Its aimless still and undecided flight,
Give me such aid. I challenge thee once more To a renewal of our feats of yore.
Let me provoke thee to contention high
Of emulative prowess; let us try
Whether the paths of life, which now we tread,
Yield not wherewith our spirits may be fed
For enterprise poetic, and supply
Themes not unmeet for loftiest poesy.
Methinks our range for fruitful thought is wide-
The church, the cot, the dying saint's bedside,
The house of mourning, the glad nuptial morn,
The christening, and the death, of the first born;
Yea, even the pastoral glance, which peeps within
The foul abodes of infamy and sin;
The hopes and fears of ministerial fight
With souls deep plunged in spiritual night;
The triumph rarely, but how richly, won,
When guilt and desperation's headstrong son,
Whose soul for man or demon ne'er hath quail'd,
By strength of cogent argument assail'd,
Begins to stoop his helm, retreats and reels
Before the Spirit's sword, which now he feels
With terror and with pain, unfelt before,
Cutting its way into his heart's rough core,
And cleaving, with its keen ethereal point,
Spirit and soul, the marrow and the joint,
Till he is fain the unequal fight to yield,
And leave the gospel master of the field.
Yea, childlike and submissive, bows his head
To Heaven's high will, and follows as he's led,
Till his friends find him where disciples meet,
Devoutly sitting at his Saviour's feet.—
Him whom no force could tame, no fetters bind,
Meek and well clothed, and in his perfect mind.
Triumphs like these to win and to rehearse
Is ours alone. Are such less fit for verse
Than battle fields and bloodshed, wounds and scars,
And tears and groans, the pride of mortal wars?
Or would we look on Nature's face awhile
With eyes which would indulge a sober smile?
The world hath aspects in our pastoral sphere
Meet for such mirth: 'tis ours to see and hear
The parish feud-the vestry's grave debate,
And, in our daily walks, to contemplate
In poor and rich, in rustic and refined,
The freaks and whims of man's mysterious mind
In all its varying humours.
But 'tis time
To check the rovings of this wayward rhyme;
And I have much to ask of thine and thee,
And somewhat too to tell, which may not be
Comprised in such brief space as now remains
In this full sheet. Howbeit, if these poor strains
Find favour in thy sight, (as I suppose
They partly will,) write soon in verse or prose,
As likes thee best, give me such sympathy
And counsel as thou canst; but let them be
Accompanied by news, delay'd too long,
Of all thy household; how, amidst the throng
Of boarding house anxieties and cares,
The gentle spirit of our Mary fares;
How thrives my bright-eyed namesake, thy fair
What feats of letter'd prowess he hath done.
Nor cheat me of the promise, long since given,
To tell, of Him, whose spirit, now in Heaven,
Sees, face to face, the God whom long he sought
By patient study and profoundest thought,
What I so thirst to hear.
Yield matter plentiful for thanks and praise
To the great Giver of all Good; though now
Sorrow and care have drawn o'er either brow
A deeper shade than veil'd it heretofore,
Ere Death had found an entrance through our door.
Our course of life thou knew'st of old, but O!
Thou know'st not, and 'tis time that thou shouldst
(Thou and thy Mary) what a spring of bliss,
Almost too pure for such a world as this,
Hath gush'd out unawares within this year,
Our joys to brighten, and our griefs to cheer,
With sympathy and love intense and deep;—
A treasure beyond price, and which to keep
All to ourselves, unshared by thee and thine,
Seems monstrous. If high faith and love divine,
Glowing in hearts by nature's self design'd
For all things lovely, noble, pure and kind,
And graced by all that may command respect
Of female wisdom and fine intellect-
If this afford thee one attraction more
Than those in which we were so rich before,
Let not the summer months again have fled,
And left our parsonage unvisited.
Come, Derwent, and come, Mary; come, and see
How bloom our roses on their parent tree:
Come, take sweet counsel with our friends, who here
Supply your place, and scarcely seem less dear.
Come, and let Derwikin, the bright and wise,
Gladden our Gerard's and George William's eyes;
That he and they, when we shall be no more,
May to each other bear the love we bore,
Transmitting to their sons, in after days,
The memory of our friendship and our lays.
October, 1834.
LIVE, if ye may, and strike your roots in earth,
Poor flowerets of my fancy's second spring;
Whose unexpected and spontaneous birth
From grief's tear-water'd soil, did lately fling
A soothing fragrance o'er my home and hearth,
Sadden'd awhile by Death's first visiting.
Live, if ye may, and take abiding root,
Forerunners, haply, of autumnal fruit.
Feeble, in truth, and fading ye appear; [flowers, For my mind's garden, once o'erstock'd with Hath been devote, for many a busy year,
To sterner culture, till its laurel bowers, Too long neglected, have grown thin and sere, And the scant labour of these leisure hours May not the fulness of that bloom restore, Which, suffer'd once to fade, revives no more.
I know not of what depth the soil may be
By which your growth is nurtured; but I know
That henceforth never shall it yield for me
Such gaudy wildflowers and rank weeds as grow In the parterres of wanton phantasy,
But all its poor fertility bestow
On holier produce-lays of faith and love,
And His great praise who died, and reigns above.
High theme, and worthy to attune the strings
Of seraph harps to symphonies divine;
Whereat the angels, folding their bright wings
In trance-like silence, should wrapt ears incline To strains which told them of profounder things Than thought of theirs can fathom ;—and shall mine
Venture beyond them? daring flight, I ween,
For grovelling fancy, such as mine hath been.
Twelve years, life's summer, have for ever fled, Bringing strange changes, since the Muse I woo'd,
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