttering at my heart. 
 
 And soon 'twill cease forever. These faint words 
 
 Are the last echoes of the spirit's chords, 
 
 Stirred by the breath of Memory. Bear me, love, 
 
 I pray thee, to yon open window now. 
 
 That I may look once more on Nature's face 
 
 And listen to her gentle music-tone — 
 
 Her holy voice of love. How beautiful. 
 
 How very beautiful, are earth and sea. 
 
 And the o'erarching sky, to one whose eyes 
 
 Are soon to close upon the scenes of Time ! 
 
 Yon blue lake sleeps beneath the flower-crowned hill 
 
 With his sweet picture on her breast ; the white 
 
 And rosy clouds are floating through the air 
 
 Like cars of happy spirits ; every leaf 
 
130 THE INVALID'S REPLT. 
 
 And flower is colored by the crimson hues 
 
 Of the rich sunset, as the heart is tinged 
 
 By thoughts of Paradise ; and the far trees 
 
 Seem as if leaning, like departed souls, 
 
 Upon the holy heavens. And look ! oh look ! 
 
 Yon lovely star, the glorious evening star, 
 
 Is shining there, far, far above the mists 
 
 And dews of earth, like the bright star of faith 
 
 Above our mortal tears ! I ne'er before 
 
 Beheld the earth so green, the sky so blue, 
 
 The sunset and the star of eve so bright, 
 
 And soft, and beautiful ; I never felt 
 
 The dewy twilight breeze so calm and fresh 
 
 Upon my cheek and brow ; I never heard 
 
 The melodies of wind, and bird, and wave, 
 
 Fall with such sweetness on the ear. I know 
 
 That Heaven is full of glory, but a God 
 
 Of love and mercy will forgive the tears, 
 
 Wrung from the fountain of my frail young heart, 
 
 By the sad thought of parting with the bright 
 
 And lovely things of earth. 
 
 And, dear one, now 
 I feel that my poor heart must bid farewell 
 To thine. Oh ! no, no, dearest ! not farewell, 
 For oft I will be with thee on the earth, 
 Although my home be Heaven. At eventide 
 When thou art wandering by the silent stream, 
 
THE INVALID'S REPLY. 131 
 
 To muse upon the sweet and mournful Past, 
 I will walk with thee, hand in hand, and share 
 Thy gentle thoughts and fancies ; in thy grief, 
 When all seems dark and desolate around 
 Thy bleak and lonely pathway, I will glide 
 Like a bright shadow o'er thy soul, and charm 
 Away thy sorrow ; in the quiet hush 
 Of the deep night, when thy dear head is laid 
 Upon thy pillow, and thy spirit craves 
 Communion with my spirit, I will come 
 To nerve thy heart with strength, and gently lay 
 My lip upon th}- forehead with a touch 
 Like the soft kisses of the southern breeze 
 Stealing o'er bowers of roses ; when the wild, 
 Dark storms of life beat fiercely on thy head. 
 Thou wilt behold my semblance on the cloud, 
 A rainbow to thy spirit ; I will bend 
 At times above the fount within thy soul. 
 And thou wilt see my image in its depths, 
 Gazing into thy dark eyes with a smile 
 As I have gazed in life. And I will come 
 To thee in dreams, my spirit-mate, and we. 
 With clasping hands and interwining wings, 
 Will nightly wander o'er the starry deep, 
 And by the blessed streams ot Paradise, 
 Loving: in Heaven as wc have loved on earth. 
 
COME TO ME IN DREAMS. 
 
 COME in beautiful dreams, love, 
 Oh ! come to me oft, 
 When the light wings of sleep 
 
 On my bosom lie soft ; 
 Oh ! come when tlie sea, 
 
 In the moon's gentle light, 
 Beats low on the ear 
 
 Like the pulse of the night; 
 When the sky and the wave 
 
 Wear their holiest blue, 
 When the dew 's on the flower 
 
 And the star on the dew. 
 
 Come in beautiful dreams, love, 
 
 Oh ! come and we '11 stray 
 Where the whole year is crowned 
 
 With the blossoms of May ; 
 Where each sound is as sweet 
 
 As the coo of a dove, 
 And the gales are as soft 
 
 As the breathing of love ; 
 
 1< 
 
COME TO ME IN DREAMS. 133 
 
 Where the beams kiss the waves, 
 
 And the waves kiss the beach, 
 And our warm lips shall catch 
 
 The sweet lessons they teach. 
 
 Come in beautiful dreams, love. 
 
 Oh ! come and we '11 fly 
 Like two winged spirits 
 
 Of love through the sky ; 
 With hand clasped in hand 
 
 On our dream-wings we'll go 
 Where the starlight and moonlight 
 
 Are blending their glow ; 
 And on bright clouds we 'il linger 
 
 Of purple and gold. 
 Till love's angels envy 
 
 The bliss they behold. 
 
TO ROSA. 
 
 NOT in the Grecian isles, 
 Not where the bright flowers of Illyssus shine, 
 E'er moved a breathing form whose beauty's wiles 
 Could match with thine. 
 
 Not where the golden glow 
 
 Of Italy's clear sky is pure and clear. 
 Not where the beauteous waves of Leman flow, 
 
 Hast thou thy peer. 
 
 Not where the sunlight falls 
 
 On bright Circassia through the perfumed air. 
 Nor in old Stamboul's oriental halls, 
 
 'Dwells one so fair. 
 
 No fabled form of old. 
 
 Not hers who rose from out the foaming sea, 
 Though deemed more fair than aught of earthly mould, 
 
 Transcended thee. 
 
TO ROSA. 135 
 
 In thy dark eyes a spell 
 
 Of beauty lingers, but their glance of fire, 
 When thy proud spirit is aroused, might quell 
 
 The lion's ire. 
 
 Thou movest floatingly, 
 
 As the light cloud that to the zephyr yields, 
 But with a step proud as a queen's might be 
 
 O'er conquered fields. 
 
 And thou hast that strange gift, 
 
 The gift of genius, high and proud and strong. 
 At whose behest thoughts beautiful and swift 
 
 Around thee throng. 
 
 They come to thee from far, 
 
 From air, and earth, and ocean's boundless deeps ; 
 They rush in glory from each shining star 
 
 On heaven's blue steeps. 
 
 They leap from earth's far bound — 
 
 Forth from the red volcano's depths they start — 
 From bow and cloud they float — and gather round 
 
 Thy burning heart. 
 
 Then at thy high command 
 
 They stand all mai-shaled in thy peerless lay, 
 As some great warrior marshals his proud band 
 
 In bright array. 
 
13G TO ROSA. 
 
 Th}^ hand has power to trace 
 
 Words as enduring as yon planet's flame, 
 Words that forever, 'mid our changing race, 
 
 Will keep thy name. 
 
 Linked witli bright song alone. 
 
 That name o'er Time's wild heaving waves will sweep, 
 As o'er the water sweeps the bugle tone 
 
 At midnight deep. 
 
 Thy magic strains v\m11 make 
 
 A portion of earth's living music, heard 
 Forever, like the cadences of lake 
 
 And breeze and bird. 
 
 The world of Nature glows 
 
 In thy bright page more lovely to the eye, 
 As when, o'er hills and plain, the sunset throws 
 
 Its golden dye. 
 
 And thou art very dear 
 
 To many hearts, thou bright and gifted one, 
 Aye, men adore thee, as the Persian seer 
 
 Adored the sun. 
 
A MEISIORY- 
 
 I KNOW a fair young girl, 
 With a spirit Avikl and free 
 As the birds that flit o'er the dimpling wave, 
 
 Then away to the wildwood flee ; 
 And she seems like a wreath of mist, 
 
 As she moves tlirough tlie summer bowers, 
 With a step too floatingly soft to break 
 The sleep of the dreaming flowers. 
 
 Her eye is bright and clear 
 
 As the depths of a shaded spring, 
 And beauty's name on her brow is set — 
 
 On her cheek its signet-ring ; 
 And her voice is like the soimd 
 
 Of a wave through the twilight leaves, 
 Or a Peri's tones from a moonlight cloud 
 
 In the hush of the summer eves. 
 
 Along her temples pale, 
 
 The blue veins seem to flow, 
 In their winding course, half seen, half hid, 
 
 Like streams in a field of snow ; 
 
A MEMORY. 
 
 And her shining tresses there 
 
 Their beautiful light unfold, 
 Like a painted cloud where the sunset lifts 
 
 Its shadowy wings of gold. 
 
 To me each thought of her 
 
 Is a gleam of light and love, 
 A gentle dream sent down to earth 
 
 From the holy depths above ; 
 'T is a blessed simbeam cast 
 
 On affliction's cloud of tears, 
 A star o'er the waste of a weary heart, 
 
 A bow on the sky of years. 
 
THE FLIGHT OF YEARS. 
 
 GONE ! gone forever ! — like a rushing wave 
 Another Year has burst upon the shore 
 Of earthly being, and its last low tones, 
 Wandering in broken accents on the air, 
 Are dying to an echo. 
 
 The gay Spring, 
 With its young charms, has gone — gone with its leaves- 
 Its atmosphere of roses — its white clouds 
 Slumbering like seraphs in the air — its birds 
 Telling their loves in music — and its streams 
 Leaping and shouting from the up-piled rocks 
 To make earth echo with the joy of waves. 
 And Summer, with its dews and showers, has gone — 
 Its rainbows glowing on the distant cloud 
 Like Spirits of the Storm — its 2:)eaceful lakes 
 Smiling in their sweet sleep, as if their dreams 
 Were of the opening flowers and budding trees 
 And overhanging sky — and its bright mists 
 Resting upon the mountain-tops, as crowns 
 Upon the heads of giants. Autumn, too, 
 Has gone, with all its deeper glories — gone 
 
140 THE FLIGHT OF TEARS. 
 
 With its green hills like altars of the world 
 Lifting their rich fruit-ofi'erings to their God — 
 Its cool winds straying mid the forest aisles 
 To wake their thousand wind-harps — its serene 
 And holy sunsets hanging o'er the West 
 Like banners from the battlements of heaven — 
 And its still evenings, when the moonlit sea 
 Was ever throbbing, like the living heart 
 Of the great Universe. Aye — these are now 
 But sounds and visions of the Past — their deep, 
 Wild beauty has departed from the earth, 
 And they are gathered to the embrace of Death, 
 Their solemn herald to Eternity. 
 
 Nor have they gone alone. High human hearts 
 Of passion have gone with them. The fresh dust 
 Is chill on many a breast, that burned erewhile 
 W^ith fires that seemed immoital. Joys, that leaped 
 Like angels from the heart, and wandered free 
 In life's young morn to look upon the flowers, 
 The poetry of nature, and to list 
 The woven sounds of breeze, and bird, and stream, 
 Upon the night-air, have been stricken down 
 In silence to the dust. Exultant Hope, 
 That roved forever on the buoyant winds 
 Like the bright, starry bird of Paradise, 
 And chanted to the ever-listening heart 
 
THE FLIGHT OF TEARS. \^\ 
 
 \\\ the wild music of a thousand tongues, 
 
 Or soared into the open sky, until 
 
 Night's burning gems seemed jeweled on her brow, 
 
 Has shut her drooping wing, and made her home 
 
 Within the voiceless sepulcher. And Love, 
 
 That knelt at Passion's holiest shrine, and gazed 
 
 On his heart's idol as on some sweet star, 
 
 Whose purity and distance make it dear, 
 
 And dreamed of ecstacies, until his soul 
 
 Seemed but a lyre tliat wakened in the glance 
 
 Of the beloved one — he too has gone 
 
 To his eternal resting-place. And where 
 
 Is stern Ambition — he who madly grasped 
 
 At Glory's fleeting phantom — he who sought 
 
 His fame upon the battlefield, and longed 
 
 To make his throne a pyramid of bones 
 
 Amid the sea of blood? He too has gone ! 
 
 His stormy voice is mute — his mighty arm 
 
 Is nerveless on its clod — his very name 
 
 Is but a meteor of the night of years 
 
 Whose gleams flashed out a moment o'er the earth, 
 
 And faded into nothingness. The dream 
 
 Of high devotion, beauty's bright array, 
 
 And life's deep idol memories — all have passed 
 
 Like the cloud-shadows on the starlit stream, 
 
 Or a soft strain of music, when the winds 
 
142 THE FLIGHT OF TEARS. 
 
 Are slumbering on the billow. 
 
 Yet, wliy muse 
 Upon the Past with sorrow? Though the Year 
 Has gone to blend with the mysterious tide 
 Of old Eternity, and borne along 
 Upon its heaving breast a thousand wrecks 
 Of glor}' and of beauty — yet, ^vhy mourn 
 That such is destiny? Another Year 
 Succeedeth to the past — in their bright round 
 The seasons came and go — the same blue arch, 
 That hath hung o'er us, will hang o'er us yet — 
 The same pure stars that we have loved to watch, 
 Will blossom still at twilight's gentle hour 
 Like lilies on the tomb of Day — and still 
 Man will remain, to dream as he hath dreamed, 
 And mark the earth with passion. Love will spring 
 From the lone tomb of old affections — Hope 
 And Joy and great Ambition, will rise up 
 As they have risen — and their deeds will be 
 Brighter than those engraven on the scroll 
 Of parted centuries. Even now the sea 
 Of coming years, beneath whose mighty waves 
 Life's great events are heaving into birth, 
 Is tossing to and fro, as if the winds 
 Of heaven were prisoned in its soundless depths 
 And struggling to be free. 
 
THE FLIGHT OF TEARS. 143 
 
 Weep not, that Time 
 Is passing on — it will ere long reveal 
 A brighter era to the nations. Hark ! 
 Along the vales and mountains of the earth 
 There is a deep, portentous murmuring, 
 Like the swift rush of subterranean streams, 
 Or like the mingled sounds of earth and air. 
 When the fierce Tempest, with sonorous wing. 
 Heaves his deep folds upon the rushing winds. 
 And hurries onward with his night of clouds 
 Against the eternal mountains. 'T is the voice 
 Of infiint Freedom — and her stirring call 
 Is heard and answered in a thousand tones 
 From everv hill-top of her Western home ; 
 And lo ! it breaks across old Ocean's flood. 
 And " Freedom ! Freedom ! " is the answering shout 
 Of nations starting from the spell of years. 
 The day-spring ! — see, 'tis brightening in the heavens! 
 The watchmen of the night have caught the sign — 
 From tower to tower the signal-fires flash free — 
 And the deep watch-word, like the rush of seas 
 That heralds the volcano's bursting flame, 
 Is sounding o'er the earth. Bright 3^ears of hope 
 And life are on the wing! — yon glorious bow 
 Of Freedom, bended by the hand of God, 
 Is spanning Time's dark surges. Its high arch, 
 A type of Love and Mercy on the cloud. 
 
144 
 
 THE FLIGHT OF YEA'-S. 
 
 Tells that the many storms of human life 
 Will pass in silence, and the sinking waves, 
 Gathering the forms of glory and of peace, 
 Reflect the undimmed brightness of the heavens. 
 
TO A BEAUTIFUL AUTHORESS.* 
 
 I LONGED to see thee, gifted one, 
 For fame, in accents warm. 
 Had told me of thy loveliness 
 Of mind, and face, and form ; 
 But oh, I did not think to meet 
 Such charms as I have met ; 
 My dreams of thee were very bright, 
 But thou art brighter yet. 
 
 When Plato lay, in infancy. 
 
 In slumber's soft eclipse, 
 
 'T is said the gentle honey-bees 
 
 Came clustering 'round his lips ; 
 
 And thus, as on thy lips we look, 
 
 So eloquent and warm, 
 
 A thousand sweet and winged thoughts 
 
 Around thee seem to swarm. 
 
 *The authoress of " Belle Smith Abroad." 
 
146 TO A BEAUTIFUL AUTHORESS. 
 
 A spell is in thy dark, bright ej-es. 
 
 The wildest soul to tame, 
 
 Dark as the tempest-cloud and bright 
 
 As its quick glance of flame ; 
 
 And gating in their earnest depths, 
 
 I see more angels there 
 
 Than fancy, to a dreaming seer, 
 
 E'er pictured in the air. 
 
 Young Genius his own coronal 
 
 Around thy forehead wreathes, 
 
 And high thoughts are the atmosphere 
 
 In which thy spirit breathes ; 
 
 Thy soul can read the mysteries 
 
 Of cloud, and sky, and star, 
 
 And hear the tones of Eden-spheres 
 
 Borne sweetly down from far. 
 
 For thee, the soul of poetry 
 
 The universe pervades — 
 
 It glitters in the light, and dwells, 
 
 All softened, in the shades ; 
 
 The young waves murmur it, the dew 
 
 Reflects it from the flower. 
 
 The blue skies breathe it, and the air 
 
 Thrills with its mystic power. 
 
TO A BEAUTIFUL AUTHORESS. 
 
 147 
 
 Press on, briglit one, press proudly on 
 
 To win the laurel crown, 
 
 And set thy living- name among 
 
 The names of old renown ; 
 
 Press on, press on, and thy bright fame 
 
 Will never, never die, 
 
 But, like the ivy, brighter grow 
 
 As centuries pass by. 
 
HENRY CLAY. 
 
 [written after his death.] 
 
 WITH voice and miea of stern control, 
 He stood among the great and proud, 
 And words of fire burst from his soid 
 
 Like lightnings from the tempest-cloud ; 
 His high and deathless themes were crowned 
 
 With glory of his genius born. 
 And gloom and ruin darkly frowned 
 
 Where fell his bolts of wrath and scorn. 
 
 But he is gone, the free, the bold, 
 
 The champion of his country's right ; 
 His burning eye is dim and cold. 
 
 And mute his voice of conscious might. 
 Oh, no ! not mute ; the stirring call 
 
 Can startle tyrants on their thrones. 
 And on the hearts of nations fall 
 
 More awful than his living tones. 
 
 .1 
 
HENRT CLAY. 149 
 
 The impulse that his spirit gave 
 
 To humun thought's wild, stormy sea, 
 Will heave and thrill through every wave 
 
 Of that great deep eternally ; 
 And (he all-circling atmosphere, 
 
 With which is blent his breath of flame. 
 Will sound with cadence deep and clear, 
 
 In storm and calm, his voice and name. 
 
 His words, that like a bugle blast 
 
 Erst rang along the Grecian shore. 
 And o'er the hoary Andes passed, 
 
 Will still ring on forevermore. 
 Great Liberty will catch the sounds, 
 
 And start to newer, brighter life, 
 And summon from earth's utmost bounds 
 
 Her children to the glorious strife. 
 
 Unnumbered pilgrims o'er the wave. 
 
 In the far ages yet to be, 
 Will come to kneel beside his grave, 
 
 And hail him prophet of the free. 
 'T is holier ground, that lowly bed, 
 
 In which liis mouldering form is laid, 
 Than fields where Liberty has bled 
 
 Beside her broken battle-blade. 
 
150 
 
 HENRT CLAY. 
 
 Who, now in danger's fearful hour, 
 
 When all around is wild and dark, 
 Shall guide, with voice and arm of power, 
 
 Our Freedom's consecrated ark? 
 With stricken hearts, O God ! to thee. 
 
 Beneath whose feet the stars are dust. 
 We bow, and ask that thou wilt be. 
 
 Through every ill, our stay and trust. 
 
MY OLD HOME. 
 
 AND I have come yet once again to stray 
 Where erst I strayed in childhood. Oh, 'tis sweet 
 To gaze upon the dear old landscape ! Here 
 My thoughts first reveled in the wild delight 
 Of new existence ! Here my infant eye 
 First dwelt on Nature in her loveliness : 
 The golden flash of waters, the bright flowers 
 That seemed to spring in very wantonness 
 From every hill and stream ; the earth's green leaves, 
 The moonlight mountains, the bright crimson gush, 
 That deepening streamed along the sUies of morn, 
 And the rich heavens of sunset ! Here I loved 
 To gaze upon the holy arch of eve 
 In breathless longing, till I almost dreamed 
 That I was mingling with its glorious depths, 
 A portion of their purity ; to muse 
 Upon the stars through many a lonely night. 
 Till their deep tones of mystic minstrelsy 
 Were borne into my heart ; to list at morn 
 The gentle voice of song-birds in their jo}^ 
 Lifting on high their matins, till my soul. 
 
152 MY OLD HOME. 
 
 Like theirs, gushed fortli in music ; and to look 
 Upon the clouds in beauty wandering up 
 The deep blue zenith, till my heart, like them, 
 Went far away through yon high paths to seek 
 The home of thought and spirit in the heavens. 
 
 Years have passed by upon their shadowy wings, 
 
 Yet o'er this spot no change has come to tell 
 
 The noiseless flight of Time. The far-oft" hills 
 
 Are still as blue, the wave as musical. 
 
 The wild rose blooms as fresh and fair, the winds 
 
 Breathe yet as freshly on my brow, the trees 
 
 Still cast as soft a shadow, and as sweet 
 
 The violet springs to woo the breath of heaven, 
 
 As in my years of infancy. I range 
 
 Where erst I sported by the leaping stream. 
 
 And the glad birds, as they remembered yet 
 
 And loved the stranger, chant the same sweet songs 
 
 I straved to hear ere childhood's silken locks 
 
 Had darkened on my temples. Can it be 
 
 That the dark seal of Time and Change is set 
 
 Upon my brow ? Each spot I loved still blooms 
 
 In beauty undecayed ; I hear no sound 
 
 That tells the tale of years ; and can it be 
 
 That I alone am faded? Were it not 
 
Mr OLD HOME. 153 
 
 That many a fearful tale of sin and woe, 
 
 And strife and desolation, has been graved 
 
 On Memory's darkened scroll — oh, were it not 
 
 That passion's burning pathway has been traced 
 
 So deep, so fiercely vivid, that my heart 
 
 Is withering yet beneath it, I could deem 
 
 That I were still a pure and sinless child 
 
 Just 'wakened from a long, long dream of tears. 
 
 To gaze again in infant recklessness 
 
 On earth, and heaven, and ocean, and again 
 
 To paint the future as a lovely throng 
 
 Of bright and glorious visions beckoning on 
 
 To the blue beauty of life's Eden-isles. 
 
 An ! 'tis as in my childhood. Years have passed, 
 
 Long years of weariness, since last I gazed 
 
 Upon those hills and waters ; yet agaiti, 
 
 As here I muse, life's early memories 
 
 Steal in their freshness o'er me, and my heart 
 
 Leaps to the sweet, wild melody that thrilled 
 
 Through all its depths ere life's bright bow had gone 
 
 From childhood's purple morning, or the stream 
 
 Of Time, that gushed exulting by, had lost 
 
 The tints of Heaven's blue beauty. Memory hangs 
 
 With fondness on each dear memento yet, 
 
154 MT OLD HOME. 
 
 That tells of those far years ; and many a chord, 
 Touched by her melancholy hand, awakes 
 From its long, dreamless slumber, and its strains 
 Of sweet and mournful music faintly fall 
 Upon the ear of Fancy, like the tones 
 That come upon the dying winds of eve 
 From the far moonlight ocean, when the storm 
 Sleeps on the night-cloud and the waters heave 
 As heaves the stricken bosom. 
 
 Every scene 
 Is living with the voiceless spirit still 
 Of life's departed Eden. Early joys, 
 So sweet, so beautiful, they almost seem 
 The wild creations of a wizard tale, 
 With lightning-glow are flashing up life's stream, 
 And breaking on my spirit with a power 
 I thought had died to live no more. I gaze 
 On scenes once blended with the happy hours 
 Of youth and ecstasy, and feel that life, 
 Though shadowed by the somber wing of years, 
 Is not all turned to bitterness. The flame 
 Has fallen, and its high and fitful gleams 
 Perchance have faded, but the living fires 
 Still glow beneath the ashes. The bright stream 
 Is wasted, and its wave has ceased to flash 
 In gladness to the sunlight, and to bear 
 The flowers upon its sparkling bosom, yet 
 
Ml' OLD HOME. 155 
 
 'Twill flow on in undying ficshncss still 
 Deep in its buried channels evermore. 
 
 Ah ! how the silent memories of years 
 
 Are stirring in my spirit. I have been 
 
 A lone and joyless wanderer. I have roamed 
 
 Abroad through other climes, where tropic flowers 
 
 Were offering up their incense, and the stars 
 
 Swimming like living creatures ; I have strayed 
 
 Where the soft skies of Italy were hung 
 
 In beautiful transiDarency above, 
 
 And glory floating like a lovely dream 
 
 O'er the rich landscape ; yet dear Fancy still, 
 
 'Mid all the richer glow of brighter realms, 
 
 Oft turned to picture the remembered home, 
 
 That blessed its earliest day-dreams. Must I go 
 
 Forth in the world again.-* I've proved its joys. 
 
 Till joy was turned to bitterness — I've felt 
 
 Its sorrows till I thought my heart would burst 
 
 With the fierce rush of tears ! The sorrowing babe 
 
 Clings to its mother's breast. The bleeding dove 
 
 Flies to her native vale, and nestles there 
 
 To die amid the quiet grove, where first 
 
 She tried her tender pinion. I could love 
 
 Thus to repose amid these peaceful scenes 
 
156 ^'^^ OLD HOME. 
 
 To memory dear. Oh, it were passing sweet 
 
 To rest forever on tliis lovely spot, 
 
 Where passed my days of innocence — to dream 
 
 Of the pure stream of infant happiness 
 
 Sunk in life's wild and burning sands — to dwell 
 
 On visions faded, till my broken heart 
 
 Should cease to throb — to purify my soul 
 
 With high and holy musings — and to lift 
 
 Its aspirations to the central home 
 
 Of love, and peace, and holiness in Heaven. 
 
NIGHT IN CAVE HILL CEMETERY. 
 
 ONE evening, dear Virginia, in thy life, 
 When thou and I were straying side by side 
 Beneath the holy moonlight, and our thoughts 
 Seemed taking a deep hue of mournfulness 
 From the sweet, solemn hour, I said — if thou, 
 Whose young years scarcely numbered half my own, 
 Should'st pass before me to the spirit-land, 
 I would, on some mild eve beneath the moon, 
 Shining in heaven as it was shining then. 
 Go forth alone to lay me by thy grave. 
 And render to thy cherished memory 
 The last sad tribute of a stricken heart. 
 Thine answer was a sigh, a tear, a sob, 
 A gentle pressure of the hand, and thus 
 My earnest vow was hallowed. A thin cloud, 
 Like a pale winding-sheet, that moment passed 
 Across the moon, and as its shadow fell. 
 Like a mysterious omen of the tomb. 
 Upon our kindred spirits, thou didst turn 
 Thine eye to that wan specter of the skies, 
 And, gazing on the solemn portent, weep 
 As if thy head were waters. 
 
158 NIGHT IN CAVE HILL CE METER T. 
 
 Weary years 
 Since then have planted furrows on my brow, 
 And sorrows in niy heart, and the pale moon, 
 That shone around us on that lovely eve, 
 Is shining now upon thy swarded grave, 
 And I have come, a pilgrim of the night, 
 To bow at Memory's holy shrine, and keep 
 My unforgotten vow. 
 
 Dear, parted one, 
 Friend of my better years, dark months have passed 
 With all their awful shadows o'er the earth, 
 Since the green turf was laid above thy rest, 
 'Aiid sighs and streaming tears and stifled groans, 
 But, oh ! thy gentle memory is not dim 
 In the deep hearts that loved thee. We have set 
 This sweet young rose-tree o'er thy hallowed grave. 
 And may the skies shed their serenest dews 
 Around it, may the summer clouds distil 
 Their gentlest rains vipon it, may the fresh 
 Warm zephyrs fan it with their softest breath. 
 And daily may the bright and holy beams 
 Of morning greet it with their sweetest smile, 
 That it may wave its roses o'er thy dust, 
 Dear emblems of the flowers that thou so oft 
 In life didst fling upon our happy hearts 
 From thy own spirit's Eden. Yet we know 
 
NIGHT I.V CAVE HTLL CEMETBRV. ir,9 
 
 'T is but an humble ofiering to ihce, 
 
 Who dwcllcst where the fadeless roses bloom, 
 
 In Heaven's eternal sunshine. 
 
 To our eyes 
 Thy beauty has not faded from the earth ; 
 We see it in the flowers tliat lift their lids 
 To greet the early spring-time, in tlie bow 
 The magic pencil of the sunshine paints 
 Upon the flying rain-clouds, in the stars 
 That glitter from the blue ab\ss of night, 
 And in the strange, mysterious loveliness 
 Of every holy sunset. To our ears 
 The music of thy loved tones is not lost ; 
 We hear it in the low, sweet cadences 
 Of wave and stream and fountain, in the notes 
 Of birds that from the sky and forest hail 
 The sunrise with their smgs, and in the wild 
 And soul-like breathings of the evening wind 
 Of grove and forest. Yet no sight or sound 
 In all the world of Nature is as sweet, 
 Dear, lost Virginia, as when thou wast here 
 To gaze and listen with us. The young flowers 
 And the pure stars seem pale and cold and dim, 
 As if they looked through blinding tears : — alas ! 
 The tears are in our eyes. The melodies 
 Of wave and stream and bird and forest-harp, 
 
IGO NIGHT IN CAVE HILL CEMETERT. 
 
 Borne on the soft wings of the evening gale, 
 Seem blended with a deep wail for the dead : — 
 Alas ! the wail is in our hearts. 
 
 Lost one ! 
 We miss thee in our sadness and our joy ! 
 When at the solemn eventide we strav, 
 'Mid the still gathering of the twilight shades, 
 To muse w^on the dear and hallowed Past, 
 With its deep, mournful memories, a voice 
 Comes from the still recesses of our hearts — 
 " SJie is not herd" In the gay, festive hour, 
 When music peals upon the perfumed air, 
 And wit and mirth are ringing in our ears. 
 And light forms floating round us in the dance. 
 And jewels flashing through luxuriant curls. 
 And deep tones breathing vows of tenderness 
 And truth to listening beauty, even then. 
 Amid the wild enchantments of the hour, 
 To many a heart the Past comes back again, 
 And, as the fountain of its tears is stirred, 
 A voice comes sounding from its holiest depths — 
 '■''Alas! she is not here!" The spring-time now 
 Is forth upon the fresh green earth, the vales 
 Are one bright wilderness of blooms, the woods. 
 With all their wealth of rainbow tints, repose, 
 Like fairy clouds uoon the vernal sky. 
 
NIGHT IX CAVE HILL CEMBTERT. 161 
 
 And every gnle is burdened witli the gush 
 
 Of music — free, wild music ; yet, lost one, 
 
 Through all these wildering melodies, that voice 
 
 As from the very heart of Nature comes — 
 
 "■Alas/ s/ic is 7iot here!'" But list ! oh, list ! — 
 
 From the eternal depths of yonder sky, 
 
 From where the flash of sun and star is dim, 
 
 Is unci'eated light, an angel strain. 
 
 As sweet as that in which the morning stars 
 
 Together sang o'er the creation's birtli, 
 
 Comes floating downward through the ravished air — 
 
 '■'"Joy I joy! she^s here! she'' s here! " 
 
 'T is midnight deep, 
 And a pale cloud, like that whose shadow fell 
 Upon our souls on that remembered eve, 
 Is passing o'er the moon, but now the shade 
 Falls on one heart alone. I am alone. 
 My dear and long-lost friend. Oh ! wheresoe'er 
 In the vast imiverse of God thou art, 
 I pray thee stoop at this mysterious hour 
 To the dark earth from thy all-radiant home, 
 And hold communion with thy weeping friend 
 As in the hours departed. 
 
 Ah, I feel. 
 Sweet spirit, thou hast heard and blessed my prayer ! 
 I hear the rustling of thy angel-plumes 
 
162 NIGHT IN CAVE HILL CEMETERT. 
 
 About me and around ; the very air 
 
 Is glowing witli a thousand seraph thoughts, 
 
 Bright as the sparkles of a shooting star ; 
 
 A hand, from which the electric fire of Heaven 
 
 Seems flashing through my frame, is clasped in mine ; 
 
 Thy blessed voice, with its remembered tones 
 
 Softened to more than mortal melody, 
 
 Is thrilling through my heart, as 'twere the voice 
 
 Of the lost Pleiad calling from its place 
 
 In the eternal void ; and our two souls 
 
 Blend once again as erst they used to blend 
 
 The heavenly with the eartlily ! 
 
 Fare thee well ! 
 Sweet spirit, fare thee well ! The blessed words 
 That thou, this night, hast whispered to me here. 
 Above the mound that hides thy mortal form. 
 Will purify my soul and strengthen me 
 To bear the ills and agonies of life. 
 And point me to an immortality 
 With thee in God's own holy Paradise. 
 
TO MISS SALLIE M. BRYAN. 
 
 LONG thy mjstic tones, dear Sallie, 
 Have been sounding through my brain, 
 Like the distant voice of ocean, 
 
 In the pause of wind and rain ; 
 And in midnight's solemn musings, 
 And tlie haunted dreams of sleep, 
 Oft to thine my spirit answers, 
 As deep calleth unto deep. 
 
 I have dreamed thy soul a sea-shell, 
 
 From the upper deep sublime. 
 Cast by some unpitying billow 
 
 On this rock)' shore of Time, 
 Where its sweet and dirge-like breathings 
 
 Seems a low and mournful sigh — 
 A deep, ever restless pining 
 
 For its far home in the sky. 
 
 I have dreamed thy soul a wind-harp. 
 Of a weird and wondrous power. 
 
 Breathing out its strange, wild music, 
 In the twilight's wizard-hour, 
 
164 TO MISS SALLIE M. BR TAN. 
 
 Gently swept by gales of Eden, 
 
 (When the earth-wind's wings are furled), 
 
 And in mournful cadence telling 
 Of its own dear native world. 
 
 There's a realm within thy spirit, 
 
 Filled with grandeur and with gloom, 
 Where each tone is like a heart-wail, 
 
 And each earth-swell seems a tomb ; 
 And the flowers — a somber tinting 
 
 Overspreads their ghastly forms, 
 As if nurtured by the droppings 
 
 But of passing thunder-storms. 
 
 While thy calm, angelic features 
 
 In serenest beauty sleep, 
 Thy high thoughts, in vivid flashes, 
 
 On our startled vision leap : — 
 'T is as if the keen, red lightning 
 
 Should burst wildly from the fold 
 Of a soft, white cloud of morning 
 
 Tinged with violet, blue and gold. 
 
 There's a tall plant of the tro^Dics, 
 That, amid its bristling sjDcars, 
 
 Puts forth one all-beauteous blossom 
 With each score of passing years ; 
 
TO MISS S ALL IE M. BRTAN. 
 
 1G5 
 
 And our human race, dear minstrel, 
 Is a plant of kindred power :— 
 
 Once in each score years it blossoms. 
 And thou art its jrlorious flower. 
 
FANNIE. 
 
 DEAR FANNIE, in the twilight sweet, 
 I 've mused upon the long-gone hours. 
 When, touched by 3'our light, fairy feet, 
 
 My path grew red and white with flowers. 
 Together oft we loved to stray. 
 
 And sometimes by my side you stood. 
 But oftener chose to bound away 
 
 In girlhood's wild and frolic mood. 
 And I, at such times, used to sit 
 
 And watch you flitting o'er the plain 
 As light as troops of fairies flit 
 
 Across the poet's dreaming brain. 
 Your voice was music to my soul — 
 
 It seemed the cadence of the dove ; 
 And oft we talked, without control, 
 
 On every earthly theme but love. 
 Ah, that was never said or sung 
 
 Where we in gentle converse tarried, 
 For, Fannie, you were very young, 
 
 And I — was elderly and mai'ried. 
 
FANNIE. 167 
 
 We were not more unlike in years 
 
 Than thoughts and feelings. I was staid, 
 And you a child of smiles and tears, 
 
 A wild and self willed little maid. 
 I crowned you May Qiieen once, and swore 
 
 Allegiance till the May-day's close, 
 But, ere the next half-hour was o'er, 
 
 I beat you with a full-blown rose. 
 Then I the blooming missile sent 
 
 Right at your laughing cheek and missed you, 
 And then, as graver punishment, 
 
 I caught you in my arms and kissed you. 
 Full at my head your crown you threw, 
 
 In all its wealth and vernal splendor, 
 Then, frightened, to your feet I flew 
 
 And knelt, a penitent offender. 
 We verged, at times on quarrel's brink, 
 
 We matched keen^vits at every meeting^, 
 But you ne'er had from me, I think, 
 
 But that one kiss and that one beating. 
 
 A sad, sad parting came at last : 
 
 You roamed afar — I scarce knew why ; 
 
 From out my path a sweet flower passed, 
 A bright star wandered from ni}- sky. 
 
 I did not dream to see you more, 
 Or listen to your cadence sweet, 
 
168 
 
 FANNIE. 
 
 But here, upon this Southern shore, 
 
 Again for one brief hour we meet. 
 The scent of flower, the note of bird, 
 
 Are loading this delicious breeze, 
 But your dear face and voice have stirred 
 
 My spirit's depths far more than these. 
 Ah, Fannie, you are young and bright, 
 
 And lovers, by the dozen, throng 
 Forever round you, day and night, 
 
 With wit, and blandishment, and song ; 
 But, well I know, my darling pet, 
 
 You do not let such trifles trouble you. 
 Your wild heart is unconquered yet — 
 
 Is it not so, dear Fannie W. ? 
 
A FAREWELL. 
 
 I MET thee in a stranger land 
 Far from my own blue streams, 
 And gloriously the vision shone 
 
 Upon my spirit's dreams ; 
 And then my lyre, that long had slept 
 Unvisited, unheard, unswept, 
 Awoke in Beauty's gleams, 
 As erst the harp of Memnon woke 
 When o'er its chords the morning broke. 
 
 We met, and soon my spirit bowed, 
 
 Unshadowed girl, to thee. 
 As the bright bow upon the cloud 
 
 Bends to the monarch-sea. 
 Thy words, thy tones, the smiles that played 
 Upon thy lovely features, bade 
 
 Long-hidden thoughts go free ; 
 And sweetly in my manhood's tears 
 Were glassed the tints of earlier years. 
 
170 
 
 A FAREWELL. 
 
 And now we part — these simple wcmcIs 
 
 May be my last farewell, 
 But often o'er my bosom's chords 
 
 Thy spirit-tones will swell ; 
 The happy hours since hrst we met 
 Upon my heart and life have set 
 
 A deep and deathless spell ; 
 And thou wilt be, although afar, 
 Of memory's heaven the dearest star. 
 
 Farewell ! farewell ! 3'on moon is bright 
 
 And calm and pure like thee ; 
 But, lo ! a dark cloud dims its light — 
 
 The type, alas, of me ; 
 From the blue heavens the cloud will go, 
 But the unfading moon will glov.- 
 
 Still beautiful and free ; 
 And thus th}^ life with fadeless ray 
 Will shine v/hen I am passed away. 
 
YOUNG ADELAIDE. 
 
 WHEN Morn coitios, beautiful and calm, 
 With cheek of bloom niKllireath of balm, 
 And stoops o'er rose and violet blue 
 To kiss them with her lips of dew, 
 And bids the waves and breezes wake 
 Their fairy tones on stream and lake, 
 I love to stray o'er hill and glade 
 And think of thee, young Adelaide. 
 
 And when the birds at evening fold 
 Their glancing wings of blue and gold, 
 And white mists in the starlight shine. 
 Floating with motion soft as thine, 
 And Night in her strange beauty vies 
 With thy dark hair and starry eyes, 
 I love to stray o'er vale and lea. 
 And think, young Adelaide, of thee. 
 
A NIGHT SCENE. 
 
 'r I ^ IS a sweet scene. 'Mid shadows dim 
 
 JL The mighty river wanders by, 
 And on its cahii, unri'.fflcd brim, 
 
 So soft the bright star-shadows lie, 
 'T would seem as if the night-wind's plume 
 Had swept through woods of tropic bloom, 
 And shaken down their blossoms white 
 To float upon the waves to-night. 
 
 And see ! as soars the moon aloft. 
 
 Her yellow beams come through the air 
 
 So mild, so beautifully soft, 
 
 That wave and wood seem stirred with prayer : 
 
 And the pure spirit, as it kneels 
 
 At Nature's holy altar, feels 
 
 Religion's self come stealing by 
 
 In every beam that cleaves the sky. 
 
 The living soul of beauty fills 
 
 The air with glorious visions : bright 
 
 They wander o'er the forest hills 
 And linger in the pallid light ; 
 
 \ 
 
 J 
 
A NIGHT SCENE. 
 
 173 
 
 Off to the breathing licavens thcv go, 
 Along the earth they live and glow, 
 Shed on the stream their holy smiles, 
 And beckon to its purple isles. 
 
RAPHAEL TO JULIA. 
 
 THOU gav'st thy hand, all trembling like a dove, 
 To one who deemed thee, as thou art, divine, 
 But could he love thee with the glorious love 
 That's due to such a fiery heart as thine? 
 
 Thou wast to him the idol of his years, 
 A star to light his pathway from on high, 
 
 But could his soul dissolve in love and tears, 
 Or soar with thine into the broad, blue sk}' ? 
 
 When thy keen spirit on its wing of fire 
 Rose proudly up above our mortal state. 
 
 To list the music of the starry lyre, 
 
 Did'st thou not sigh for some high spirit-mate? 
 
 Oh, my heart's idol ! could thy bosom proud 
 Give back the wild and burning love of mine. 
 
 Our souls should mate like eagles in the cloud 
 Where the storm welters and its rainbows shine ! 
 
RAPHAEL TO JULIA. 
 
 175 
 
 I couUl defy pain, deatli, my soul's unrest, 
 In the fierce struggle for such glorious prize- 
 
 What could I fear, while clasping to my breast 
 All that I know or dream of Paradise? 
 
THE PARTING. 
 
 THE signal from the distant strand 
 Streams o'er the waters blue — 
 It bids me press thy parting hand, 
 
 And breathe my last adieu ; 
 But oft on fancy's glowing wing 
 
 My heart will love to stray, 
 And still to thee with rapture scoring. 
 Though I am far away. 
 
 With thee I' ve wandered oft to hear, 
 
 On Summer's quiet eves, 
 The wild-bird's music, soft and clear, 
 
 Borne through the whispering leaves, 
 Or see tbe moon's bright shadow laid 
 
 Upon the waveless bay : ^ 
 
 Those eves — their memory can not fade, 
 
 Though I am far away. 
 
 My life may feel Hope's withering blight. 
 
 Yet Fancy's tearful eye 
 Will turn to thee — the dearest light 
 In retrospection's sky ; 
 
THE PARTING. I77 
 
 And still the memory of our love, 
 
 While life was young and gay, 
 Will sweetly o'er my spirit move, 
 
 Though I am far away. 
 
 'T is hard, when Spring's first flower expands, 
 
 To pass it coldly by, 
 Or see upon the desert sands 
 
 The gem unheeded lie ; 
 The gentle thoughts that bless the hours 
 
 Of love can ne'er deca}^. 
 And thou wilt live in memory's bowers, 
 
 Though I am far away. 
 
 The sun has sunk, with fading gleam, 
 
 Down evening's shadowy vale, 
 But see — his softened glories stream 
 
 From yonder crescent pale ; 
 And thus aflfection's chastened light 
 
 Will memory still display. 
 To gild the gloom of sorrow's night, 
 
 Though I am far away. 
 
LILY MERRILL. 
 
 I'VE looked on many a lovely face 
 In cold New England's stormy clime, 
 I've knelt to woman's floating grace 
 
 Beneath the orange and the lime ; 
 I've heard, through all our mighty land, 
 
 Her soft tones thrill upon the air, 
 And sometimes dared to bathe my hand 
 
 Amid the briglit waves of her hair ; 
 I've lingered oft in hall and bower, 
 
 But still my heart and life seemed sterile, 
 Until they burst to glorious flower 
 
 Beneath the smile of Lily Merrill. 
 
 In Italy I oft have strayed 
 
 Where love and mirth and beauty shine ; 
 I've looked on many a Georgian maid. 
 
 Whose beauty almost seemed divine ; 
 r ve dwelt beneath the skies of Spain, 
 
 Within the old white walls of Cadiz, 
 
 1 
 
LILT MERRILL. 179 
 
 And listened to love's melting strain 
 
 Breathed o'er the lutes of Spanish ladies; 
 
 But ah, I never, never felt 
 
 My wandering heart in mortal peril, 
 
 Until in ecstasy I knelt 
 
 To the young charms of Lily Merrill 
 
 I met her in the joyous dance, 
 
 Where music's soft and thrilling strain 
 Swelled on the air, and every glance 
 
 Fixed her sweet image on my brain ; 
 I saw her move in pride of power, 
 
 'Mid beauty's bright, bewitching daughters. 
 As graceful as her namesake flower 
 
 Upon the blue lake's heaving waters ; 
 Amid her free and lovely tresses 
 
 She wore no diamond, pearl, or beryl. 
 But oft my heart with rajDture blesses 
 
 The night I met young Lily Merrill. 
 
TO MARIAN PRENTICE PIATT: 
 
 AN INFANT. 
 
 CHILD of two poets, whose rich songs 
 Have won a high and joeerless fame, 
 I thank them, that to thee belongs 
 
 A portion of my humble name — 
 That they have blent for thee its tone 
 With the sweet music of their own. 
 
 As yet, dear child, thou hast not trod 
 The paths of life where grief is met, 
 
 But beauty, like a smile of God, 
 Upon thy little brow is set ; 
 
 And, oh ! may Heaven forever bless 
 
 Thy life with love -and happiness. 
 
 A germ of genius, high and good, 
 Methinks within thy bosom lies. 
 
 Which, in thy coming womanhood, 
 
 Will bear bright blossoms for the skies — 
 
 Aye, bear even in these earthly bovvers 
 
 Eternity's all-sflorious flowers. 
 
TO MARIAN PRENTICE PIA TT. 
 
 Ma}' all thy life a poem be, 
 
 Oh, sweet as e'er thy mother writ. 
 
 And beauteous as the visions fair 
 That through thy father's spirit flit ; 
 
 And may that poem, bright and high, 
 
 Be set to music of the sky. 
 
 181 
 
THE DEATH-DAY OF WILLIAM COURTLAND 
 PRENTICE. 
 
 ONCE move I come at set of sun 
 To sit beside thee, long-lost one ; 
 To muse upon thy joyous prime, 
 In that clear, unforgotten time 
 When thou didst bound o'er hills and plains, 
 Life running wild in all thy veins. 
 And thou in manhood's young estate 
 Didst almost seem to challenge fate. 
 
 Thine eagle-spirit ever soared 
 
 Where thunders broke and tempests roared — 
 
 Through battle's flame and smoke it dashed 
 
 Where bavonets gleamed and sabres clashed ; 
 
 But ah, a fatal shaft was sped. 
 
 And thou wast with the stricken dead ; — 
 
 Now thou art here beneath these clods, 
 
 Struck by man's lightning, not by God's. 
 
WILLIAM COURTLAND PRENTICE. 18^ 
 
 Dear Courthuul, thou, the strong, the brave, 
 
 Fillcst a warrior's bloody grave ; 
 
 The soil above thee, wet with showers, 
 
 Gives birth to sweet and beauteous flowers; 
 
 But e'en the white rose to my view 
 
 Bears in its veins a crimson hue, 
 
 As if its mournful essence came 
 
 From the red death-wounds of thy frame. 
 
 ftp 
 Thou sleepcst well ! The bugle-note 
 
 Of battle may above thee float; 
 
 The tramp of charging hosts around 
 
 May like an earthquake shake the ground ; 
 
 The cannon's voice, the victors' shout, 
 
 May through tiie sulphurous a!r peal out ; 
 
 But thou wilt sleep amid the roar — 
 
 No power but God's can wake thee moi'e. 
 
 Perchance, when fallen in the strife, 
 Thy young lips breathed a prayer for life ; 
 Perchance thy heart heaved one deep sigh 
 To think that thou so soon must die. 
 But, had it been thy lot to know • 
 The coming triumph of thy foe : 
 Hadst thou foreseen, all rent and riven, 
 The cause to which thy soul was given ; 
 Foreseen the flag, thy guide, thy star, 
 
184 WILLIAM COURTLAND PRENTICE. 
 
 Trailed low behind the conqueror's car ; 
 
 Foreseen fierce desolation stride 
 
 O'er ihe bright land that was thy pride ; 
 
 Foreseen hill, plain, and vale, and wood, 
 
 Swept as by storms of fire and blood : 
 
 The clime where Heaven's best blessings fell 
 
 Changed by man's passions to a hc:ll : 
 
 Its homes, where joy and love erst met, 
 
 By hunger's howling wolves beset : 
 
 Its human forms like skeletons. 
 
 Its streams like ghostly Phlegethons — 
 
 Thou would'st have blessed with latest breath 
 
 A kind God for his angel, Death. 
 
 Thy form is in tliis sacred spot. 
 Thy memory and thy soul are not ; 
 Thy name high hearts will love to keep 
 Through all thy lone and solemn sleep. 
 Oft bards have strun:^ and bards will string 
 Their sweet and holy lyres to fling 
 Pure song-wreaths, evermore to bloom 
 Like amaranths upon thy tomb ; 
 And thoughts of thee in deep souls lie 
 Like golden clouds in Autumn's sky= 
 Bright ones will sigh — the young, the old — 
 When thy young destiny is told ; 
 
WILLIAM COURTLAXD PREXTICE 
 
 185 
 
 Thy laurels, \vith soft hcart-ilews wet, 
 Biig-htcn as suns shall rise and set, 
 And tear-founts heave and swell to thee, 
 As to yon moon the heavinjr sea. 
 
ELEGIAC* 
 
 HERE, whilst the twihght dews 
 Are softly gathering on the leaves and flowers, 
 I come, oh patriot dead, to muse 
 A few brief hours. 
 
 Hard by you, rank on rank. 
 Rise the sad evergreens, whose solemn forms 
 Are dark as if they only drank 
 The tliundcr storms. 
 
 Through the thick leaves around 
 The low, wild winds their dirge- like music pour, 
 Like the f;ir ocean's solemn sound 
 On its lone shore. 
 
 From all the air a sigh, 
 Dirge-like, and soul-like, melancholy, wild. 
 Comes like a mother's wailing cry 
 O'er her dead child. 
 
 ■*' Written in the portion of Cave llill Cemetery, Louisville, I 
 allotted to the Union Dead. j 
 
ELEGIAC. 137 
 
 Yoiichr, a little way, 
 \Vherc mounds rise thick like surges on the sea, 
 Those whom ye met in fierce array 
 Sleejo dreamlessly. 
 
 The same soft breezes sing, 
 The same birds chant their spirit-requiem, 
 
 The same sad flowers their fragrance fling 
 O'er you and them. 
 
 And pilgrims oft will grieve 
 Alilve o'er Northern and o'er Southern dust, 
 And both to God's great mercy leave 
 In equal trust. 
 
 Oh, ye and they, as foes, 
 Will meet no more, but calmly take your rest, 
 The meek hands folded in repose 
 On each still breast. 
 
 No marble columns rear 
 Tiieir s'.iafts to blazon each dead hero's name, 
 Yet well, oh well, ye slumber here, 
 Great sons of fame ! 
 
 Tiie dead as free will start 
 From the unburdened as the burdened sod, 
 And stand as pure in soul and heart 
 Before their God. 
 
38 ELEGIAC. 
 
 * ^ ^ >!-. * ;i< 
 
 'T is morn — as lone I stand, 
 The dawn is reddening o'er eacli humble grave ; 
 Oh, when shall night pass from the land 
 Ye die to save ? 
 
 Through all the upper air 
 Tvlay your life-blood in exhalations rise, 
 A ghastly cloud of red despair 
 To traitor eyes. 
 
 And may the lightnings dire, 
 Coiled in that cloud, like vengeful scorpions dart 
 To blast with their keen fangs of fire 
 Each traitor heart. 
 
LINES 
 
 TO ALICE M'CLURE GRIFFIN. 
 
 I THINK of thee when Eastern tkics 
 Are gleaming with the dawn's first rcd- 
 Of thee when sunset's fairy dyes 
 
 In beauty o'er the West are shed ; 
 My thoughts are thine mid toil and strife, 
 
 Thine when all care and sorrow flee, 
 Aye thine, forever thine ; — ni\- life 
 Is but a living thought of thee. 
 
 I think of thee when Spring's first flowers 
 
 O'er hill and plain and valley glow — 
 Of tliee, mid Autumn's purple bowers. 
 
 And cold December's wastes of snow. 
 My thoughts are thine when joys depart. 
 
 Thine when from weary trouble free, 
 Ave, thine, forever thine ; — my heart 
 
 Is but a throbbincr thousfht of thee. 
 
LOOKOUT MOUNTAIN. 
 
 HISTORIC MOUNT ! baptized in flame and blood, 
 Thy name is as immortal as the rocks 
 That crown thy thunder-scarred but royal brow. 
 Thou liftest up thy aged head in pride 
 In the cool atmosphere, but higher still 
 Within the calm and solemn atmosphere 
 Of an immortal fame. From thy sublime 
 And awful summit, I can gaze afar 
 Upon innumerous lesser pinnacles, 
 And oh ! my winged spirit loves to fl}-. 
 Like a strong eagle, 'mid their up-piled crags. 
 But most on thee, imperial mount, my soid 
 Is chained as by a spell of power. 
 
 I gaze 
 From this tall height on Chickamauga's field, 
 Where Death held erst high carnival. The waves 
 Of the mysterious death river moaned ; 
 The tramp, the shout, the fearful thunder-roar 
 Of red-breath'd cannon, and the wailing cry 
 
LOOKOUT MOUNTAIN. 191 
 
 Of myriad victims, filled the air. The smoke 
 Of battle closed above the charging hosts, 
 And, when it passed, the grand old flag no more 
 Waved in the light of heaven. The soil was wet 
 And miry with the life-blood of the brave, 
 As with a drenching rain ; and yon broad stream, 
 The noble and majestic Tennessee, 
 Ran reddened toward the deep. 
 
 But thou, O bleak 
 And rocky mountain, wast the theater 
 Of a yet fiercer struggle. On thy height. 
 Where now I sit, a proud and gallant host, 
 The chivalry and glory of the South, 
 Stood up awaiting battle. Somber clouds, 
 Floating far, far beneath them, shut from view 
 The stern and silent foe, whose storied flag 
 Bore on its folds our country's monarch-bird. 
 Whose talons grasp the thunderbolt. Up, up 
 Thy rugged sides they came with measured tramp, 
 Unheralded by bugle, drum, or shout, 
 And, though the clouds closed round them with the gloom 
 Of double night, they paused not in their march 
 Till sword and plume and bayonet emerged 
 Above the spectral shades that circled round 
 Tlr>' awful breast. Then suddenly a storm 
 Of flame and lead and iron downward burst, 
 From this tall pinnacle, like winter hail. 
 
192 
 
 LOOKOUT MOUNTAIN. 
 
 Long, fierce, and bloodv was the strife — alas ! 
 T^lie noble flag, oiu" country's hope and pride, 
 Sank down beneath the surface of the clouds, 
 As sinks the pennon of a shipwrecked bark 
 Beneath a stormy sea, and naught was heard 
 Save the wild cries and moans of stricken men. 
 And the swift rush of fleeing warriors down 
 Thy rugged steeps. 
 
 But soon the trumpet-voice 
 Of the bokl chieftain of the routed host 
 Resounded through the atmosphere, and pierced 
 The clouds that hung around thee. With high words 
 He quickly summoned his brave soldiery back 
 To the renewal of the deadly fight ; 
 Again their stern and measured tramp was heard 
 By the flushed Southrons, as it echoed up 
 Thy bald, majestic cliffs, x^gain they burst, 
 Like spirits of destruction, through the clouds, 
 And mid a thousand hurtling missiles swept 
 Their foes before them as the whirlwind sweeps 
 The strong oaks of the forest. Victory 
 Perched with her sister-eagle on the scorched 
 And torn and blackened banner. 
 
 Awful mount : 
 The stains of blood have faded from thy rocks, 
 The cries of mortal agony have ceased 
 To echo from thy hollow clifls, the smoke 
 
LOOKOUT MOUNTAIN. 
 
 193 
 
 Of battle long since meltctl into air, 
 
 And yet thou art imclianged. Aye, thou wilt lift 
 
 In majesty thy walls above the storm, 
 
 Mocking the generations as they pass, 
 
 And pilgrims of the far-off centuries 
 
 Will sometimes linger in their wanderings, 
 
 To ponder, with a deep and sacred awe. 
 
 The legend of the fi^ht above the clouds. 
 
TO A POLITICAL OPPONENT.* 
 
 I SEND thee, Greeley, words of cheer, 
 Thou bravest, truest, best of men ; 
 For I have marked thy strong career, 
 
 As traced by thy own sturdy pen. 
 I 've seen thy struggles with the foes 
 
 That dared thee to the desperate fight, 
 And loved to watch thy goodly blows. 
 
 Dealt for the cause thou deem'st the right. 
 
 Thou 'st dared to stand against the wrong 
 
 When many faltered by thy side ; 
 In thy own strength hast dared be strong, 
 
 Nor on another's arm relied. 
 Thy own bold thoughts thou'st dared to think, 
 
 Thy own great purposes avowed ; 
 And none have ever seen thee shrink 
 
 From the fierce surges of the crowd. 
 
 * Horace Greeley. 
 
 I 
 
TO A POLITICAL OPPONENT 
 
 Thou, all unaided and alone, 
 
 Didst take thy way in life's voung vcars, 
 With no kind hand clasped in thy own, 
 
 No gentle voice to soothe thy fears. 
 But thy high heart no power could tame, 
 
 And thou hast never ceased to feel 
 Within thy veins a sacred flame 
 
 That turned thy iron nerves to steel. 
 
 I know that thou art not exempt 
 
 From all the weaknesses of earth ; 
 For passion comes to rouse and tempt 
 
 The truest souls of mortal birth. 
 But thou hast well fulfilled thy trust. 
 
 In spite of love and hope and fear ; 
 And even the tempest's tluinder-gust 
 
 But clears thy spirit's atmosphere. 
 
 Thou still art in thy manhood's prime. 
 
 Still foremost 'mid thy fellow-men. 
 Though in each year of all thy time 
 
 Thou hast compressed three-score and ten. 
 Oh, may each blessed sympathy. 
 
 Breathed on thee with a tear and sigh, 
 A sweet flower in thy pathway be, 
 
 A bright star in thy clear blue sky. 
 
 195 
 
/ ON A BOOK OF VERSES. 
 
 TO ALICE m'cLURE GRIFFIN, 
 
 DEAR ALICE, for two happy hours, 
 I've sat within this little nook 
 To muse upon the sweet soul-flowers 
 
 That blossom in thy gentle book. 
 The}' lift their white and spotless bells, 
 
 Untouched by frost, unchanged by time. 
 For they are blessed immortelles 
 Transplanted from the Eden clime. 
 
 Witli pure and deep idolatry 
 
 Upon each lovely page I 've dwelt. 
 Till to thy spirit's sorcery 
 
 My spirit has with reverence knelt. 
 Oh, every thought of thine to me 
 
 Is like a fount, a bird, a star, 
 A tone of holy minstrelsy 
 
 Down floating from the clouds afar. 
 
 The fairies have around thee traced 
 A circle bright, a magic sphere — 
 
ON A BOOK OF VERSES. 197 
 
 The home of genius, beauty, taste, 
 The joyous smile, the tender tear. 
 Within that circle, cahii and clear. 
 
 With Natui-e's softest dews impearled, 
 I sit and list, with pitying ear, 
 
 The tumults of the far-ofl^ world. 
 
 Thy book is shut ; its flowers remain, 
 
 'Mid this mysterious twilight gloom. 
 Deep-imaged on my heart and brain. 
 
 And shed their fragrance through my room. 
 
 Ah, how I love their holy bloom, 
 As in these moonbeams, dim and wan, 
 
 They seem pale blossoms o'er a tomb 
 That 's closed upon the loved and gone. 
 
 Young angel of my waning years,* 
 
 Consoler of life's stormiest day. 
 Magician of my hopes and fears. 
 
 Guide of my dark and troubled way. 
 
 To thee this little votive lay, 
 In gratitude I dedicate ; 
 
 And with an earnest spirit pray 
 God's blessing on thy mortal state. 
 
 * At Mr. Griffin's house in Louisville, after iiis own home was 
 broken up, Mr. Prentice was treated with filial tenderness by 
 both Mr. and Mrs. Griffin. 
 
VIOLETS. 
 
 ACCEPT, my fiiend, these violets blue, 
 Once wet with morning's silver dew. 
 Now fading mourr.fully away, 
 Yet lovely still in their decay. 
 Young nurselings of a Southern land, 
 They came from gentle beauty's hand, 
 And I will send them now to rest 
 On gentler beauty's angel breast. 
 
 And there, oh, dear one ! let the n sleep, 
 
 By day, at eve, in midnight deep, 
 
 Soothed in their flower-dreams sofi and sweet 
 
 By thy young heart's delicious beat ; 
 
 And I shall think of them and thee, 
 
 And deeply long with both to be, 
 
 Feeling perchance a sad regret 
 
 That I am nut a violet. 
 
 But of these flowers, dear lady, take 
 The loveliest one, and, for my sake. 
 
VIOLETS. 
 
 199 
 
 Wilhiu the book (hou lovest best, 
 Let its poor, fiiding leaves be pressed ; 
 Then keep it through the coming years, 
 Oft nurtured by thy smiles and tears. 
 And let it ever, ever be 
 Love's token -flovs'^cr from me to thee. 
 
THOUGHTS ON THE FAR PAST. 
 
 rWRITTEN AMID THE RUINS OF THE OLD SPANISH MISSION-HOUSE 
 NEAR SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS.] 
 
 AMID these ruins, gloomy, ghostly, strange, 
 The weird memorials of an elder time, 
 The sacred relics of dead centuries, 
 I stand in utter loneliness ; and thoughts 
 As solemn as the mysteries of the deep 
 Come o'er me, like the shadow of a cloud 
 O'er the still waters of a lonely lake, 
 Or like the mournful twilight of eclipse 
 O'er the dim face of Nature. 
 
 Ye were reared, 
 Oh ruins old, by stern and holy men — 
 God's messengers unto a new-found world — 
 Whose voices, like the trumpet of the blast. 
 Resounded through the forests, and shook down, 
 As by an earthquake's dread iconoclasm, 
 The idols that men worshipped. Their great lives 
 Were given to awful duty, and their words 
 
THOUGHTS ox the far past. 201 
 
 Swelled, breathed, and burned and throbbed upon the air 
 
 In solemn majesty. They did not shrink 
 
 Or falter in the path of thorn and rock 
 
 Their souls marked out. Their moldered relics lie 
 
 Beneath yon humble mounds; but ah, their names, 
 
 There rudely sculptured upon blocks of stone, 
 
 Are breathed on earth with reverential awe, 
 
 And written by God's finger on His scroll 
 
 Of saints and martyrs. 
 
 Age has followed age 
 To the abysses of Eternity ; 
 And many generations of our race 
 Have sprung and faded like the forest leaves; 
 The mightiest temples reared by human pride 
 Have long been scattered by a thousand storms — 
 But ye remain. Ah yes, ye still remain, 
 And many pilgrims yearly turn aside 
 From their far journeyings, to come and pause 
 Amid your shattered wrecks, as lone and wild 
 As those of Tadmor of the desert. Wolves 
 Howl nightly in your ghostly corridors. 
 And here the deadly serpent makes his home. 
 Yet round your broken walls, your fallen roofs, 
 Your many crumbling, shattered images. 
 Your sunken floors, your shrines with grass o'ergrown, 
 And the unnumbered strange, mysterious flowers, 
 That stand, pale nuns, upon your topmost heights, 
 
202 THOUGHTS ON THE FAR PAST. 
 
 Wild chants and soul-like dirges seem to rise, 
 
 And the low tones of eloquence and prayer 
 
 Seem sounding on the hollow winds ; and here 
 
 I kneel as lowly as I could have knelt, 
 
 If I had listened to the living words 
 
 Your grand old founders uttered in the name 
 
 Of God, who sent them to proclaim His will. 
 
TO LITTLE VIRGILINE GRIFFIN. 
 
 YOU are a charming little sprite, 
 A thing of love and joy and light, 
 You 're full of sweetness and of grace ; 
 Sweet is your name, more sweet you face, 
 So you shall be our baby queen, 
 Oh, dearest little Virgiline. 
 
 You 're sweeter than the sweetest rose 
 That in the early spring-time blows; 
 You're sweeter than the violet 
 When its young leaves with dews are wet — 
 Your very sighs more sweet by half 
 Than any other baby's laugh ; 
 Your counterpart was never seen, 
 Oh, darling little Virgiline. 
 
 Should I awake from visions bright, 
 In the deep silence of the night, 
 And see a form before me rise, 
 Like that which gladdens now my eves. 
 Oh, I should think it was a fair 
 
204 
 
 TO LITTLE VIRGILINE GRIFFIN. 
 
 And blessed angel of the air, 
 A being sent down from the skies 
 To dry my tears, to hush my sighs, 
 And toward the vision I would lean 
 With rapture, loveliest Virgiline. 
 
 Within the dark depths of your eyes. 
 As in the blue depths of the skies, 
 I gaze with ecstasy, and lo ! 
 Bright, winged things flit to and fro. 
 And their rich music-tones are flung 
 Like bird-notes when the year is young. 
 Ah, dear one, if you are so good 
 And beautiful in babyhood, 
 If you have such bewitching power 
 Ere your life's bud has burst to flower, 
 What will you be at sweet sixteen ? — 
 Canst tell me, baby Virgiline ? 
 
ON THE SUMMIT OF THE SIERRA MADRE. 
 
 PERCPIED like an eagle on this kingly height, 
 That towers toward heaven above all neighboring 
 heights, 
 Owning no mightier but the King of kings, 
 I look abroad on what seems boundless space, 
 And feel in every nerve and pulsing vein 
 A deep thrill of my immortality. 
 How desolate is all around ! No tree, 
 Or shrub, or blade, or blossom, ever springs 
 Amid these bald and blackened rocks ; no wing 
 Save the fell vulture's ever fans the thin 
 And solemn atmosphere ; no rain e'er falls 
 From passing clouds — for this stupendous peak 
 Is lifted far above the summer storm, 
 Its thunders and its lightnings. As I hold 
 Strange converse with the Genius of the place, 
 I feel as if I were a demigod, 
 And waves of thought seem beating on my soul 
 As ocean billows on a rocky shore 
 O'crstrown with moldering wrecks. 
 
206 SUMMIT OF THE SIERRA MAD RE. 
 
 I look abroad, 
 And to my eyes the whole world seems unrolled 
 As 'twere an open scroll. The beautiful, 
 Grand, and majestic, near and far, are blent 
 Like colors in the bow upon the cloud. 
 Illimitable plains, with myriad flowers. 
 White, blue, and crimson, like our country's flag; 
 The green of ancient forests., like the green 
 Of the old ocean wrinkled by the winds ; ' 
 Cities and towns, dun and mysterious. 
 Like somethmg pictured in the dreams of sleep ; 
 A hundred streams, with all their wealth of isles, 
 Some bright and clear, and some with gauze-like mists 
 Half-veiled like beauty's cheek ; tall mountain-chains, 
 Stretching afar to the horizon's verge. 
 With an intensei blue than that of heaven, 
 Forever beckoning to the human soul 
 To fly from pinnacle to pinnnacle 
 Like an exidting storm-bird : these, all these. 
 Sink deep into my spirit like a spell 
 From God's own Spirit, and I can but bow 
 To Nature's awful majesty, and weep 
 As if my head were waters. 
 
 Fare-thee-well, 
 Old peak, bold monarch of the subject clouds, 
 That crouch in reverence at thy feet ; I go 
 Afar from thee — to stand where now I stand 
 
SUMMIT OF rilE SIERRA MAD RE. 
 
 207 
 
 Oh, nevermore. Yet through my few brief years 
 
 Of mortal being, these wild wondrous scenes, 
 
 On which thou gazest out eternally, 
 
 Will be a picture graven on my life, 
 
 A portion of my never^hing soul. 
 
 What God has pictured Time may not erase. 
 
FOR PUBLIC OCCASIONS 
 
 NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 FOR A CELEBRATION IN KENTUCKY OF THE LANDING 
 OF THE PILGRIMS. 
 
 CLIME of the brave ! the high heart's home !- 
 Laved by the wild and stormy sea ! 
 Thy children, in this far-oft' land, 
 
 Devote, to-day, their hearts to thee ; 
 Our thoughts, despite of space and time. 
 To-day are in our native clime, 
 Where passed our sinless years, and where 
 Our infant heads first bowed in prayer. 
 
 Stern land ! we love thy woods and rocks, 
 Thy rushing streams, thy winter glooms, 
 
 And Memory, like a pilgrim gray, 
 
 Kneels at thy temples and thy tombs : 
 
 The thoughts of these, where'er we dwell, 
 
 Come o'er us like a holy spell, 
 
 A star to light our path of tears, 
 
 A rainbow on the sky of years. 
 
NE W ENGLAND. 
 
 209 
 
 Above thy cold and rocky breast 
 
 The tempest sweeps, the nig-ht-wiud wails, 
 But Virtue, Peace, and Love, like birds, 
 
 Are nestled 'mid thy hills and vales ; 
 And Glory, o'er each plain and glen, 
 \Valks with thy free and iron men. 
 And lights her sacred beacon still 
 On Benninirton and Bunker Hill. 
 
THE CENTENNIAL BIRTHDAY OF 
 WASHINGTON. 
 
 WHY swell a million hearts as one, 
 With memories of the Past? 
 Why rings out 3'on deep thunder-gun 
 
 Upon the rushing blast? 
 Why hold the beautiful, the brave, 
 
 The jubilee of earth? 
 
 It is, it is the day "that gave 
 
 Our patriot-hero birth ! 
 
 We offer here a sacrifice 
 
 Of hearts to him, who came 
 To guard young Freedom's Paradise 
 
 With sword of living flame ! 
 To him, who, on war's whirlwind loud, 
 
 Rode like an angel form, 
 And set his glory on the cloud, 
 
 A halo of the storm ! 
 
 A hundred years, with all their trains 
 
 Of shadow, have gone by, 
 And yet his glorious name remains, 
 
 A sound that can not die ! 
 
BIRTHDAT OF WASHINGTON. 211 
 
 'Tis graven on tlie hill, the vale, 
 
 And on the mountain tall, 
 And speaks hi every sounding gale 
 
 And roaring waterfall ! 
 
 No marble on his resting spot 
 
 Its sculptured column rears, 
 But his is still a nobler lot, 
 
 A grateful nation's tears ! 
 Old Time, that bids the marble bow, 
 
 Makes green each laurel-leaf 
 That blooms upon the sainted brow 
 
 Of our immortal chief! 
 
 His deeds were ours ; but, through the world, 
 
 That mighty chief w:ll be — 
 Wherever glory's banner is unfurled — 
 
 The prophet of the free ! 
 And as they bend thf ir eagle-eyes 
 
 On Victory's burning sun, 
 Their shouts will echo to the skies, 
 
 " Our God and Washington 1" 
 
ODE ON THE UNVEILING OF THE 
 CLAY STATUE 
 
 AT LOUISVILLE, KY., MAY 30, 1867.* 
 
 HAIL ! true and glorious semblance, hail ! 
 Of him, the noblest of oui race. 
 We seem, at lifting of thy veil, 
 
 To see again his living face ! — ■ 
 To hear the stirring words once more. 
 
 That like the storm-god's cadence pealed 
 With mightier power from shore to shore 
 Than thunders of the battle-field. 
 
 Lo ! that calm, high, majestic look, 
 
 That binds our gaze as by a spell — 
 It is the same that erst-while shook 
 
 The traitors on whose souls it fell ! 
 Oh, that he were again in life ! — 
 
 To wave, as once, his wand of power, 
 And scatter far the storms of strife 
 
 That o'er our country darkly lower! 
 
 ■•■■ Sung at the time by a chorus of one hundred voices. 
 
UNVEILING OF THE CLAT STATUE. 213 
 
 Again, again, and yet again, 
 
 He rolled back Passion's roaring tide. 
 When the fierce souls of hostile men 
 
 Each other's wildest wrath defied. 
 Alas ! alas ! dark storms at length 
 
 Sweep o'er our half-wrecked Ship of State, 
 And there seem none with will and strength 
 
 To save her from her awful fiitc ! 
 
 But thou, majestic image, thou 
 
 Wilt in thy lofty place abide, 
 And many a manly heart will bow 
 
 While gazing on a nation's pride ; 
 Aixl, while his hallowed ashes lie 
 
 Afar beneath old Ashland's sod. 
 One gaze at thee should sanctify 
 
 Our hearts to country and to God. 
 
 We look on thee, we look on thee. 
 
 Proud statue, glorious and sublime. 
 And years, as if by magic, flee — 
 
 And leave us in his grand old time \ 
 Oh, ha was born to bless our race 
 
 As ages after ages roll ! 
 We see the image of his face — 
 
 Earth has no imajje of his soul ! 
 
214 UNVEILING OF THE CLAT STATUE. 
 
 Proud statue ! if the nation's life, 
 
 For which he toiled through all his years, 
 Must vanish in our wicked strife. 
 
 And leave but groans and blood and tears — 
 If all to anarchy be given. 
 
 And ruin all our land assail, 
 He'll turn away his eyes in Heaven, 
 
 And o'er thee we will cast thy veil ! 
 
ADDRESS 
 
 AT THE OPENING OF A NEW THEATER IN LOUISVILLE, KY., 
 MARCH 25, 1S67.* 
 
 FOR long, long years, all jDast but not forgot, 
 A modest temple rose upon this spot, 
 Devoted to the Drama's noble art — 
 To give amusement and to touch the heart. 
 To wield at will with passion's strong control. 
 To mould the feelings, to exalt the soul. 
 To kindle thoughts alHcd to hope and fear, 
 To waive Joy's smile and holy Pity's tear. 
 The sinking sun upon that temple shone : 
 The sun arose — lo ! 't was forever gone ! 
 At night's deep moon, when all the circling air 
 Was gentle as the cadences of prayer, 
 Where naught was heard above, beneath, around, 
 Save yonder waterfall's low, solemn sound, 
 Borne like a tone of mystery and dread 
 
 * liecited by Miss Dargon. 
 
216 ADDRESS. 
 
 Through what might seem a city of the dead — 
 
 At that cahn hour, beneath the star's sweet ray, 
 
 The fell Fire spirit seized upon his prey ; 
 
 No help, no mortal help, alas ! was nigh — 
 
 The flames sprang upward toward the reddened sky ; 
 
 High in their burning chariots seemed to roam 
 
 The Muses, wailing for their perished home ; 
 
 The clouds above in crimson glory stood, 
 
 As if surcharged with awful showers of blood. 
 
 But soon the wild and lurid scene was o'er — 
 
 The flames sank down, the temple was no more. 
 
 But look ! upon this spot to memory dear, 
 
 What beauty and magnificence appear ! — 
 
 Up from the blackened ashes, bleak and cold, 
 
 A temple rises, nobler than the old ; 
 
 Heaven guard it well, and may its pride remain 
 
 Till hoar antiquity its walls shall s'^ain. 
 
 And proudly, now, ye good, and brave, and fair, 
 We consecrate it to your generous care. 
 Here, oft will glow the floating dancer's skill ; 
 Here, music sweet your living heart-chords thrill ; 
 Here, histrionic genius' lightnir.g-flame 
 Awake the thunders of your loud acclaim ; 
 And flowers of beauty spring, forever new — 
 Your smiles the sunshine, and your tears the dew. 
 
 t 
 
ADDRESS, 217 
 
 And here, difl'using mirth and tender pain, 
 
 The Comic and the Tragic Muse will reign: 
 
 Here, poor old Lear, all desolate, will bow 
 
 His snow-white hair on dead Cordelia's brow, 
 
 And raise his tottering form — weak, worn, and frail — 
 
 To dare the rain, the thunder, and the gale ; 
 
 Here, Shylock, grim, with heart too hard to feel, 
 
 Will lift his scales and wliet Iiis cruel steel ; 
 
 Here, Hamlet, gloomy, but with heart of fire, 
 
 Avenge the murder of his royal sire ; 
 
 Here, Richard, in his wild affright, will leap 
 
 From the red vision of his Iiorrid sleep, 
 
 And see, with wild and frenzied soul and eye, 
 
 The ghosts of murdered victims trooping by ; 
 
 Here, weird Macbeth will vainly seek to clasp 
 
 The aiiy dagger in his desperate grasp, 
 
 And his fiend-mate, despairing, strive in vain 
 
 From her curst hands to wash the murder-stain ; 
 
 Here, Juliet, from her balcony, bend low 
 
 To see and hear her much-loved Romeo — 
 
 Return him tear for tear, and sigh for sigh. 
 
 And hail it her last joy with him to die ; 
 
 Here, girdled Falstaff laugh, with wheezing breath — 
 
 Merculio jest, e'en in the arms of death ; 
 
 And Rosalind, pure, beautiful, and good. 
 
 Thread the dark mazes of the tan<j-led wood. 
 
218 
 
 ADDRESS. 
 
 Aye, we will group within our ample plan, 
 All fancies of " the myriad-minded man". 
 
 If we have done, and still do, well our parts, 
 
 Our proud appeal is to your hands and hearts : 
 
 We ask your favor ; it will be our task 
 
 To render back the worth of all we ask. 
 
 And make our new-born Temple's honored name 
 
 A portion of y^ ur goodly city's fame. 
 
ADDITIONAL POEMS. 
 
 THE ROSE. 
 
 TAKE, lady, take this lovely rose : 
 Its pure white leaves a heart inclose ; 
 Oh, do not from the token part, 
 But guard the flower, and keep the heart. 
 
 If sometimes, at the evening hour, 
 Thy lips shall press the token-flower, 
 Oh, heart and rose will thrill with bliss 
 Beneath thy soft and gentle kiss ! 
 
 But if for flowers more bright, more gay, 
 Thy wild and erring fancies stray, 
 And leave it for their dearer sake. 
 The rose will die, the heart will break. 
 
 Oh, lay, at thy sweet hour of rest, 
 The token-rose upon thy breast ; 
 Then two warm hearts — a happy pair — 
 Will blend their joyous beatings there. 
 
220 AT CHURCH. 
 
 Aye, they within the rose's bell, 
 Like two glad honey-bees, will dwell ; 
 And the sweet flower will keep its hue- 
 Thy smile its beam, thy tear its dew. 
 
 And in their fragrant home of bliss, 
 They '11 blend in many a fervent kiss ; 
 For there's a kiss of heart and heart, 
 When longing lips are far apart. 
 
 AT CHURCH. 
 
 I MET thee in the house of God. A year 
 Upon its wing of darkness had gone by 
 Since I had parted with thee — yet thine eyes. 
 Turned coldly from me. Thrice the burning tear 
 SjDrang wildly upward from my heart, but pride 
 Quelled the fierce tumult of the gushing tide, 
 And in the bitterness of calm despair 
 
 I gazed upon thy features. Why, oh why 
 May not the pang of earthly passion die 
 When all its hopes are perished.? Even there, 
 In the dread temple consecrate of prayer, 
 
 My erring spirit breathed too soft a sigh. 
 And, turning from the Mercy-seat above, 
 Knelt at the dearer shrine of human love. 
 
THE GRAVE OF THE BEAUTIFUL. 
 I. 
 
 'r I ^ IS twilight, and I stand beside her grave ! 
 1 He7' grave ! ALis, that so much loveliness 
 Sliould sink into the damp, cold earth ! Alas, 
 That beauty such as hers should pass away, 
 And that its image should exist no more 
 Save in the hearts of mourning ones ! 
 
 Oh, she 
 Was beautiful as some bright, winged dream 
 That wanders down from Eden's blessed bowers, 
 And folds its starry plumes within the soul 
 Of musing bard or sculptor. Forms like hers 
 Oft pass at eve before the half-closed-eye — 
 They glide like shadows o'er our paths, or bend 
 From the soft edges of a moonlight cloud. 
 And beckon to the sky, but rarel}^ come 
 Like her to beautify our homes and hearths 
 With their abiding smiles. 
 
 I see her now, 
 Her blue eve floating in its own clear light, 
 
! THE GRAVE OF THE BEAUTIFUL. 
 
 Her young cheek, bright as an ilhimined gem, 
 
 Her red lips, parted in their mirth, her smile 
 
 Beaming like sunshine from each lineament, 
 
 Her light step bounding o'er the summer flowers 
 
 In ver}^ joyousness, as if she were 
 
 A spirit of the morning or a wild 
 
 Glad creature of the air — and can it be 
 
 That all that bright exuberance of life, 
 
 And love, and happiness, is sleeping now 
 
 In deep and dark decay? Oh, can it be 
 
 That Spring, with her soft skies, will come again, 
 
 And by her warm breath woo her violets 
 
 And roses from the earth, and send her streams 
 
 Leaping and singing to the sea, and fill 
 
 The soft air with her thousand melodies 
 
 Of bird and breeze, and grove and waterfall, 
 
 And our loved lost one be not here to greet 
 
 With us the glories of the vernal time, 
 
 And blend her ringing cadences with all 
 
 The harmonies of Nature in her joy? 
 
 II. 
 
 Alas ! 'tis hard, oh, very hard, to feel 
 That she is dead. Drear months have wandered by 
 Since on this spot we heard the solemn woids 
 Of " dust to dust," and slowly turned away, 
 With breaking hearts and streaming eyes, to seek 
 Our darkened homes; but yet her living thought 
 
THE CRAVE OF THE BEAUTIFUL. 223 
 
 Still dwells within our breasts, and will not leave 
 
 Our hearts all desolate. Oft, wlicn we muse, 
 
 At this calm hour of evening, by the dim 
 
 And mournful firelight, silent and alone. 
 
 Her form comes stealing through the shadowy gloom. 
 
 Holier and lovelier even than in life. 
 
 Like a soft star gleaming through silver mists. 
 
 Or like a beautiful and lovely thing 
 
 Seen in a sad, sweet dream. And, often, when 
 
 The pale and solemn glory of the moon 
 
 Comes as a gentle guest at midnight deep 
 
 Within the lonely chamber, she is there 
 
 Silent, but oh, how passing beautiful, 
 
 A thing on earth, but not of earth — her brow 
 
 Hallowed by God's own signet. 
 
 O'er this mound. 
 Where all that's mortal of our lost one lies, 
 The light winds linger in the locust-tops, 
 And in their low yEolian melodies 
 We seem to hear the same sweet music-tone 
 That perished long ago. And as we gaze 
 Up where that tone is born of breeze and bough, 
 A holy shadow falls on eye and heart, 
 As 'twere the passing of an angel's wing 
 Across the twilight sky. Ah, 'tis not well 
 That we should mourn with bitter tears her flight 
 Thus early from the earth, for she is now 
 A lovely blossom on the Tree of Life 
 Blooming forever in God's paradise.. 
 
I MAY NOT LOVE THEE. 
 
 I MAY not love thee — but within my heart, 
 When night and darkness set my spirit free, 
 And I sit musing, from the world apart, 
 
 There is a low, deep voice that tells of thee. 
 That voice is sweet and mournful as the tone 
 
 Of far yEolian music heard in sleep, 
 Or the wild cadence of a spirit lone 
 
 O'er the hushed waters of the midnight deep. 
 
 I may not love thee — but thy blessed look 
 
 Forever haunts my soul when thou art far ; 
 It glances upward from each moonlight brook, 
 
 And downward from each bright and holy star. 
 'T is imaged in each flower that lifts its eye 
 
 At morn to greet the simshine and the dew, 
 And in each fairy cloud that wanders by, 
 
 Floating in beauty o'er the young year's blue. 
 
 1 may not love thee — but when joys depart, 
 And I am bowed beneath life's many woes, 
 
 The thought of thee can cheer m\' drooping heart, 
 As tlie fresh rain revives the dying rose. 
 
/ MA r NO T LO VE THEE. 
 
 2 "'5 
 
 The thought of thee ! — it is a holy light, 
 
 Soft gleaming through the clouds and storms of strife ; 
 A sweet star-shadow, floating pure and bright 
 
 Upon the dark and turbid waves of life. 
 
 I may not love thee — but thy cheek tliat lives 
 
 And breathes and glows with sunset's richest hue ; 
 Thine eye of love and tenderness that gives 
 
 A softer answer to the heaven's soft blue ; 
 The Parian whiteness of thy angel brow ; 
 
 The tresses clustering o'er thy temples free — 
 Oh, these are mirrored in my bosom now, 
 
 As heaven itself is mirrored in the sea. 
 
 I may not love thee — but thy gentle words 
 
 Can stir within my soul its fount of tears, 
 And wake the echo of my heart's deep chords, 
 
 Like some dear melody of early 3ears. 
 I may not love thee — but tliy image seems 
 
 A living radiance to my spirit given ; 
 For, oh, I picture thee in all my dreams 
 
 Of bliss on earth and blessedness in Heaven ! 
 
ISABEL. 
 
 LOST Isabel, again I come 
 To linger and to weep, 
 Above the spot where wild flowers spring 
 
 To mark thy place of sleep ; 
 And as I kneel beside thy urn, 
 
 Dear memories from afar 
 Come o'er my spirit, like the wild 
 Sweet music of a star ! 
 
 Thy breezy step is seen no more 
 
 Upon the blue hill's brow, 
 And beauty's early light has left 
 
 My darkened day-dreams now ; 
 Yet my lone spirit keeps its glow. 
 
 Like the pale Eastern flower 
 That shines at midnight with the rays 
 
 It drank at morn's first hour. 
 
ISABEL. 227 
 
 Thou wast the sunh'ght of my days, 
 
 The idol of my dreams, 
 And Hfe with thee was like the lapse 
 
 Of summer's quiet streams ; 
 And if beneath the storms of life 
 
 My spirit e'er was bowed, 
 Thy love shone o'er the gathering gloom — 
 
 An angel of the cloud. 
 
 There is no star above my head, 
 
 No flower beneath my feet, 
 No gentle murmur on the air 
 
 When winds and waters meet, 
 No liquid lull of twilight founts, 
 
 No song from field or grove. 
 But tells me of the pleasant paths 
 
 Where once we loved to rove. 
 
 Alas ! the hours no longer wear 
 
 Young beauty's rosy crown. 
 The gentle flowers look up through tears, 
 
 The stars through tears look down ; 
 From all the boundless universe 
 
 The soul of joy is fled. 
 To live, ah ! never, never more, 
 
 Since thou, sweet girl, art dead. 
 
228 THE LOCK OF HAIR. 
 
 Dear Isabel, thine was the high 
 
 And holy gift of fire, 
 And beautiful its flashes played 
 
 Around thy golden lyre ; 
 But it consumed thy heart, for there 
 
 Its centered brightness fell, 
 And thou art but a thing of dust, 
 
 My own loved Isabel. 
 
 THE LOCK OF HAIR. 
 
 HOW often has this lovely curl 
 Been bound with flowers and decked with pearl ; 
 How oft round snowy fingers twined ; 
 How oft wooed by the amorous wind ; 
 And, oh, how oft at midnight hour. 
 When slumber reigned in hall an 1 bower, 
 This curl, soft-nestled like a dove. 
 Has heard the whispered dreams of love I 
 
 This lovely tress — this raven tress — 
 That oft to heart and lip I press, 
 I know not if it used to deck 
 The Parian whiteness of her neck, 
 
THE LOCK OF HAIR, 229 
 
 Or o'er her blue-veined temple strayed, 
 Or on her beaming brow was laid, 
 Or fell upon the stainless snow 
 Of her young cheek — I only know 
 It is the loveliest of curls, 
 And from the loveliest of girls ! 
 
 Aye, 'tis a thing to love and bless — 
 This little dark and shining tress ; 
 Dark as the midnight forests gloom, 
 Dark as the tempest spirit's plume. 
 Dark as the stern Death-Angel's seal, 
 But shining as the battle steel. 
 And she by whom this gem was given, 
 Seems to my heart a thing of heaven ; 
 An angel dream ; a gentle dove' 
 Sent out from God's own ark of love ; 
 A vision come from Paradise 
 Awhile to gladden mortal eves ; 
 A star, of Heavens own star the pride, 
 Glassed in this dark world's stormv tide. 
 
LEAVING HOME. 
 
 I KNOW not if my path shall be 
 O'er the wild surges of the sea ; 
 Or where Niagara sweeps down, 
 Bearing aloft her rainbow crown ; 
 Or where the gales from Huron's Lake 
 The banners of the forest shake ; 
 Or where the Mississippi's floods 
 Roll from the wild Lake of the Woods ; 
 Or where Missouri's torrents sweep, 
 Stiong, dark, and turbid, to the deep ; 
 Or where through Florida's rich glades 
 Bright birds, like stars, gleam through the shades 
 Or where the Gulf's wide waters roar 
 On Tampa's lone and desert shore ; 
 Or where a thousand perfumes rare 
 Are flung on Cuba's Eden air ; 
 Or where Bermuda blooms and smiles. 
 The sweetest of a hundred isles ; 
 Or where on high the Andes glow 
 In peaks of fire and peaks of snow ; 
 Or where the waves of ocean shine 
 Like flames beneath the burning line ; 
 
ONE ABOUT TO DIE. 231 
 
 But, whcrcsoc'cr my footsteps stray, 
 My constant soul, by night and day, 
 In joy and woe, in calm and storm, 
 Will keep thine image fresh and warm, 
 And ever hail thee, from afar, 
 Its morning flower, its evening star. 
 
 ONE ABOUT TO DIE. 
 
 YES, lady, thou wilt die. That lip of snow, 
 And that pale brow foretell thy early lot ; 
 The wing of Death is o'er thee — thou wilt go 
 
 Where broken hearts and blighted flowers are not. 
 Thou art too beautiful to linger where 
 
 The rainbow brightens but to melt away, 
 
 And the sweet sounds that wander on the air 
 
 But swell the dirge of sorrow and deca3^ 
 
 Yes, thou wilt die. Thy spirit soon will leave 
 This dull, cold exile for its place on high, 
 
 And, like a bright cloud on a summer eve, 
 Melt in the deeper glories of the sky ; 
 
232 VIEW OF THE OCEAN. 
 
 Thy home will be where bluer skies are glassed 
 In brighter streams mid Love's undying bowers, 
 
 And where the winds of ruin never passed, 
 
 I\or serpents writhed round Passion's sweetest flowers. 
 
 Ay, thou wilt die — and I shall linger here, 
 
 When all the blossoms of the heart are fled, 
 To muse on thee, and mourn with bitter tear 
 
 The cold, the lost, the beautiful, the dead ; 
 And, as life's stars in loneliness depart, 
 
 Thy memory still, amid the deepening gloom, 
 Will shine upon the ruins of my heart. 
 
 Like a lone firefly on a midnight tomb. 
 
 LINES ON A DISTANT VIEW OF THE OCEAN. 
 
 HOW beautiful ! — From his blue throne on high 
 The sun looks downward with a face of love 
 Upon the silent waters ; and a sk}'. 
 
 Lovelier than that which lifts its arch above, 
 Down the far depths of ocean, like a sheet 
 
 Of flame, is trembling; the wild tempests cease 
 To wave their cloudy pinions. Oh. 't is sweet 
 To gaze on ocean in his hour of peace ! 
 
y/ElV OJ- THE OCEAN. 233 
 
 Yeius have gone by since first my infant eyes 
 
 Rested upon those waters. Once again, 
 As here I muse, the hours of childhood rise 
 
 Faint o'er my memory, like some witching strain 
 Of half-forgotten music. Yon blue wave 
 
 Still, still rolls on in beauty ; but the tide 
 Of years rolls darkling o'er the lonely grave 
 
 Of hopes that with my life's bright morning died ! 
 
 Look! look ! — the clouds' light shadows from above, 
 
 Like fairy islands, o'er the waters sweep ! 
 Oh, I have dreamed my spirit thus could love 
 
 To float forever on the boundless deep, 
 Communing with the elements ; to hear, 
 
 At midnight hour, the deatli-winged tempest rave, 
 Or gaze, admiring, on each starry sphere. 
 
 Glassing its glories in the mirror wave : — 
 
 To dream, deep mingling with the shades of eve, 
 
 On ocean's spirits, caves, and coral halls. 
 Where, cold and dark, the eternal billows heave, 
 
 No zephyr breathes, nor struggling sunbeam falls; 
 Or round some far isle of the burning zone. 
 
 Where tropic groves perfume the breath of morn, 
 List to the ocean's melancholy tone. 
 
 Like a lone mourner's on the night-winds borne : — 
 
234 V/Ejr OF THE OCEAN. 
 
 To see the infant wave on yon blue verge, 
 
 Like a young eagle, breast the sinking sun, 
 And twilight dying on the crimson surge, 
 
 Till down the deep dark zenith, one by one, 
 The lights of heaven were streaming; or to weep 
 
 The lost, the beautiful, that calmly rest 
 Beneath the eternal wave ; — then sink to sleep, 
 
 Hushed b}' the beating of the ocean's breast. 
 
 Oh, it were jov to wander wild and free 
 
 Where southern billows in the sunlight flash, 
 Or Night sits brooding o'er the northern sea, 
 
 And all is still, save the o'erwhelming dash 
 Of that dark world of waters ; there to view 
 
 The meteor hanging from its cloud on high, 
 To see the northern fires, with blood-red hue, 
 
 Shake their wild tresses o"er the startled sky ! 
 
 'T is sweet, 't is sweet to gaze upon the deep, 
 
 And muse upon its mysteries. There it rolled. 
 Ere yet that glorious sun had learned to sweep 
 
 The blue profound, and bathe the heavens in gold ; 
 The morning stars, as up the skies they came. 
 
 Heard their first music o'er the ocean rung. 
 And saw the first flash of their new-born flame 
 
 Back from its depths in softer brightness flung. 
 
 i 
 
V/EJV OF THE OCEAN. 235 
 
 And there it rolls ! Age after age has swept 
 
 Ddwii. down the eternal cataract of Time ; 
 Men after men on earth's cold bosom slept ; 
 
 Still there it rolls, unfading and sublime ! 
 As bright those waves their sunny sparkles fling, 
 
 As sweetly now the bending heavens they kiss, 
 As when the Holy Spirit's brooding wing 
 
 Moved o'er the waters of the vast abyss. 
 
 There, there it rolls. I "ve seen the clouds unfurl 
 Their raven banner from the stormv west ; 
 
 I've seen the wrathful tempest spirit hurl 
 
 His blue-forked lightnings at the ocean's breast. 
 
 The storm-cloud passed, the sinking wave was hushed, 
 Those budding isles were glittering fresh and fair ; 
 
 Serenely bright the peaceful waters blushed, 
 
 And heaven seemed painting its own beauties there ! 
 
 ********** 
 
 Ocean, farewell ! — Upon thy mighty shore 
 
 I loved in childhood's fairy hours to dwell ; 
 But I am wasting — life will soon be o'er, 
 
 And I shall cease to gaze on thee : farewell ! 
 Thou still wilt glow as fair as now, the sky 
 
 Still arch as proudly o'er thee, evening steal 
 Along thy bosom with as soft a dye. 
 
 All be as now — but I shall cease to feel. 
 
236 MORNING IN SPRING. 
 
 The evening mists are on their silent way, 
 
 And thou art fading ; faint thy colors blend 
 With the last tinges of the dying day, 
 
 And deeper shadows up the skies ascend. 
 Farewell ! farewell ! — the night is coming fast ; 
 
 In deeper tones thy wild notes seem to swell 
 Upon the cold wings of the rising blast ; 
 
 I go, I go — dear ocean, fare thee well ! 
 
 MORNING IN SPRING. 
 
 HOW sweet the landscape ! JMorning twines 
 Her tresses round the brow of Day, 
 And bright mists o'er the forest pines, 
 
 Like happy spirits, float away 
 To revel on tiie mountain's crown, 
 Whence the glad stream comes shouting down 
 Through woods and rocks that hang on high, 
 Like clouds against the deep, blue sky. 
 
 The woven sounds of bird and stream 
 
 Are falling beautiful and deep 
 Upon the spirit, like a dream 
 
 Of music on the ear of sleep ; 
 
MORNING IN SPRING. 237 
 
 And sweetly from the dewy bovvers 
 Soft murmurs like the breath of flowers 
 Arc wintling through the purple grove, 
 And blending with the notes of love. 
 
 A cloud is on the sky above, 
 
 And calmly o'er the young year's blue 
 
 'Tis coming like a thing of love, 
 To gladden in the rising dew ; 
 
 Its white waves with the twilight blend, 
 
 And gentle spirits seem to bend, 
 
 From its unrolling folds to hear 
 
 The glad sounds of our joyous sphere. 
 
 The lake, unruffled by the breeze. 
 
 Smiles in its sweet, unbroken rest. 
 As if 'twere dreaming of the trees 
 
 And blossoms pictured on its breast. 
 Its depths are glowing bright and fair, 
 And the deep skies seem hollowed there. 
 Soft-trembling as they felt the thrill 
 Of music echoed from the hill. 
 
 The living soul of beauty fills 
 
 The air with glowing visions — bright 
 
 They wander o'er the far-off hills. 
 And linger in the clear blue light ; 
 
238 THE HOUR OF LOVE. 
 
 Oft' to the breathing heavens they go, 
 Along the eaitli they live and glow, 
 Shed o'er the lake their happy smiles, 
 And beckon to its glittering isles. 
 
 Oh, at this hour, when air and earth 
 
 Gush out with love and joy and light, 
 And songs of gladness hail the birth 
 Of all that's beautiful and bright, 
 Each pulse beats high, each heart is blown 
 To flame ; the spirit drinks the tone 
 Of higher worlds, and melts away 
 In visions of eternal day. 
 
 THE HOUR OF LOVE. 
 
 THE sunset's sweet and holy blush. 
 Is hnaged in the sleeping stream ; 
 All Nature's deep and solemn hush 
 
 Is like the silence of a dream ; 
 And peace seems brooding like a dove 
 O'er scenes to musing spirits dear — 
 Sweet Mary, 'tis the hour of love, 
 And I were blest if thou weit here ! 
 
THE HOUR OF LOVE. 239 
 
 The myriad flowers of every hue 
 
 Are sinking to their evening rest, 
 Each with a timid drop of dew 
 
 Soft folded to its sleeping breast ; 
 The birds within yon silent grove 
 
 Are dreaming that the spring is near — 
 Sweet Mary, 't is the hour of love. 
 
 And I were blest if thou w^ert here ! 
 
 On yon wliite cloud the night wind furls 
 
 Its lone and dewy wing to sleep, 
 And the sweet stars Ipok out like pearls, 
 
 Through the clear wave of Heaven's blue deep ; 
 The pale mists float around, above, 
 
 Like spirits of a holier sphere — 
 Sweet Mary, 'tis the hour of love. 
 
 And I were blest if thou wert here. 
 
 The pale, full moon, in silent pride 
 
 O'er yon dark wood is rishig now. 
 As lovely as when by thy side 
 
 I saw it shining on thy brow ; 
 It lights the dew- drops of the grove, 
 
 As Hope's bright smile liglits Beauty's tear — 
 Sweet Mary, 'tis the hour of love, 
 
 And I were blest if thou wert here. 
 
240 
 
 THE HOUR OF LOVE. 
 
 Ah ! as I muse, a strange wild thrill 
 
 Steals o'er the fibers of my frame ; 
 A gentle presence seems to fill 
 
 My heart with love, and life, and tlame. 
 I feel thy spirit round me move, 
 
 I know thy soul is hovering near- 
 Sweet Mary, 't is the hour of love, 
 
 And I am blest, for thou art here ! 
 
 H107 75 % 
 

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