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The one forsakes ferocity,

And momently grows mild; The other tempers more and more

The artful with the wild.

She humanizes him, and he
Educates him to liberty.

III.

O, say not they must soon be old,—

Their limbs prove faint, their breasts feel cold! Yet envy I that sylvan pair

More than my words express,The singular beauty of their lot,

And seeming happiness.

They have not been reduced to share
The painful pleasures of despair;
Their sun declines not in the sky,

Nor are their wishes cast,
Like shadows of the afternoon,

Repining towards the past: With nought to dread or to repent, The present yields them full content. In solitude there is no crime;

Their actions all are free,

And passion lends their way of life
The only dignity;

And how can they have any cares?—
Whose interest contends with theirs?

IV.

The world, for all they know of it,
Is theirs :-for them the stars are lit;
For them the earth beneath is green,

The heavens above are bright;

For them the moon doth wax and wane,
And decorate the night;

For them the branches of those trees
Wave music in the vernal breeze;
For them, upon that dancing spray,
The free bird sits and sings,
And glittering insects flit about

Upon delighted wings;

For them that brook, the brakes among,
Murmurs its small and drowsy song;
For them the many-colour'd clouds

Their shapes diversify,

And change at once, like smiles and frowns,

The expression of the sky.

For them, and by them, all is gay,
And fresh and beautiful as they :
The images their minds receive,

Their minds assimilate

To outward forms, imparting thus
The glory of their state.

V.

Could aught be painted otherwise

Than fair, seen through her star-bright eyes? He, too, because she fills his sight,

Each object falsely sees;

The pleasure that he has in her

Makes all things seem to please.

And this is love;-and it is life
They lead, that Indian and his wife.

SONG.

WE break the glass, whose sacred wine, To some beloved health we drain. Lest future pledges, less divine,

Should e'er the hallow'd toy profane;
And thus I broke a heart that pour'd
Its tide of feelings out for thee,
In draughts, by after-times deplored,
Yet dear to memory.

But still the old, impassion'd ways
And habits of my mind remain,
And still unhappy light displays

Thine image chamber'd in my brain, And still it looks as when the hours Went by like flights of singing birds, Or that soft chain of spoken flowers, And airy gems--thy words.

A HEALTH.

I FILL this cup to one made up Of loveliness alone,

A woman, of her gentle sex

The seeming paragon;

To whom the better elements

And kindly stars have given A form so fair, that, like the air,

"Tis less of earth than heaven.

Her every tone is music's own,

Like those of morning birds,
And something more than melody
Dwells ever in her words;
The coinage of her heart are they,
And from her lips each flows
As one may see the burden'd bee
Forth issue from the rose.

Affections are as thoughts to her,
The measures of her hours;
Her feelings have the fragrancy,
The freshness of young flowers;
And lovely passions, changing oft,
So fill her, she appears

The image of themselves by turns,- ·
The idol of past years!

Of her bright face one glance will trace
A picture on the brain,

And of her voice in echoing hearts
A sound must long remain;
But memory, such as mine of her,
So very much endears,
When death is nigh my latest sigh
Will not be life's, but hers.

I fill'd this cup to one made up
Of loveliness alone,

A woman, of her gentle sex

The seeming paragon

Her health and would on earth there stood, Some more of such a frame,

That life might be all poetry,

And weariness a name.

THE VOYAGER'S SONG.*

SOUND trumpets, ho!-weigh anchor-loosen sail-
The seaward flying banners chide delay;
As if 't were heaven that breathes this kindly gale,
Our life-like bark beneath it speeds away.

Flit we, a gliding dream, with troublous motion,
Across the slumbers of uneasy ocean;
And furl our canvass by a happier land,
So fraught with emanations from the sun,
That potable gold streams through the sand
Where element should run.

Onward, my friends, to that bright, florid isle,
The jewel of a smoothe and silver sea,
With springs on which perennial summers smile
A power of causing immortality.

For Bimini;-in its enchanted ground,

The hallow'd fountains we would seek, are found;
Bathed in the waters of those mystic wells,
The frame starts up in renovated truth,
And, freed from Time's deforming spells,
Resumes its proper youth.

Hail, bitter birth!-once more my feelings all
A graven image to themselves shall make,
And, placed upon my heart for pedestal,
That glorious idol long will keep awake
Their natural religion, nor be cast

To earth by Age, the great Iconoclast.

As from Gadara's founts they once could come, Charm-call'd, from these Love's genii shall arise, And build their perdurable home,

MIRANDA, in thine eyes.

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The envious years, which steal our pleasures, thou
Mayst call at once, like magic memory, back,
And, as they pass o'er thine unwithering brow,
Efface their footsteps ere they form a track.
Thy bloom with wilful weeping never stain,
Perpetual life must not belong to pain.
For me, this world has not yet been a place
Conscious of joys so great as will be mine,
Because the light has kiss'd no face
Forever fair as thine.

A PICTURE-SONG.

How may this little tablet feign
The features of a face,
Which o'er informs with loveliness,
Its proper share of space;
Or human hands on ivory,
Enable us to see

The charms, that all must wonder at,
Thou work of gods in thee!

But yet, methinks, that sunny smile
Familiar stories tells,

And I should know those placid eyes,

Two shaded crystal wells;

Nor can my soul, the limner's art

Attesting with a sigh,

Forget the blood that deck'd thy cheek,

As rosy clouds the sky.

They could not semble what thou art,
More excellent than fair,
As soft as sleep or pity is,

And pure as mountain-air;
But here are common, earthly hues,

To such an aspect wrought,
That none, save thine, can seem so like
The beautiful of thought.

The song I sing, thy likeness like,

Is painful mimicry

Of something better, which is now
A memory to me,

Who have upon life's frozen sea
Arrived the icy spot,

Where man's magnetic feelings show
Their guiding task forgot.

The sportive hopes, that used to chase
Their shifting shadows on,
Like children playing in the sun,
Are gone-forever gone;

And on a careless, sullen peace,

My double-fronted mind, Like JANUS when his gates were shut, Looks forward and behind.

APOLLO placed his harp, of old,
A while upon a stone,
Which has resounded since, when struck,

A breaking harp-string's tone;
And thus my heart, though wholly now,
From early softness free,

If touch'd, will yield the music yet,
It first received of thee.

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