But, hark! the goddess stoops to reason:—
"The country now is quite in season,
I'll go!"—"What! to our country seat?"
"No!—Travelling will be such a treat;
Pyrmont's extremely full, I hear;
But Carlsbad's quite the rage this year!"
Oh yes, she loves the rural Graces;
Nature is gay—in watering-places!
Those pleasant spas—our reigning passion—
Where learned Dons meet folks of fashion;
Where—each with each illustrious soul
Familiar as in Charon's boat,
All sorts of fame sit cheek-by-jowl,
Pearls in that string—the table d'hote!
Where dames whom man has injured—fly,
To heal their wounds or to efface, them;
While others, with the waters, try
A course of flirting,—just to brace them!
Well, there (O man, how light thy woes
Compared with mine—thou need'st must see!)
My wife, undaunted, greatly goes—
And leaves the orphans (seven!!!) to me!
O, wherefore art thou flown so soon,
Thou first fair year—Love's honeymoon!
All, dream too exquisite for life!
Home's goddess—in the name of wife!
Reared by each grace—yet but to be
Man's household Anadyomene!
With mind from which the sunbeams fall,
Rejoice while pervading all;
Frank in the temper pleased to please—
Soft in the feeling waked with ease.
So broke, as native of the skies,
The heart-enthraller on my eyes;
So saw I, like a morn of May,
The playmate given to glad my way;
With eyes that more than lips bespoke,
Eyes whence—sweet words—"I love thee!" broke!
So—Ah, what transports then were mine!
I led the bride before the shrine!
And saw the future years revealed,
Glassed on my hope—one blooming field!
More wide, and widening more, were given
The angel-gates disclosing heaven;
Round us the lovely, mirthful troop
Of children came—yet still to me
The loveliest—merriest of the group
The happy mother seemed to be!
Mine, by the bonds that bind us more
Than all the oaths the priest before;
Mine, by the concord of content,
When heart with heart is music-blent;
When, as sweet sounds in unison,
Two lives harmonious melt in one!
When—sudden (O the villain!)—came
Upon the scene a mind profound!—
A bel esprit, who whispered "Fame,"
And shook my card-house to the ground.
What have I now instead of all
The Eden lost of hearth and hall?
What comforts for the heaven bereft?
What of the younger angel's left?
A sort of intellectual mule,
Man's stubborn mind in woman's shape,
Too hard to love, too frail to rule—
A sage engrafted on an ape!
To what she calls the realm of mind,
She leaves that throne, her sex, to crawl,
The cestus and the charm resigned—
A public gaping-show to all!
She blots from beauty's golden book
A name 'mid nature's choicest few,
To gain the glory of a nook
In Doctor Dunderhead's Review.
WRITTEN IN A YOUNG LADY'S ALBUM.
Sweet friend, the world, like some fair infant blessed,
Radiant with sportive grace, around thee plays;
Yet 'tis not as depicted in thy breast—
Not as within thy soul's fair glass, its rays
Are mirrored. The respectful fealty
That my heart's nobleness hath won for thee,
The miracles thou workest everywhere,
The charms thy being to this life first lent,—
To it, mere charms to reckon thou'rt content,
To us, they seem humanity so fair.
The witchery sweet of ne'er-polluted youth,
The talisman of innocence and truth—
Him I would see, who these to scorn can dare!
Thou revellest joyously in telling o'er
The blooming flowers that round thy path are strown,—
The glad, whom thou hast made so evermore,—
The souls that thou hast conquered for thine own.
In thy deceit so blissful be thou glad!
Ne'er let a waking disenchantment sad
Hurl thee despairing from thy dream's proud flight!
Like the fair flowerets that thy beds perfume,
Observe them, but ne'er touch them as they bloom,—
Plant them, but only for the distant sight.
Created only to enchant the eye,
In faded beauty at thy feet they'll lie,
The nearer thee, the nearer their long night!
POEMS OF THE THIRD PERIOD.
THE MEETING.
I see her still—by her fair train surrounded,
The fairest of them all, she took her place;
Afar I stood, by her bright charms confounded,
For, oh! they dazzled with their heavenly grace.
With awe my soul was filled—with bliss unbounded,
While gazing on her softly radiant face;
But soon, as if up-borne on wings of fire,
My fingers 'gan to sweep the sounding lyre.
The thoughts that rushed across me in that hour,
The words I sang, I'd fain once more invoke;
Within, I felt a new-awakened power,
That each emotion of my bosom spoke.
My soul, long time enchained in sloth's dull bower,
Through all its fetters now triumphant broke,
And brought to light unknown, harmonious numbers,
Which in its deepest depths, had lived in slumbers.