’Tis supposed the muses hang a harp by every stream, where it remains till some lady arises to take it and sing the “loves and joys, the rural scenes and pleasures,” the beauty and grandeur of the place.
Take the harp, nor longer leave it
Sighing on the willow tree;
Pass thy gentle fingers o’er it,
And awake its melody;
The streams tho’ icy chains may bind them,
Still will murmur back thy trill,
And the roses wild, though blasted,
On thy cheeks are blooming still.
Then touch the harp, till its wild numbers
The lone groves and valleys fill;
And tho’ winter’s frosts have sear’d them,
Thou canst dream they’re beauteous still—
Thou canst clothe their banks with verdure,
And wild flowers above them rise;
What tho’ chilly blasts have strewn them,
Their fragrance lingers on thy sighs!
Take the harp, nor on it dirges
Longer let Eolus play;
Touch it, and those notes of sadness
Change to joyous rhapsody!
And tho’ the grape, the gift of Autumn,
Has been prest to crown the bowl—
Still in thy tresses shine its clusters,
While down thy snowy neck they roll.
Take the harp, and wake its numbers
To thy sister planet’s praise,
As up the eastern sky she blazes,
Followed by the morning rays;
Queen of starry heaven beaming,
From her azure realm afar;
So thou dost shine midst beauty’s daughters,
Love’s bright and glorious morning star.
[Death of the Beautiful.]
The following poem was written in 1850 on the death of Miss Sarah E. McCullough, of Pleasant Grove, Lancaster county, Pennsylvania. Miss McCullough was a cousin of Mr. Ewing.
I saw thy form in youthful prime,
Nor thought that pale Decay
Would steal before the steps of Time,
And waste its bloom away.—Moore.
And thou art dead,
The gifted, the beautiful,
Thy spirit’s fled!
Thou, the fairest ’mong ten thousand, art no more!
Death culls the sweetest flowers to grace the tomb—
He hath touched thee—thou hast left us in thy bloom!
How oft amid the virgin throng,
I’ve seen thee, fairest, dance along;
And thine eyes, so brightly dark,
Gleaming like the diamond’s spark;
But now how dim
Those orbs are left—
By Death bereft
Of their brightness,
And that neck of its whiteness,
Where once the curling tress descended,
Where once the rose and lily blended,
As the warm blush came and flew;
Now o’er all hath Death extended
His pallid hue—
Sallow and blue;
And sunken ’neath the purple lid,
Those eyes are hid,
Once so bright;
And the shroud, as thine own pure spirit white,
All that remains of what was once so lovely, holds!
In its snowy folds—
Then fare thee well, sweet one,
Thy bright, thy fleeting race is run,
And with the flowers thou art sleeping,
And o’er thy grave the friends are weeping
Of thine early day.
Thou wert lovely—aye, as Spring,
When birds and blossoms bloom and sing,
The happy, happy hours welcoming
Of gentle May.
In the past I see thee shining,
Like the star of tender morning,
A day of love and peace divining,
And the sky of Hope adorning.
Smiles—that dimpled mouth are wreathing;
Music—those rosy lips are breathing,
Like morn glancing through the sky,
Like the zephyr’s softest sigh.
Ah, then, who’d dream that aught so fair,
Was fleeting as the Summer air?
Yet in that hour
Disease, so deceitful, stole upon thee,
As blight upon a flower;
And thou art dead!
And thy spirit’s past away.
Like a dew-drop from the spray,
Like a sunbeam from the mountain,
Like a bubble from the fountain;
And thou art now at rest,
In thy damp, narrow cell,
With the clod heap’d o’er thy breast;
Fare thee well!