A maiden kissed me at the evening hour
With dewy lip—how honied was the kiss!
Her mouth breathed nectar, and its balmy power
Hath made me drunk with love’s bewildering bliss.
I would I were a rose—that thy sweet hand
Might gently place me on thy snowy breast—
Or sighing gale—for then my spirit bland
On thy soft bosom would securely rest.
Here follow a few melancholy breathings of that better part, which shone bright and burning while it lasted, though its food was error, and its end was death. Their aspirations after immortality were few and faint—for the very existence of another world was merely an assumption—a matter of speculation. An immortality of fame, to the sober eye, was not merely worthless, if acquired, but its acquisition was a thing of toil, and danger, and doubt. Robbed of the high aims and hopes for which it was made, “the chainless spirit of the eternal mind,” would stoop to no medium flight, but sunk in hopeless despondence, and like guilty Adam,
“On the cold earth it lay,