TO EMMA.
Charm’d by returning Friendship’s gentle voice,
Each waken’d pulse with new-born rapture beats;
My lonely heart the welcome stranger greets,
And bids each quiv’ring, trembling nerve rejoice.
Emma again shall meet my view,
Still beats her heart to Friendship true,
All the gay scenes by hope pourtray’d,
Late hid by sorrow’s sombre shade,
Revive upon my raptur’d sight,
In glowing colours now more bright
Than when we erst in early Friendship’s bands,
First join’d our hearts and lock’d our infant hands.
Friend of my heart, that time again returns,
Again we’ll taste the joys of Friendship pure;
And tho’ Maria’s loss my Emma mourns,
Time and fond sympathy her grief shall cure.
There she was pity’s mildest form,
Her heart with ev’ry virtue warm,
And well deserv’d affection’s tear,
The tender thought and sigh sincere;
I too her early fate deplore,
And mourn fair Virtue’s child no more:
In tender sympathy with thee I’ll join,
“Give tear for tear, and echo sighs to thine.”
The subject sad my early woes revives;
I too, my friend, have felt misfortune’s dart,
Still in my soul the sad remembrance lives
Of objects dear;—Ah! doom’d how soon to part:
Still in the melancholy hour
Memory exerts her tyrant pow’r;
Recalls thy form, Oh! parent dear,
Still bids the much-lov’d shade appear,
And prompts the deep-drawn sigh sincere,
While down my pale cheek flows the tear:
Deep in the grave my tender parent sleeps,
While o’er the sod each kindred virtue weeps.
Soon too Selina did thy early worth
The blooming beauty heaven its favourite gave,
Seek the dark confines of the chilling earth,
And join our much lov’d parents in the grave:
Ye oft I meet, beloved shades,
When wandering through the moonlight glades;
Pale shadows shoot athwart my view,
I start, I sigh, and think of you,
And oft my wilder’d fancy brings
Your dear lov’d forms, and o’er them flings
Bright robes of heavenly radiance fair,
Anon they vanish into air:
Thus fled my joys, I cry, and tears pursue,
The pleasing phantoms melting from my view.
Have I not cause, my friend, to grieve,
To bid the mournful numbers flow,
In solemn strains of dirge like woe,
And tears the wounded heart relieve:
But resignation, heaven born maid,
Still sooths me with her cheering aid,
She calls my wandering fancy home,
To scenes of bliss beyond the tomb,
And bids my rapt thought soar away,
“In visions of eternal day.”
Emma’s dear friendship too shall calm my woe,
Forbid the sigh to heave, the tear to flow.
Yes, charming maid, thy love returned bestows
A cheering ray my darken’d path to light,
As from the cloud, the sun breaks forth more bright,
And all the sky with borrowed lustre glows:
Again shall please, the sweets of spring,
And fancy ever on the wing,
Assay to cull Pierian flowers,
And spend the chearful smiling hours;
When at the muses’ shrine I bow,
In waving garlands for thy brow:
Nor thou my friend, the humble boon refuse,
Tho’ mean the gift, pure are the giver’s views.
Yet think not, partial friend, thy Clara vain,
Ah! well she knows, she wants the muses fire,
Some abler hand should strike the sounding lyre,
And with my Emma’s praises swell the strain:
Yet though my lay be wild and rude,
By friendship’s partial eye when view’d,
Emma may smile—no more I ask,
I will repay the pleasing task:
More than the applauding world her smile I prize,
Than the morn the mildness of her eyes.
CLARA
New-York, Oct. 3, 1796.
