T ELIZABETH OAKES SMITH. I. EXPRESSIONLESS. HE thoughts which in this aching bosom dwell, Of homeward-urging sail,- within their cell, Nameless and wordless, struggle with their fate And yield but one deep plain, too late! too late! Then falter into silence. It is well! Ah, could our lips embody all the grace And garnered beauty of the inmost soul, Earth were no more a blank, impeding place, But, loosed from bonds perpetual, hymns would roll. Thou God! most good, in each our lips to bind ;For what were earth, did all our woe expression find! II. REGRETS. MESEEMED as I did walk a crystal wall And following him, love-led and music-borne, - Thy deathful cry thrilled in mine every vein, When Orpheus turned him back, thus losing thee. His broken lute and melancholy plain All time prolongs, - the still unceasing flow Of unavailing grief, and a regretful woe. III. POESY. WITH no fond, sickly thirst for fame I kneel, Felt ever from the time when first the earth That which I would not, yet I know that thou The offering wilt not spurn, while thus to thee I bow. IV. AN INCIDENT. A SIMPLE thing, yet chancing as it did, With steady flight, seemed there to take his fill I would not soar like thee, in loneliness to pine! |