But, no! the freshness of the past shall still Sacred to memory's holiest musings be; When through the ideal fields of song, at will, He roved and gathered chaplets wild with thee; When, reckless of the world, alone and free, Like two proud barks, we kept our careless way, That sail by moonlight o'er the tranquil sea; Their white apparel and their streamers gay, Bright gleaming o'er the main, beneath the ghostly ray;—
And downward, far, reflected in the clear Blue depths, the eye their fairy tackling sees; So buoyant, they do seem to float in air, And silently obey the noiseless breeze; Till, all too soon, as the rude winds may please, They part for distant ports: the gales benign Swift wafting, bore, by Heaven's all-wise decrees, To its own harbour sure, where each divine And joyous vision, seen before in dreams, is thine.
Muses of Helicon! melodious race Of Jove and golden-haired Mnemosyné; Whose art from memory blots each sadder trace, And drives each scowling form of grief away! Who, round the violet fount, your measures gay Once trod, and round the altar of great Jove; Whence, wrapt in silvery clouds, your nightly way Ye held, and ravishing strains of music wove, That soothed the Thunderer's soul, and filled his courts above.
Bright choir! with lips untempted, and with zone Sparkling, and unapproached by touch profane; Ye, to whose gladsome bosoms ne'er was known The blight of sorrow, or the throb of pain; Rightly invoked,—if right the elected swain, On your own mountain's side ye taught of yore, Whose honoured hand took not your gift in vain, Worthy the budding laurel-bough it bore,— [N] Farewell! a long farewell! I worship you no more.
THE INDIAN.
BY JONATHAN LAWRENCE, JUN.
Away, away to forest shades! Fly, fly with me the haunts of men! I would not give my sunlit glades, My talking stream, and silent glen, For all the pageantry of slaves, Their fettered lives and trampled graves.
Away from wealth! our wampum strings Ask not the toil, the woes of them From whom the lash, the iron wrings The golden dross, the tear-soiled gem; Yet bind our hearts in the pure tie That gold or gems could never buy.
And power! what is it ye who rule The hands without the souls? oh, ye Can tell how mean the tinselled fool, With all his hollow mockery! The slave of slaves who hate, yet bow, With serving lip but scorning brow.