Fair flower! the opening of whose breast
Of fragrance, on the soft south-west,
Speaks sweet to me, in mem'ries dear—
All that calls up affection's tear;
I love thy heart-leaf'd single cup,
Soft blushing with the hue of morn;
I kiss each essenced dew-drop up,
That trembles on thy thorn:
For thou upon my path hast grown
Since childhood—womanhood, I own.
First on a Pennsylvanian bank,
Where fair my native creek flow'd by,
The breathings of thine heart I drank,
And gazed into thy golden eye.
Where'er I wander, still dost thou
Ever upon my pathway bow;
The field, the cliff—my children's tomb,
To garland with spontaneous bloom.
Where'er a mossy rock hath place,
Thou wavest there in modest grace;
Guarding beneath thy blushing vest,
Midst tufted grass, the partridge-nest.
Where'er o'er mountain path I toil,
Thou spring'st to bless the grav'ly soil;
Where straggling fence-row gives thee room,
Thou fling'st a garland, and perfume;
And oft thy dying odors play,
Mingled in swathe of fragrant hay.
Though thou dost love the woodland shade,
Still for the sun-beam wert thou made.
Stealing from copse to open sky—
Greeting from far the traveller's eye:
Thou wert not 'born to blush unseen,'
Sweet wilding rose; the meadow's queen!
I love thy leaf's indented green;
The tinge of red upon thy stalk;
Thy pointed buds, so neatly furl'd:
O, who hath said this western world
Was to thy smile unknown!
Come, let him take one morning walk,
When May has well nigh flown;
In dell or dingle, chiefly where
A thicket meets the open air;
Or where a gurgling streamlet takes
Its sparkling leap through rocky brakes;
O'er fence-row, to the tassel'd corn,
The smiling rose nods from her thorn:
O! ever, rose! smile thus to me,
Memento of my childhood's glee.
In warmer Greece, thou may'st repay,
With richer glow, the softer day;
At eve, as from the bul-bul's throat,
Love's fabled breathings o'er thee float;
Or England's gardens may enhance,
By florist's art, thy trebled flower;
But here thou'rt free; thy ev'ry glance
Speaks but our nation's dower.
Free as the foot of Pilgrim, set
On Plymouth-rock by salt sea wet;
Free as the soil on which he trod,
Free as the pray'r he breath'd to God;
Free as the untam'd Indian's eye,
That tracks the foe none else can spy;
Free as the arrow from his bow—
Free as the dark Missouri's flow;
Free as the forest's untam'd herds;
Free as the lake's migrating birds.
Wild rose, and sweet! still grace the soil,
Won by our fathers' sacred toil;
Still cheer the labors of the plough—
The harvest rose, still flourish thou!
Gayer may blow in Persian loom,
Richer may breathe in Turk's perfume:
But purer, sweeter, never hung
The rocks, the paths, the fields among;
I love thee, for thou dost for me
Garland the country of the free!
W.
[EDWARD FANE'S ROSEBUD.]
There is hardly a more difficult exercise of fancy, than, while gazing at a figure of melancholy age, to re-create its youth, and, without entirely obliterating the identity of form and features, to restore those graces which time has snatched away. Some old people, especially women, so age-worn and woful are they, seem never to have been young and gay. It is easier to conceive that such gloomy phantoms were sent into the world as withered and decrepit as we beheld them now, with sympathies only for pain and grief, to watch at death-beds, and weep at funerals. Even the sable garments of their widowhood appear essential to their existence; all their attributes combine to render them darksome shadows, creeping strangely amid the sunshine of human life. Yet it is no unprofitable task, to take one of these doleful creatures, and set fancy resolutely at work to brighten the dim eye, and darken the silvery locks, and paint the ashen-cheek with rose-color, and repair the shrunken and crazy form, till a dewy maiden shall be seen in the old matron's elbow-chair. The miracle being wrought, then let the years roll back again, each sadder than the last, and the whole weight of age and sorrow settle down upon the youthful figure. Wrinkles and furrows, the hand-writing of Time, may thus be deciphered, and found to contain deep lessons of thought and feeling. Such profit might be derived, by a skilful observer, from my much-respected friend, the Widow Ingersoll, a nurse of great repute, who has breathed the atmosphere of sick-chambers and dying-breaths, these forty years.
See! she sits cowering over her lonesome hearth, with her gown and upper petticoat drawn upward, gathering thriftily into her person the whole warmth of the fire, which, now at nightfall, begins to dissipate the autumnal chill of her chamber. The blaze quivers capriciously in front, alternately glimmering into the deepest chasms of her wrinkled visage, and then permitting a ghostly dimness to mar the outlines of her venerable figure. And Nurse Ingersoll holds a tea-spoon in her right hand, with which to stir up the contents of a tumbler in her left, whence steams a vapory fragrance, abhorred of temperance societies. Now she sips—now stirs—now sips again. Her sad old heart has need to be revived by the rich infusion of Geneva, which is mixed half-and-half with hot water, in the tumbler. All day long she has been sitting by a death-pillow, and quitted it for her home, only when the spirit of her patient left the clay, and went homeward too. But now are her melancholy meditations cheered, and her torpid blood warmed, and her shoulders lightened of at least twenty ponderous years, by a draught from the true Fountain of Youth, in a case-bottle. It is strange that men should deem that fount a fable, when its liquor fills more bottles than the congress-water! Sip it again, good nurse, and see whether a second draught will not take off another score of years, and perhaps ten more, and show us, in your high-backed chair, the blooming damsel who plighted troths with Edward Fane. Get you gone, Age and Widowhood! Come back, unwedded Youth! But, alas! the charm will not work. In spite of fancy's most potent spell, I can see only an old dame cowering over the fire, a picture of decay and desolation, while the November blast roars at her in the chimney, and fitful showers rush suddenly against the window.