A patchwork of disjointed things--
Of grave and gay imaginings.--_The Visionary._
My thoughts resemble scattered leaves,
Which Fancy, like the Sybil, weaves,
Just as may suit her wayward whim,
Into a many colored dream.
* * * * *
A tablet resteth on my knee--
The gift of one most dear to me;
Upon its fair unwritten face
My pencil now and then may trace
The flitting visions of my mind,
Like cloud-forms varying in the wind--
Too incoherent, wild and roving,
To weave into a song of loving--
Such as might suit the gentle ear
Of one--I wish to heaven were here.
All things breathe loveliness--the sky
Looks on me like my lady's eye,
Clear--beautiful as crystal blue
And darkling in its own bright hue.
The faint air, sighing from the south,
Steals sweetly o'er my cheek and brow,
As late I felt and _fancy_ now
The breath of her own rosy mouth
When, in her eagerness to look
Into the pages of my book
She stood by, o'er my shoulder leaning,
In innocent but simple meaning.
* * * * *
Amid the voiceless wild
Of the ancestral forest,
I feel even as a child,
Whose pleasure is the surest
When most by wonderment beguiled.
A lovely lake before me sleeps,
Whose quiet on my spirit creeps--
Around and o'er me, solemn trees
Of the eternal forest, dart
Their wildly straggling boughs athwart
The sky--with their rich panoplies
Of varied foliage. Here and there
A withered trunk by storms laid bare,
Spectre like--whitening in the air,
Spreads wide and far its skeleton limbs,
Where, up the creeping verdure climbs,
And wreathes its draperies, ere they fall,
In festoons so fantastical.
* * * * *
Here moves the Genius of Romance,
With lofty mien and eagle glance--
No plumed casque adorns his brow--
No glittering falchion does he wield--
Nor lance bears he, nor 'scutcheoned shield.
Nor among fallen columns low,
Behold him crouch and muse upon
The shattered forms of sculptured stone--
Fair classic marbles, which recall
The glories of an ancient time--
Its pride--its splendor and its fall--
Such things belong not to our clime.
The Genius of our Solitude
Stalks forth in hunter's garb arrayed,
A child of nature--wild and rude--
Yet not averse to gentle mood:
The same high spirit, undismayed,
Amid the stormy battles roar,
As when he wooes his dusky maid,
Beside some dim lake's lonely shore;
Or paddles his skiff at eventide,
O'er Niagara's waters wide.
* * * * *
'Tis sweet to sit alone, and muse
In such a spot as this--
Thus imperceptibly to lose
In dim, imagined bliss,
The vulgar thoughts and cares that shroud
The spirits of the busy crowd--
That chain their grovelling minds to earth
And wretched things of little worth.
Years seem not many, since a child,
I loved to haunt this pathless wild,
And wearied lay me down to rest
Upon some broad rock's mossy breast,
Lulled by a dreamy listless thought,
From loneliness and quiet caught--
Or, prying with most curious eye
Into dark hollows, to descry
Some robber haunt or hidden grot,
Where haply it might be my lot,
Like Alla-Ad-Deen, to find a treasure
Of gems and jewels without measure.
But what a change is wrought since then!
I've mingled with the world and men,
Who scoff at boyhood's guiltless joys,
Yet scorn them but for _greater_ toys.
Well--let them mar their health for fame,
And waste their days, to gain a name,
Built on the rabble's wretched praise,
Whose voice awhile may sink or raise,
But cannot rescue from the lot
Old Time, the despot, hath assigned
Impartially to all earth's kind.
Such record vain I envy not,
Nor burn with mightier men to mate--
The followers of a fiercer fate,
Who trample on all human good
To win awards least understood.
Such is renown reaped with the sword--
Such glory! Empty, fatal word,
That lures men on through fire and flood--
Through scenes of rapine, crime and blood,
To write in history's page, a tale,
O'er which their fellow man grows pale.
Could half the tears they cause to flow
Bedew that page--how few could read
The blotted record of each deed,
Which laid the brave by thousands low
And broke more living hearts with wo,
That ONE might be what good men hate,
And fools and knaves miscal "THE GREAT."