TO MIRA.

BY L. A. WILMER.

Far from the gaudy scenes my earliest youth
Loved to inhabit, which Hope's rising sun
Lent every grace and charm—save that of Truth,
And made me happy but to be undone,
(My joys expectant blasted ere begun,)
Far from those pleasing scenes 'tis mine to roam.
Friendless, forlorn, my idle course I run,
While Disappointment, a malignant gnome,
Still tortures, and the grave appears my happiest home.
Ere yet I bid a long, a last farewell
To the sweet Muse, reluctant to forego
The sacred solace and enchanting spell
Which charm'd my solitude, and sooth'd my woe—
Ere I renounce my harp, and cease to know
The poet's rapture, when his eye surveys
The heavenly visions fancy doth bestow,
On which her favored sons alone may gaze,
Once more I lift my voice to sing in Mira's praise.
While sickly flattery heaps the unhallowed shrine
Of pomp and pride with praise that palls the sense,
Let spotless candor, Heaven-born truth be mine:
Base are the praises sold at truth's expense:
Mira! thy name all falsehood drives from hence!
Accept this tribute due to worth like thine—
Accept this offering of a heart from whence
No guile shall rise to taint this verse of mine,
But friendship's holy signet sanctify each line.
O might I deem my verse could live beyond
The petty confines of the dreary tomb—
Might I believe my wishes not too fond,
That point to fame beyond the eternal gloom—
When this frail form shall in the grave consume,
That future ages shall my works behold—
Then, Mira, on this page thy name's perfume
Should breathe a fragrance, when the hand is cold
And crumbled into dust which here that name enrolled.
As long as years revolved, and seasons came,
Tho' other flowers should fade away and die,
An ever-blooming flower should be thy name,
Dipped in the radiance of the evening sky:
When marble monuments in ruins lie,
And sculptured pillars from their bases fall,
Could I but place fair Mira's name on high
In Fame's eternal, adamantine hall,
Then would my lot be blessed, my hopes accomplished all.
Tho' placed by Fate in this ungenial clime,
Where scarce the sacred Muse hath deigned to tread—
These Western lands, where Song appears a crime,
And Genius rears a sad and sickly head—
And tho' malignant stars their influence shed—
Yet might I boast thy friendship, I would bend
No more when black misfortunes round me spread;
But my last breath in thankfulness would send,
And tell to future times thou wast my only friend.
I have seen womankind in all their charms—
Yea! all that beauty, wealth, and wit bestow—
With all that strikes the eye, or fancy warms,
In festal halls, where gold and diamonds glow,
And gay costumes that mock the painted bow
Of Iris hanging on Heaven's battlements:
Yet not all these could bid my bosom know
Such admiration, or such joys dispense,
As when the maiden smiled in heavenly innocence.
Then, Mira, not to pride my harp is strung—
Not to the measures of the giddy dance—
The boasted beauty shall remain unsung,
For I, unmoved, can meet her fatal glance.
Not in the fairy regions of romance
My footsteps stray—but Truth directs my song:
To Truth's eternal portals I advance,
Deserted by the rhyming crew so long,
And Virtue, Worth, and Thou shall still employ my tongue.
With thee, sweet Modesty and Truth reside—
Sincerity from courts and crowds exiled—
Virtue, that shuns the haughty brow of Pride—
And Charity, Heaven's first-born, favorite child,—
As if the skies upon thy birth had smiled,
And given thee all to make a woman dear.
Yes! thou couldst humanize the savage wild,
Make tigers pause thy soothing voice to hear,
Melt marble hearts, and smooth the brow of cankering care.
When the last echoes of my harp expire,
In mournful breathings on Patapsco's shore—
When the unpractised hand that struck the wire,
Shall wake those wild and artless notes no more—
When the green meadow and the torrent's roar—
The woody walk, so long my dear delight,
With all that charmed my fancy most before—
When Death shall veil these objects from my sight,
O say, wilt thou my name in thy remembrance write?
Then let the world its malice all combine—
Its hate I reck not, and its wrongs despise:
A bliss they dream not of shall still be mine—
A bliss untold, yet worthy of the skies,
Which all their curs'd malevolence defies.
Even in the anguish of the mortal hour,
My soul superior to the gloom shall rise,
And smile on Death when all his terrors lower,
And the grim tyrant stalks full panoplied in power.