ART thou a thing of mortal birth,
Whose happy home is on our earth?
Does human blood with life imbue
Those wandering veins of heavenly blue,
That stray along thy forehead fair,
Lost 'mid a gleam of golden hair?
Oh! can that light and airy breath
Steal from a being doom'd to death;
Those features to the grave be sent
In sleep thus mutely eloquent ;
Or, art thou, what thy form would seem,
The phantom of a blessed dream?
A human shape I feel thou art,
I feel it at my beating heart,
Those tremors both of soul and sense
Awoke by infant innocence !
Though dear the forms by fancy wove,
We love them with a transient love,
Thoughts from the living world intrude
E'en on her deepest solitude:
But, lovely child! thy magic stole
At once into my inmost soul,
With feelings as thy beauty fair,
And left no other vision there.
To me thy parents are unknown;
Glad would they be their child to own!
And well they must have loved before,
If since thy birth they loved not more.
Thou art a branch of noble stem,
And, seeing thee, I figure them.
What many a childless one would give,
If thou in their still home would'st live!
Though in thy face no family line
Might sweetly say, “ this babe is mine !”
In time thou would'st become the same
As their own child,—all but the name!
How happy must thy parents be
Who daily live in sight of thee!
Whose hearts no greater pleasure seek
Than see thee smile, and hear thee speak,
And feel all natural griefs beguiled
By thee, their fond, their duteous child.
What joy must in their souls have stirr'd
When thy first broken words were heard,
Words that, inspired by heaven, express'd
The transports dancing in thy breast!
And for thy smile!-thy lip, cheek, brow,
E'en while I gaze, are kindling new.
I called thee duteous; am I wrong?
No! truth, I feel, is in my song:
Duteous thy heart's still beatings move
To God, to Nature, and to Love!
To God!-for thou, a harmless child,
Hast kept his temple undefiled:
To Nature!--for thy tears and sighs
Obey alone her mysteries:
To Love!-for fiends of hate might see Thou dwell'st in love, and love in thee! What wonder, then, though in thy dreams Thy face with mystic meaning beams!
Oh! that my spirit's eye could see
Whence burst those gleams of ecstasy!
That light of dreaming soul appears
To play from thoughts above thy years.
Thou smilest as if thy soul were soaring
To heaven, and heaven's God adoring!
And who can tell what visions high
May bless an infant's sleeping eye?
What brighter throne can brightness find
To reign on than an infant's mind,
Ere sin destroy, or error dim,
The glory of the seraphim?
A BEAUTIFUL and laughing thing,
Just in her first appareling
Of girlish loveliness: blue eyes,
Such blue as in the violet dwells,
And rose-bud lips of sweets, such sweets
The bee hoards in his fragrant cells.
'Tis not a blush upon her cheek-
Oh, blushes but of love can speak ;
That brow is all too free from care,
For love to be a dweller there.
Alas! that love should ever fling
One shadow from his radiant wing!
But that fair cheek knows not a cloud,
And health and hope are in its dyes,-
She has been over hill and dale,
Chasing the summer butterflies.
Yet there is malice in her smile,
As if she felt her woman's power,
And had a gift of prophecy,
To look upon that coming hour,
When, feared by some, yet loved by all,
Young beauty holds her festival.
Look on that Flower-the Daughter of the Vale,
The Medicean statue of the shade!
Her limbs of modest beauty, aspect pale,
Are but by her ambrosial breath betrayed.
There, half in elegant relief displayed,
She standeth to our gaze, half shrinking shuns Folding her green scarf like a bashful maid
Around, to screen her from her suitor suns, Not all her many sweets she lavisheth at once.
Locked in the twilight of depending boughs, When night and day commingle, she doth shoot Where nightingales repeat their marriage vows; First by retiring, wins our curious foot,
Then charms us by her loveliness to suit
Our contemplation to her lonely cot!
Her gloom, leaf, blossom, fragrance, form, dispute
Which shall attract most belgrades to the spot,
And loveliest her array who fair would rest unsought.
Her gloom, the aisle of heavenly solitude;
Her flower, the vestal Nun who there abideth ; Her breath, that of celestials meekly wooed
From heaven; her leaf, the holy veil which hideth; Her form, the shrine where purity resideth;
Spring's darling, nature's pride, the Sylvan's queen. To her at eve enamoured Zephyr glideth,
Trembling, she bids him waft aside her screen, And to his kisses wakes-the Flora of the scene.
My native vale, my native vale,
In visions and in dreams
I see your towers and trees, and hear
The music of your streams:
I feel the fragrance of the thorn
Where lovers loved to meet;
I walk upon thy hills and see
Thee slumbering at my feet.
In every knoll I see a friend,
In every tree a brother,
And clasp thy breast, as I would clasp
The bosom of my mother.
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