And though we've broken all Heaven's laws, ****** The Flower of Memory. How sweetly blue this little flower, May memory never leave a blot Retained not even in kindred's knot, Or ere with thee it find a tomb, Then, dearest girl, FORGET ME NOT! An Aspiration. Were mine a home in some fairy isle, And gold-broidered pages my nod to wait;- Give me the love-look of her sunbright eye, Prose and Poesy, Every copse, Deep-tangled-tree irregular, and bush, Ut pictura poesis sit.-Horace. What is a Poem? Language too sublime What is a Rhyme? This hath been often asked. Psha! this is th' acceptation of a fool! No sane man, that had seen the world, would say That words were verse, when meted by a rule, Though such is quite "the order of the day." Such were my musings, when I dreamed a dream: An old man stood beside me, on his head White hairs were shining with a silver gleam, Who thus, in tones of music, calmly said! Thro' many years to pass a toilsome round No heart in friendship to the wanderer bound, With sorrow arm-in-arm to tread that path, 'Mid countless trials, misery, and strife, Nor feel appeased stern fate's impending wrath,— Oh, is not this the Prose of human life? And when, in dull monotony, a round Of haps, without a pain, a woe, a care, Encircle him by business closely bound, No early pang thus whitening his dark hair,— Or when in solitude, 'neath storm and shine, There wends his way, with feelings calm and The mild recluse, whose visions are divine,- But in a springtide of requited love, Mid wealth, and honour, and renown, to live One's life's best days,-without a foe to move In all the joys a peaceful mind can give :This is the brightest gift of Heaven to man, The choicest scene that he on earth can view,'Tis music, measured by life's fairest span, With all its green unclouded beauties too. Grief, then, and its attendant ills, are all And o'er the page its Blank Verse darkly throws. But mutual love and friendship,-bliss supreme! Deckt out in flowers of sweetest melody, Is here and there an "oasis,”—a theme Fit only to be called Life's POESY. To Mr. Gup Leslie, On his Departure for America, June, 1843. Farewell!-'tis often pray'd ;- that word, Alas, is easy said; It comes without the heart's accord, When feeling too is dead. But oh, if ever one adieu Was to another given, That spoke heart-feeling, mine to you For we, when merry boys, have strayed And wandered thro' the woodland glade And when worn out with nature's charms, Then circled in each other's arms, Have slumbered side by side. Manhood has come with all its cares, And brought its lot to each; Mine is amid a city's snares, And thine-thou ne'er may'st reach. Hope we the best ;-on foreign soil Thy portion's in the woods, A weary life of ceaseless toil, 'Mongst savages and floods. |