LINES
WRITTEN IN THE MEMOIRS OF ELIZABETH SMITH.
O thou! whose pure, exalted mind,
Lives in this record, fair and bright;
O thou! whose blameless life combined
Soft female charms, and grace refined,
With science and with light!
Celestial maid! whose spirit soar’d
Beyond this vale of tears—
Whose clear, enlighten’d eye explored
The lore of years!
Daughter of Heaven! if here, e’en here,
The wing of towering thought was thine;
If, on this dim and mundane sphere,
Fair truth illumed thy bright career,
With morning-star divine;
How must thy bless’d ethereal soul
Now kindle in her noontide ray,
And hail, unfetter’d by control,
The Fount of Day!
E’en now, perhaps, thy seraph eyes,
Undimm’d by doubt, nor veil’d by fear,
Behold a chain of wonders rise—
Gaze on the noon-beam of the skies,
Transcendant, pure, and clear!
E’en now, the fair, the good, the true,
From mortal sight conceal’d,
Bless in one blaze thy raptured view,
In light reveal’d!
If here the lore of distant time,
And learning’s flowers, were all thine own;
How must thy mind ascend sublime,
Matured in heaven’s empyreal clime,
To light’s unclouded throne!
Perhaps e’en now thy kindling glance
Each orb of living fire explores,
Darts o’er creation’s wide expanse,
Admires—adores!
Oh! if that lightning-eye surveys
This dark and sublunary plain;
How must the wreath of human praise
Fade, wither, vanish, in thy gaze,
So dim, so pale, so vain!
How, like a faint and shadowy dream,
Must quiver learning’s brightest ray;
While on thine eyes, with lucid stream,
The sun of glory pours his beam,
Perfection’s day!
[The reader may contrast these early lines of Mrs Hemans with the maturer ones on the same subject by Professor Wilson.—Poems, vol. ii. p. 140-9.]