The sparkles of our ashes. One great clime,
Whose vigorous offspring by dividing ocean
Are kept apart and nursed in the devotion
Of Freedom, which their fathers fought for, and
Bequeathed a heritage of heart and hand,
And proud distinction from each other land,
Whose sons must bow them at a monarch's motion,
As if his senseless sceptre were a wand,
Full of the magic of exploded science-
Still one great clime, in full and free defiance,
Yet rears her crest, unconquered and sublime,
Above the far Atlantic!-She has taught
Her Esau-brethren that the haughty flag,
The floating fence of Albion's feebler crag,
May strike to those whose red right hands have bought
Rights cheaply earned with blood.-Still, still forever
Better, though each man's life-blood were a river,
That it should flow, and overflow, than creep
Through thousand lazy channels in our veins,
Dammed like the dull canal with locks and chains,
And moving, as a sick man in his sleep,
Three paces, and then faltering :-better be
Where the extinguished Spartans still are free,
In their proud charnel of Thermopylæ,
Than staguate in our marsh,-or o'er the deep
Fly, and one current to the ocean add,
One spirit to the souls our fathers had,
One freeman more, America, to thee!
SHE WALKS IN BEAUTY.
She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellowed to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.
One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half-impaired the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lightens o'er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.
And on that cheek, and o'er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent!
"ON THIS DAY I COMPLETE MY THIRTYSIXTH YEAR."
'Tis time this heart should be unmoved,
Since others it hath ceased to move;
Yet, though I cannot be beloved,
Still let me love!
My days are in the yellow leaf;
The flowers and fruits of love are gone;
The worm, the canker, and the grief
Are mine alone!
The fire that on my bosom preys Is lone as some volcanic isle; No torch is kindled at its blaze,A funeral pile!
The hope, the fear, the jealous care, The exalted portion of the pain And power of love, I cannot share, But wear the chain.
But 'tis not thus-and 'tis not here
Such thoughts should shake my soul, nor now Where glory decks the hero's bier, Or binds his brow.
The sword, the banner, and the field, Glory and Greece, around me see! The Spartan, borne upon his shield, Was not more free.
Awake! (not Greece-she is awake!)
Awake, my spirit! Think through whom
Thy life-blood tracks its parent lake,
And then strike home!
Tread those reviving passions down, Unworthy manhood! unto thee Indifferent should the smile or frown Of beauty be.
If thou regrett'st thy youth, why live?
The land of honorable death
Is here:-up to the field, and give
Away thy breath!
Seek out-less often sought than foundA soldier's grave, for thee the best; Then look around, and choose thy ground, And take thy rest.
Misolonghi, January 22d, 1824.
Our life is twofold: Sleep hath its own world,
A boundary between the things misnamed
Death and existence: Sleep hath its own world,
And a wide realm of wild reality,
And dreams in their development have breath,
And tears, and tortures, and the touch of joy;
They leave a weight upon our waking thoughts,
They take a weight from off our waking toils,
They do divide our being; they become
A portion of ourselves as of our time,
And look like heralds of eternity:
They pass like spirits of the past,-they speak
Like sibyls of the future; they have power-
The tyranny of pleasure and of pain;
They make us what we were not-what they will,
And shake us with the vision that's gone by,-
The dread of vanished shadows. Are they so?
Is not the past all shadow? What are they?
Creations of the mind? The mind can make
Substance, and people planets of its own
With beings brighter than have been, and give
A breath to forms which can outlive all flesh.
I would recall a vision which I dreamed,
Perchance, in sleep,-for in itself a thought,
A slumbering thought, is capable of years,
And curdles a long life into one hour.
I saw two beings in the hues of youth
Standing upon a hill, a gentle hill,
Green, and of mild declivity,—the last,
As 'twere the cape, of a long ridge of such,
Save that there was no sea to lave its base,
But a most living landscape, and the wave
Of woods and cornfields, and the abodes of men
Scattered at intervals, and wreathing smoke
Arising from such rustic roofs; the hill
Was crowned with a peculiar diadem
Of trees in circular array, so fixed,
Not by the sport of nature, but of man:
These two, a maiden and a youth, were there
Gazing; the one on all that was beneath-
Fair as herself-but the boy gazed on her:
And both were young, and one was beautiful;
And both were young, yet not alike in youth.
As the sweet moon on the horizon's verge,
The maid was on the eve of womanhood;—
The boy had fewer summers, but his heart
Had far outgrown his years; and, to his eye,
There was but one belovéd face on earth-
And that was shining on him: he had looked Upon it till it could not pass away;
He had no breath, no being, but in hers:
She was his voice;-he did not speak to her,
But trembled on her words: she was his sight;
For his eye followed hers, and saw with hers,
Which colored all his objects:-he had ceased
To live within himself; she was his life,-
The ocean to the river of his thoughts
Which terminated all: upon a tone,
A touch, of hers, his blood would ebb and flow,
And his cheek change tempestuously—his heart
Unknowing of its cause of agony.
But she in these fond feelings had no share:
Her sighs were not for him! to her he was
Even as a brother, but no more: 'twas much;
For brotherless she was, save in the name
Her infant friendship had bestowed on him,—
Herself the solitary scion left
Of a time-honored race. It was a name
Which pleased him, and yet pleased him not,—and
why?
Time taught him a deep answer-when she loved
Another! even now she loved another;
And on the summit of that hill she stood
Looking afar, if yet her lover's steed
Kept pace with her expectancy and flew.
A change came o'er the spirit of my dream.
There was an ancient mansion, and before
Its walls there was a steed caparisoned:
Within an antique oratory stood
The boy of whom I spake ;-he was alone,
And pale, and pacing to and fro: anon
He sat him down, and seized a pen, and traced
Words which I could not guess of; then he leaned
His bowed head on his hands, and shook, as 'twere,
With a convulsion,-then arose again,
And with his teeth and quivering hands did tear
What he had written; but he shed no tears:
And he did calm himself, and fix his brow
Into a kind of quiet. As he paused,
The lady of his love re-entered there;
She was serene and smiling then, and yet
She knew she was by him beloved! she knew-
For quickly comes such knowledge—that his heart
Was darkened with her shadow; and she saw
That he was wretched, but she saw not all.
He rose, and, with a cold and gentle grasp,
He took her hand; a moment o'er his face
A tablet of unutterable thoughts
Was traced, and then it faded as it came:
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