ODE TO REFLECTION.
’Twas when Nature’s darling child,
Flora, fan’d by zephyrs mild,
Th’ gorgeous canopy outspread
O’er the sun’s declining head,
Wending from the buz of day,
Thus a bard attun’d his lay:
Bright Reflection, child of heav’n,
Noblest gift to mortals given,
Goddess of the pensive eye,
Glancing thro’ eternity,
Rob’d in intellectual light,
Come, with all thy charms bedight.
Tho’ nor fame, nor splendid worth,
Mark’d thy humble vot’ry’s birth,
Snatch’d by thee from cank’ring care,
I defy the fiend Despair;
All the joys that Bacchus loves,
All inglorious pleasure proves;
All the fleeting modish toys.
Buoy’d by Folly’s frantic noise;
All, except the sacred lore,
Flowing from thy boundless store!
For when thy bright form appears,
Even wild Confusion hears,
Chaos glows, impervious night
Shrinks from thy all-piercing sight;
Yet, alas! what vain extremes
Mortals prove in Error’s schemes
Sunk profound in torpor’s trance,
Or with levity they dance,
Or, in murmers deep, the soul
Thinks it bliss beyond the pole;
Bounding swift o’er time and place,
Vacant still thro’ boundless space,
Leaving happiness at home,
Thus the mental vagrants roam
But when thou with sober mien,
Deign’st to bless this wayward scene,
Like Aurora shining clear
O’er the mental hemisphere;
Who but hears a soothing strain
Warbling “Heaven’s ways are plain!”
Who but hears the charmer say,
“These obscure the living ray:——
“Self-love, the foulest fiend of night
“That ever stain’d the virgin-light,
“Coward, wretch, who shuns to share,
“Or sooth the woes that others bear;
“Envy with an eagle’s eye;
“Scandal’s tales that never die;
“Int’rest vile, with countless tongues,
“Trembling for ideal wrongs;
“Flatt’ry base, with supple knee,
“Cringing low servility:
“Prejudice, with eyes askew,
“Still suspecting ought that’s new,—
“Would but men from these refrain,
“Eden’s bow’rs would bloom again,
“Doubts in embryo melt away,
“Truth’s eternal sun-beams play!”
NEW-YORK: Printed by THOMAS BURLING, Jun. No. 115, Cherry-street—where Subscriptions for this Magazine (at 6s. per quarter) will be gratefully received—And at No. 33, Oliver-Street.