Thou pale!--thou beautiful!--to thee I kneel,
Watching thy wandering thro' yon dark blue sky
In silent gaze--as if my heart could feel
Deep adoration for thee, and was nigh
To a bright being that had look'd on me
Ev'n from the first days of my infancy.
Is it not so? Near to those yellow shores
Where roll my native streams, oh! hast thou not
Seen my young pleasures, when our busy oars
O'er the cool wave at dusky night would sport
On that bright pathway where thy silvery beam
Fell beautiful upon the glossy stream.
When thou didst rise at evening's twilight hour,
A mighty crescent o'er the broken tower,
Then would I wander 'neath the crumbling wall,
Or chase my playmates thro' the ruined hall,
Nor fearing any Spectre-Knight would play
His frightful gambols in thy harmless ray.
Away--away!--and when we there did sweep
The deep black billows of the roaring ocean,
Still high amid the heavens thou didst keep
Steady and bright; and with a wild emotion
Guiarra trembling did look up to thee
To guide him safely o'er that dismal sea,
And kindly light his weary hands to spread
The rattling canvass o'er his giddy head.
These skies are foreign, and I tread the ground
My fathers saw not: yet while thou art flinging
Upon the hills, the woods, the vales around
Thy gentle beam, ev'n though my heart be clinging
To other lands, still it can hold most dear
This stranger home since it can meet thee here.
We'll climb yon hill--we'll wander o'er yon plain--
We'll skim yon lake: Moon! we will roam together
Till mother earth call home her child again:
Then part we!--part we! fair Moon!--aye, for ever!
'Tis not for a bright thing like thee to glow
In the deep shades where the departed go.
Yet thou canst look upon the road that leads
To my far dwelling place: there will be flowers
And fresh green blades, and moss, and harmless weeds
To point the passage. Oh! at midnight hours
Wilt thou not smile upon those things that bloom
All wild, all heedlessly above my tomb?
I sit, and weave beneath thy gentle light
A wreath of cypress and of roses bright,
And ere it wither, or its glow be fled,
I'll gaily bind it round my dying head.
'Twill still the throbbing of my fever'd brow
To wear those flowers pluck'd from the tender stem
Where they were springing beautiful--and thou
As beautiful wast shining above _them_.
For the Southern Literary Messenger.