FOR THE DRAMA OF "THE SPY."
The harp of love, when first I heard
Its song beneath the moonlight tree,
Was echoed by his plighted word,
And ah, how dear its song to me;
But wail'd the hour will ever be
When to the air the bugle gave,
To hush love's gentle minstrelsy,
The wild war music of the brave.
For he hath heard its song, and now
Its voice is sweeter than mine own;
And he hath broke the plighted vow
He breathed to me and love alone.
That harp hath lost its wonted tone,
No more its strings his fingers move,
Oh would that he had only known
The music of the harp of love.
1822.
ADDRESS,
AT THE OPENING OF A NEW THEATRE.
November, 1831.
Where dwells the Drama's spirit? not alone
Beneath the palace roof, beside the throne,
In learning's cloisters, friendship's festal bowers,
Art's pictured halls, or triumph's laurel'd towers,
Where'er man's pulses beat or passions play,
She joys to smile or sigh his thoughts away:
Crowd times and scenes within her ring of power,
And teach a life's experience in an hour.
To-night she greets, for the first time, our dome,
Her latest, may it prove her lasting home;
And we her messengers delighted stand,
The summon'd Ariels of her mystic wand,
To ask your welcome. Be it yours to give
Bliss to her coming hours, and bid her live
Within these walls new hallow'd in her cause,
Long in the nurturing warmth of your applause.
'Tis in the public smiles, the public loves,
His dearest home, the actor breathes and moves,
Your plaudits are to us and to our art
As is the life-blood to the human heart:
And every power that bids the leaf be green,
In nature acts on this her mimic scene.
Our sunbeams are the sparklings of glad eyes,
Our winds the whisper of applause, that flies
From lip to lip, the heart-born laugh of glee,
And sounds of cordial hands that ring out merrily,
And heaven's own dew falls on us in the tear
That woman weeps o'er sorrows pictured here,
When crowded feelings have no words to tell
The might, the magic of the actor's spell.
These have been ours; and do we hope in vain
Here, oft and deep, to feel them ours again?
No! while the weary heart can find repose
From its own pains in fiction's joys or woes;
While there are open lips and dimpled cheeks,
When music breathes, or wit or humour speaks;
While Shakspeare's master spirit can call up
Noblest and worthiest thoughts, and brim the cup
Of life with bubbles bright as happiness,
Cheating the willing bosom into bliss;
So long will those who, in their spring of youth,
Have listen'd to the Drama's voice of truth,
Mark'd in her scenes the manners of their age,
And gather'd knowledge for a wider stage,
Come here to speed with smiles life's summer years,
And melt its winter snow with pleasant tears;
And younger hearts, when ours are hushed and cold,
Be happy here as we have been of old.
Friends of the stage, who hail it as the shrine
Where music, painting, poetry entwine
Their kindred garlands, whence their blended power
Refines, exalts, ennobles hour by hour
The spirit of the land, and, like the wind,
Unseen but felt, bears on the bark of mind;
To you the hour that consecrates this dome,
Will call up dreams of prouder hours to come,
When some creating poet, born your own,
May waken here the drama's loftiest tone,
Through after years to echo loud and long,
A Shakspeare of the West, a star of song,
Bright'ning your own blue skies with living fire,
All times to gladden and all tongues inspire,
Far as beneath the heaven by sea-winds fann'd,
Floats the free banner of your native land.
THE RHYME
OF
THE ANCIENT COASTER.
Written while sailing in an open boat on the Hudson River, between Stony Point and the Highlands, on seeing the wreck of an old sloop, June, 1821.
"And this our life, exempt from public haunt,
Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in every thing."
Shakspeare.
Her side is in the water,
Her keel is in the sand,
And her bowsprit rests on the low gray rock
That bounds the sea and land.
Her deck is without a mast,
And sand and shells are there,
And the teeth of decay are gnawing her planks,
In the sun and the sultry air.
No more on the river's bosom,
When sky and wave are calm,
And the clouds are in summer quietness,
And the cool night-breath is balm,
Will she glide in the swan-like stillness
Of the moon in the blue above,
A messenger from other lands,
A beacon to hope and love.
No more, in the midnight tempest,
Will she mock the mounting sea,
Strong in her oaken timbers,
And her white sail's bravery.
She hath borne, in days departed,
Warm hearts upon her deck;
Those hearts, like her, are mouldering now,
The victims, and the wreck
Of time, whose touch erases
Each vestige of all we love;
The wanderers, home returning,
Who gazed that deck above,
And they who stood to welcome
Their loved ones on that shore,
Are gone, and the place that knew them
Shall know them never more.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
It was a night of terror,
In the autumn equinox,
When that gallant vessel found a grave
Upon the Peekskill rocks.
Captain, mate, cook, and seamen
(They were in all but three),
Were saved by swimming fast and well,
And their gallows-destiny.
But two, a youth and maiden,
Were left to brave the storm,
With unpronounceable Dutch names,
And hearts with true love warm.
And they, for love has watchers
In air, on earth, and sea,
Were saved by clinging to the wreck,
And their marriage-destiny.
From sunset to night's noon
She had lean'd upon his arm,
Nor heard the far-off thunder toll
The tocsin of alarm.
Not so the youth—he listen'd
To the cloud-wing flapping by;
And low he whisper'd in Low Dutch,
"It tells our doom is nigh.
"Death is the lot of mortals,
But we are young and strong,
And hoped, not boldly, for a life
Of happy years and long.
"Yet 'tis a thought consoling,
That, till our latest breath,
We loved in life, and shall not be
Divided in our death.
"Alas, for those that wait us
On their couch of dreams at home,
The morn will hear the funeral cry
Around their daughter's tomb.
"They hoped" ('twas a strange moment
In Dutch to quote Shakspeare)
"Thy bride-bed to have deck'd, sweet maid,
And not have strew'd thy bier."
But, sweetly-voiced and smiling,
The trusting maiden said,
"Breathed not thy lips the vow to-day,
To-morrow we will wed?
"And I, who have known thy truth
Through years of joy and sorrow,
Can I believe the fickle winds?
No! we shall wed to-morrow!"
The tempest heard and paused—
The wild sea gentler moved—
They felt the power of woman's faith
In the word of him she loved.
All night to rope and spar
They clung with strength untired,
Till the dark clouds fled before the sun,
And the fierce storm expired.
At noon the song of bridal bells
O'er hill and valley ran;
At eve he call'd the maiden his,
"Before the holy man."
They dwelt beside the waters
That bathe yon fallen pine,
And round them grew their sons and daughters,
Like wild grapes on the vine.
And years and years flew o'er them,
Like birds with beauty on their wings,
And theirs were happy sleigh-ride winters,
And long and lovely springs,
Such joys as thrill'd the lips that kiss'd
The wave, rock-cool'd, from Horeb's fountains,
And sorrows, fleeting as the mist
Of morning, spread upon the mountains,
Till, in a good old age,
Their life-breath pass'd away;
Their name is on the churchyard page—
Their story in my lay.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
And let them rest together,
The maid, the boat, the boy,
Why sing of matrimony now,
In this brief hour of joy?
Our time may come, and let it—
'Tis enough for us now to know
That our bark will reach West Point ere long,
If the breeze keep on to blow.
We have Hudibras and Milton,
Wines, flutes, and a bugle-horn,
And a dozen segars are lingering yet
Of the thousand of yestermorn.
They have gone, like life's first pleasures,
And faded in smoke away,
And the few that are left are like bosom friends
In the evening of our day.
We are far from the mount of battle,[B]
Where the wreck first met mine eye,
And now where twin-forts[C] in the olden time rose,
Thro' the Race, like a swift steed, our little bark goes,
And our bugle's notes echo through Anthony's Nose,
So wrecks and rhymes—good-by.