Memory! within thy deepest cell
A recollection glows;
A burning thought--whose magic spell
Can charm away my woes:
It gushes o'er my troubled soul
In lava streams of joy,
Its talismanic power can roll
The darkness from my sky;
It thrills my heart with ecstacy,
That ever present thought!
And, oh! it were too sweet to die
With mind so richly fraught:
And who is she for whom my heart,
My feelings, harmonize?
And who is she that has the art
To chain my sympathies?
Thine is the brightness of the eye,
Which tide nor time can dim;
Thy voice is softer than the sigh
Of love, or angel's hymn;
The rose is thine--but not the hue
That fadeth with the morn--
_Thy_ color's deeper when the dew
Away from flower is gone--
When all beside is bleak and drear
Thy genial blushes rise,
Like flow'rets of the northern year,
That bloom amid the ice;
But more than all, thy beauty brings
In her imperial train;
And more than all, thy magic flings
To dim the dizzened brain.
Yes! more than these--than rosy cheek--
Is thy pure lofty mind;
Thy nature calm, and soft and meek,
With warmth of heart conjoined.
These are the charms that deck _thee_ most,
With radiance deep and pure,--
These are the flow'rs that thou may'st boast,
When beauty's hour is o'er:
Thy world may fade--its glory past,--
But in the sky afar,
Thy mind will shine undimmed at last,
A high and holy star!
Go to the East--it is thy home--
In nature like to thee;
And while o'er beds of flowers you roam,
No breeze, no bird so free--
And while you breathe the Attar-Gul
Of fragrant memory,
Your heart with thrilling joy so full,
It throbs like summer sea;
Oh! then should thought of times gone by,
With dew-drop dim thine ee,
May, mid the breeze that dances nigh,
A sigh be heard for me.
----.
For the Southern Literary Messenger.