What nonsense have I written down?
I am not self-possessed to-day;
On brow the world hath taught to frown,
The light of song should never play.
Can witch Imagination warm
A heart whose passion-streams are dry?
Mere man of parchment and of form,
And slave of wrangling fools, am I.
Should maid, then, blest like thee, require
From me the tributary rhyme?
The peerless child of laurel'd sire
Will share his fame in after time.
Thou needest not the praise of one
From whom life's romance is receding,
Who haunts a land without a sun.
The barren realm of special pleading.
Farewell! I leave thee with regret,
To struggle in the war of life;
I would not for a world, forget
Thy words of——Hush! I have a wife:
And two sweet children, one a boy
Who wears the dark hair of his mother,
And, full of innocence and joy,
A radiant little girl the other.
New-York, June 25, 1843.
William H. C. Hosmer.