Page images
PDF
EPUB

A PARALLEL.

THE waves that on the sparkling sand
Their foaming crests upheave,
Lightly receding from the land,
Seem not a trace to leave.
Those billows, in their ceaseless play,
Have worn the solid rocks away.

The summer winds, which wandering sigh
Amid the forest bower,

So gently as they murmur by,

Scarce lift the drooping flower.
Yet bear they, in autumnal gloom,
Spring's wither'd beauties to the tomb.

Thus worldly cares, though lightly borne,
Their impress leave behind;

And spirits, which their bonds would spurn, The blighting traces find.

Till alter'd thoughts and hearts grown cold The change of passing years unfold.

LAKE GEORGE.

NoT in the banner'd castle,

Beside the gilded throne,

On fields where knightly ranks have strode,
In feudal halls-alone

The spirit of the stately mien,
Whose presence flings a spell
Fadeless on all around her,
In empires loves to dwell.

Gray piles and moss-grown cloisters
Call up the shadows vast
That linger in their dim domain,
Dreams of the vision'd past!
As sweep the gorgeous pageants by,
We watch the pictured train,
And sigh that aught so glorious
Should be so brief and vain.
But here a spell yet deeper

Breathes from the woods and sky,

Proudlier these rocks and waters speak
Of hoar antiquity;

Here nature built her ancient realm
While yet the world was young,
Her monuments of grandeur
Unshaken stand, and strong.

Here shines the sun of Freedom
Forever o'er the deep,

Where Freedom's heroes by the shore

In peaceful glory sleep;

And deeds of high and proud emprize
In every breeze are told,

The everlasting tribute

To hearts that now are cold.

Farewell, then, scenes so lovely!
If sunset gild your rest,
Or the pale starlight gleam upon
The water's silvery breast--

Or morning on these glad, green isles

In trembling splendour glows-A holier spell than beauty Hallows your pure repose!

TO THE WHIP-POOR-WILL.

BIRD of the lone and joyless night,

Whence is thy sad and solemn lay? Attendant on the pale moon's light,

Why shun the garish blaze of day? When darkness fills the dewy air,

Nor sounds the song of happier bird, Alone, amid the silence, there

Thy wild and plaintive note is heard. Thyself unseen, thy pensive moan Pour'd in no living comrade's ear, The forest's shaded depths alone

Thy mournful melody can hear. Beside what still and secret spring,

In what dark wood, the livelong day, Sitt'st thou, with dusk and folded wing,

To while the hours of light away? Sad minstrel! thou hast learn'd, like me, That life's deceitful gleam is vain; And well the lesson profits thee,

Who will not trust its charm again. Thou, unbeguiled, thy plaint dost trill To listening night, when mirth is o'er; I, heedless of the warning, still

Believe, to be deceived once more.

SONG.

COME, fill a pledge to sorrow,
The song of mirth is o'er,

And if there's sunshine in our hearts, "Twill light our theme the more. And pledge we dull life's changes,

As round the swift hours passToo kind were fate, if none but gems Should sparkle in Time's glass. The dregs and foam together

Unite to crown the cup

And well we know the weal and wo

That fill life's chalice up!

Life's sickly revellers perish,

The goblet scarcely drain'd;

Then lightly quaff, nor lose the sweets Which may not be retain❜d.

What reck we that unequal

Its varying currents swell

The tide that bears our pleasures down, Buries our griefs as well.

And if the swift-wing'd tempest

Have cross'd our changeful day,
The wind that toss'd our bark has swept
Full many a cloud away!

Then grieve not that naught mortal
Endures through passing years-
Did life one changeless tenor keep,
"Twere cause, indeed, for tears.
And fill we, ere our parting,

A mantling pledge to sorrow;
The pang that wrings the heart to-day
Time's touch will heal to-morrow!

JAMES ALDRICH.

[Born, 1810.]

JAMES ALDRICH was born near the Hudson, in the county of Suffolk, on the tenth of July, 1810. He received his education partly in Orange county, and partly in the city of New York, where, early in life, he became actively engaged in mercantile business. In 1836 he was married to MATILDA,

daughter of Mr. JOHN B. LYON, of Newport, Rhode Island, and in the same year relinquished the occupation of a merchant. He has since devoted his attention entirely to literature; and has edited two or three popular periodicals. He resides in New York.

MORN AT SEA.

CLEARLY, with mental eye,

Where the first slanted ray of sunlight springs,
I see the morn with golden-fringed wings
Up-pointed to the sky.

In youth's divinest glow,

She stands upon a wandering cloud of dew,
Whose skirts are sun-illumed with every hue
Worn by GoD's covenant bow!

The child of light and air!

O'er land or wave, where'er her pinions move, The shapes of earth are clothed in hues of love And truth, divinely fair.

Athwart this wide abyss,

On homeward way impatiently I drift;

O, might she bear me now where sweet flowers lift Their eyelids to her kiss!

Her smile hath overspread

The heaven-reflecting sea, that evermore

Is tolling solemn knells from shore to shore
For its uncoffin'd dead.

Most like an angel-friend,

With noiseless footsteps, which no impress leave, She comes in gentleness to those who grieve, Bidding the long night end.

How joyfully will hail,

With reenliven❜d hearts, her presence fair, The hapless shipwreck'd, patient in despair, Watching a far-off sail.

Vain all affection's arts

To cheer the sick man through the night have been:
She to his casement goes, and, looking in,
Death's shadow thence departs.

How many, far from home,
Wearied, like me, beneath unfriendly skies,
And mourning o'er affection's broken ties,

Have pray'd for her to come.

Lone voyager on time's sea!
When my dull night of being shall be past,
O, may I waken to a morn, at last,
Welcome as this to me!

A DEATH-BED.

HER suffering ended with the day,
Yet lived she at its close,

And breathed the long, long night away,
In statue-like repose.

But when the sun, in all his state,

Illumed the eastern skies,

She pass'd through Glory's morning-gate, And walk'd in Paradise!

MY MOTHER'S GRAVE.

IN beauty lingers on the hills

The death-smile of the dying day;
And twilight in my heart instils
The softness of its rosy ray.

I watch the river's peaceful flow,

Here, standing by my mother's grave, And feel my dreams of glory go,

Like weeds upon its sluggish wave.

Gon gives us ministers of love,

Which we regard not, being near; Death takes them from us-then we feel That angels have been with us here! As mother, sister, friend, or wife,

They guide us, cheer us, soothe our pain; And when the grave has closed between Our hearts and theirs, we love-in vain! Would, mother! thou couldst hear me tell How oft, amid my brief career, For sins and follies loved too well, Hath fallen the free, repentant tear. And, in the waywardness of youth, How better thoughts have given to me Contempt for error, love for truth, Mid sweet remembrances of thee.

The harvest of my youth is done,

And manhood, come with all its cares, Finds, garner'd up within my heart,

For every flower a thousand tares.

Dear mother! couldst thou know my thoughts, Whilst bending o'er this holy shrine,

The depth of feeling in my breast,

Thou wouldst not blush to call me thine!

A SPRING-DAY WALK.

ADIEU, the city's ceaseless hum,

The haunts of sensual life, adieu!
Green fields, and silent glens! we come,
To spend this bright spring-day with you.
Whether the hills and vales shall gleam

With beauty, is for us to choose;
For leaf and blossom, rock and stream,
Are colour'd with the spirit's hues.
Here, to the seeking soul, is brought
A nobler view of human fate,
And higher feeling, higher thought,

And glimpses of a higher state.
Through change of time, on sea and shore,
Serenely nature smiles away;
Yon infinite blue sky bends o'er

Our world, as at the primal day. The self-renewing earth is moved

With youthful life each circling year;
And flowers that CERES' daughter loved
At Enna, now are blooming here.
Glad nature will this truth reveal,

That God is ours and we are His;
O, friends, my friends! what joy to feel
That He our loving father is!

TO ONE FAR AWAY. SWIFTER far than swallow's flight, Homeward o'er the twilight lea; Swifter than the morning light, Flashing o'er the pathless sea, Dearest in the lonely night Memory flies away to thee! Stronger far than is desire;

Firm as truth itself can be; Deeper than earth's central fire; Boundless as the circling sea; Yet as mute as broken lyre,

Is my love, dear wife, for thee! Sweeter far than miser's gain,

Or than note of fame can be Unto one who long in vain

Treads the paths of chivalryAre my dreams, in which again My fond arms encircle thee!

BEATRICE.

UNTOUCH'D by mortal passion,
Thou seem'st of heavenly birth,
Pure as the effluence of a star

Just reach'd our distant earth!
Gave Fancy's pencil never
To an ideal fair

Such spiritual expression

As thy sweet features wear.
An inward light to guide thee
Unto thy soul is given,
Pure and serene as its divine
Original in heaven.
Type of the ransom'd PSYCHE!

How gladly, hand in hand,

To some new world I'd fly with thee From off this mortal strand.

LINES.

UNDERNEATH this marble cold,
Lies a fair girl turn'd to mould;
One whose life was like a star,
Without toil or rest to mar
Its divinest harmony,

Its Gon-given serenity.

One, whose form of youthful grace,
One, whose eloquence of face
Match'd the rarest gem of thought
By the antique sculptors wrought:
Yet her outward charms were less
Than her winning gentleness,
Her maiden purity of heart,
Which, without the aid of art,
Did in coldest hearts inspire
Love, that was not all desire.
Spirit forms with starry eyes,
That seem to come from Paradise,
Beings of ethereal birth,

Near us glide sometimes on earth,
Like glimmering moonbeams dimly seen
Glancing down through alleys green;
Of such was she who lies beneath
This silent effigy of grief.

Wo is me! when I recall
One sweet word by her let fall—
One sweet word but half-express'd—
Downcast eyes told all the rest,
To think beneath this marble cold,
Lies that fair girl turn'd to mould.

THE DREAMING GIRL.
SHE floats upon a sea of mist,
In fancy's boat of amethyst!
A dreaming girl, with her fair cheek
Supported by a snow-white arm,
In the calm joy of innocence,

Subdued by some unearthly charm.
The clusters of her dusky hair
Are floating on her bosom fair,
Like early darkness stealing o'er

The amber tints that daylight gave,
Or, like the shadow of a cloud

Upon a fainting summer-wave.
Is it a spirit of joy or pain
Sails on the river of her brain?
For, lo! the crimson on her cheek

Faints and glows like a dying flame;
Her heart is beating loud and quick-
Is not love that spirit's name?
Up-waking from her blissful sleep,
She starts with fear too wild to weep;
Through the trailing honeysuckle,
All night breathing odorous sighs,
Which her lattice dimly curtains,

The morn peeps in with his bright eyes. Perfume loved when it is vanish'd, Pleasure hardly felt ere banish'd, Is the happy maiden's vision,

That doth on her memory gleam, And her heart leaps up with gladnessThat bliss was nothing but a dream!

ANNA PEYRE DINNIES.

[Born about 1810.]

MRS. DINNIES is a daughter of Mr. Justice SHACKLEFORD, of South Carolina. She was educated in Charleston, at a seminary kept by the daughters of Doctor RAMSAY, the historian of the Revolution. In 1830 she was married to Mr. JOHN C. DINNIES, of Saint Louis, and has since resided in that city. Mrs. HALE, in her "Ladies' Wreath," states that she became engaged in a literary correspondence with Mr. DINNIES more than four years before their union, and that they

never met until one week before the solemnization of their marriage. "The contract was made long before, solely from sympathy and congeniality of mind and taste; and that in their estimate of each other they were not disappointed, may be inferred from the tone of her songs; for the domestic happiness that these portray can exist only where both are happy." The poetical writings of Mrs. DINNIES were originally published in various literary miscellanies, under the signature of "Moina."

WEDDED LOVE.

COME, rouse thee, dearest!-'tis not well
To let the spirit brood

Thus darkly o'er the cares that swell
Life's current to a flood.

As brooks, and torrents, rivers, all
Increase the gulf in which they fall,
Such thoughts, by gathering up the rills
Of lesser griefs, spread real ills,
And with their gloomy shades conceal
The land-marks Hope would else reveal.
Come, rouse thee, now-I know thy mind,
And would its strength awaken;
Proud, gifted, noble, ardent, kind,-

Strange thou shouldst be thus shaken!
But rouse afresh each energy,
And be what Heaven intended thee;
Throw from thy thoughts this wearying weight,
And prove thy spirit firmly great:

I would not see thee bend below
The angry storms of earthly wo.

Full well I know the generous soul

Which warms thee into life,
Each spring which can its powers control,
Familiar to thy wife,-

For deem'st thou she had stoop'd to bind
Her fate unto a common mind?
The eagle-like ambition, nursed
From childhood in her heart, had first
Consumed, with its Promethean flame,
The shrine-than sunk her soul to shame.

[blocks in formation]

TO A WHITE CRYSANTHEMUM.

WRITTEN IN DECEMBER.

FAIR gift of friendship! and her ever bright
And faultless image! welcome now thou art,
In thy pure loveliness-thy robes of white,
Speaking a moral to the feeling heart;
Unscathed by heats, by wintry blasts unmoved-
Thy strength thus tested, and thy charms improved.
Emblem of innocence, which fearless braves

Life's dreariest scenes, its rudest storm derides, And floats as calmly on o'er troubled waves,

As where the peaceful streamlet smoothly glides; Thou'rt blooming now as beautiful and clear As other blossoms bloom, when spring is here. Symbol of hope, still banishing the gloom

Hung o'er the mind by stern December's reign! Thou cheer'st the fancy by thy steady bloom With thoughts of summer and the fertile plain, Calling a thousand visions into play, Of beauty redolent-and bright as May! Type of a true and holy love; the same Through every scene that crowds life's varied Mid grief, mid gladness-spell of every dream, Tender in youth, and strong in feeble age! The peerless picture of a modest wife, Thou bloom'st the fairest midst the frosts of life.

THOUGHTS IN AUTUMN.

[page;

YES, thou art welcome, Autumn! all thy changes,
From fitful gloom, to sunny skies serene,
The starry vaults, o'er which the charm'd eye ranges,
And cold, clear moonlight, touching every scene
With a peculiar sadness, are sweet things,
To which my heart congenial fondly clings.
There is a moral in the wither'd wreaths

And faded garlands that adorn thy bowers; Each blighted shrub, chill'd flower, or sear'd leaf breathes

Of parted days, and brighter by-gone hours, Contrasting with the present dreary scene [been. Spring's budding beauties, pleasures which have

2 K

385

THE WIFE.

I COULD have stemm'd misfortune's tide,
And borne the rich one's sneer,
Have braved the haughty glance of pride,
Nor shed a single tear.

I could have smiled on every blow

From life's full quiver thrown,
While I might gaze on thee, and know
I should not be "alone."

I could-I think I could have brook'd,
E'en for a time, that thou
Upon my fading face hadst look'd

With less of love than now;
For then I should at least have felt

The sweet hope still my own

To win thee back, and, whilst I dwelt
On earth, not been "alone."

But thus to see, from day to day,

Thy brightening eye and cheek, And watch thy life-sands waste away,

Unnumber'd, slowly, meek;

To meet thy smiles of tenderness,
And catch the feeble tone

Of kindness, ever breathed to bless,
And feel, I'll be "alone;"

To mark thy strength each hour decay,
And yet thy hopes grow stronger,
As, filled with heavenward trust, they say
"Earth may not claim thee longer;"
Nay, dearest, 'tis too much-this heart
Must break when thou art gone;
It must not be; we may not part:

I could not live "alone!"

THE HEART.

THERE was a time when Fancy, uninvoked,
Cast her light spells where'er my spirit roved,
Each passing scene anew her smiles provoked,
And all seem'd lovely-for each one was loved.
But now I gaze, unheeding most I see

Of wild or fair, in Nature's boundless hoard; A change is over all-a change in me

As Lethe's streams o'er fancy's source are pour'd.

This change I mourn, and seek again the dreams Which brighten'd, soothed, and gladden'd life of yore;

But shaded groves, fresh flowers, and purling

streams

Exert their influence o'er my mind no more. No more I dream--for Fancy has grown old,

And thought is busied now with sterner things: E'en feeling's self--yet, no! I am not cold;

But feeling now round other objects clings.

There are, in life, realities as dear,

Nay, dearer far than fancy can create, Though taste may vary, beauty disappear, That linger still, defying time and fate. The flush of youth soon passes from the face, The spells of fancy from the mind depart, The form may lose its symmetry and graceBut time can claim no victory o'er the heart.

SONG.

I COULD not hush that constant theme
Of hope and revery;

For every day and nightly dream
Whose lights across my dark brain gleam,
Is fill'd with thee.

I could not bid those visions spring
Less frequently;

For each wild phantom which they bring,
Moving along on fancy's wing,

But pictures thee.

I could not stem the vital source
Of thought, or be

Compell'd to check its whelming force,
As ever in its onward course
It tells of thee.

I could not, dearest, thus control
My destiny,

Which bids each new sensation roll,
Pure from its fountain in my soul,
To life and thee.

HAPPINESS.

THERE is a spell in every flower,
A sweetness in each spray,
And every simple bird has power
To please me with its lay!
And there is music on each breeze

That sports along the glade;
The crystal dew-drops on the trees
Are gems, by Fancy made.

There's gladness, too, in every thing,
And beauty over all:

For everywhere comes on, with spring,
A charm which cannot pall!
And I!-my heart is full of joy,

And gratitude is there,

That He, who might my life destroy, Has yet vouchsafed to spare.

The friends I once condemn'd are now Affectionate and true:

I wept a pledged one's broken vowBut he proves faithful too.

And now there is a happiness

In every thing I see,

Which bids my soul rise up and bless The Gon who blesses me.

« PreviousContinue »