All impulses of soul and sense
Had thrilled my guileless Genevieve ;
The music, and the doleful tale,
The rich and balmy eve;
And hopes, and fears that kindle hope,
An undistinguishable throng,
And gentle wishes long subdued,
Subdued and cherished long!
She wept with pity and delight,
She blushed with love, and virgin-shame ;
And like the murmur of a dream,
I heard her breathe my name.
Her bosom heaved-she stepped aside,
As conscious of my look she stepped-
Then suddenly, with timorous eye
She fled to me and wept.
She half enclosed me with her arms,
She pressed me with a meek embrace;
And bending back her head, looked up,
And gazed upon my face.
'Twas partly Love, and partly Fear,
And partly 'twas a bashful art,
That I might rather feel, than see,
The swelling of her heart.
I calmed her fears, and she was calm,
And told her love with virgin pride;
And so I won my Genevieve,
My bright and beauteous Bride.
MAID of my Love, sweet GENEVIEVE!
In Beauty's light you glide along :
Your eye is like the star of eve,
And sweet your Voice, as Seraph's song.
Yet not your heavenly Beauty gives
This heart with passion soft to glow:
Within your soul a VOICE there lives!
It bids you hear the tale of Woe.
When sinking low the Sufferer wan
Beholds no hand outstretcht to save,
Fair, as the bosom of the Swan
That rises graceful o'er the wave,
I've seen your breast with pity heave,
And therefore love I you, sweet GENEVIEVE!
MONODY ON THE DEATH OF CHATTERTON.
WHEN faint and sad o'er Sorrow's desert wild
Slow journeys onward poor Misfortune's child;
When fades each lovely form by Fancy drest,
'And inly pines the self-consuming breast;
No scourge of scorpions in thy right arm dread,
No helmed terrors nodding o'er thy head,
Assume, O DEATH! the cherub wings of PEACE,
And bid the heart-sick Wanderer's anguish cease!
Thee, CHATTERTON! yon unblest stones protect
From Want, and the bleak Freezings of neglect !
Escap'd the sore wounds of Affliction's rod,
Meek at the Throne of Mercy, and of God,
Perchance, thou raisest high the enraptured hymn
Amid the blaze of Seraphim!
Yet oft ('tis Nature's bosom-startling call)
weep, that heaven-born Genius so should fall;
And oft, in Fancy's saddest hour, my soul
Averted shudders at the poisoned bowl.
Now groans my sickening heart, as still I view
Thy corse of livid hue;
And now a flash of indignation high
Darts through the tear that glistens in mine eye!
Is this the land of song-ennobled line?
Is this the land, where Genius ne'er in vain
Poured forth his lofty strain?
Ah me! yet SPENSER, gentlest bard divine,
Beneath chill Disappointment's shade,
His weary limbs in lonely anguish laid
And o'er her darling dead
PITY hopeless hung her head,
While "mid the pelting of that merciless storm,"
Sunk to the cold earth OTWAY'S famished form!
Sublime of thought, and confident of fame,
From vales where Avon winds the MINSTREL* came,
Light-hearted youth! aye, as he hastes along,
He meditates the future song,
How dauntless Alla frayed the Dacyan foes;
And, as floating high in air
Glitter the sunny visions fair,
His eyes dance rapture, and his bosom glows! Friend to the friendless, to the sick man health, With generous joy he views the ideal wealth; He hears the widow's heaven-breathed prayer of praise; He marks the sheltered orphan's tearful gaze; Or, where the sorrow-shrivelled captive lay, Pours the bright blaze of Freedom's noon-tide ray: And now, indignant, "grasps the patriot steel,” And her own iron rod he makes Oppression feel.
Clad in Nature's rich array,
And bright in all her tender hues,
Sweet tree of Hope! thou loveliest child of Spring!
How fair didst thou disclose thine early bloom,
Loading the west-winds with its soft perfume!
And Fancy, elfin form of gorgeous wing,
On every blossom hung her fostering dews,
That changeful, wantoned to the orient day!
But soon upon thy poor unsheltered head
Did Penury her sickly mildew shed:
And soon the scathing Lightning bade thee stand,
In frowning horror o'er the blighted land!
Ah where are fled the charms of vernal Grace,
And Joy's wild gleams that lightened o'er thy face?
* Avon, a river near Bristol; the birth-place of Chatterton.
YOUTH of tumultuous soul, and haggard eye!
Thy wasted form, thy hurried steps I view,
On thy cold forehead starts the anguished dew,
And dreadful was that bosom-rending sigh!
Such were the struggles of the gloomy hour,
When CARE, of withered brow,
Prepared the poison's death-cold power:
Already to thy lips was raised the bowl,
When near thee stood AFFECTION meek
(Her bosom bare, and wildly pale her cheek)
Thy sullen gaze she bade thee roll
On scenes that well might melt thy soul;
Thy native cot she flashed upon thy view,
Thy native cot, where still, at close of day,
PEACE smiling sate, and listened to thy lay;
Thy Sister's shrieks she bade thee hear,
And mark thy Mother's thrilling tear;
See, see her breast's convulsive throe,
Her silent agony of woe!
Ah! dash the poisoned chalice from thy hand!
And thou had'st dashed it, at her soft command,
But that DESPAIR and INDIGNATION rose,
And told again the story of thy woes;
Told the keen insult of the unfeeling heart;
The dread dependence on the low-born mind ;
Told every pang, with which thy soul must smart,
Neglect, and grinning Scorn, and Want combined!
Recoiling quick, thou bad'st the friend of pain
Roll the black tide of Death through every freezing vein !
Ye woods! that wave o'er Avon's rocky steep,
To Fancy's ear sweet is your murmuring deep!
For here she loves the cypress wreath to wave;
Watching, with wistful eye, the saddening tints of eve.
Here, far from men, amid this pathless grove,
In solemn thought the Minstrel wont to rove,
Like star-beam on the slow sequestered tide
Lone-glittering, through the high tree branching wide.
And here, in INSPIRATION'S eager hour,
When most the big soul feels the maddening power,
These wilds, these caverns roaming o'er,
Round which the screaming sea-gulls soar,
With wild unequal steps he passed along
Oft pouring on the winds a broken song:
Anon, upon some rough rock's fearful brow
Would pause abrupt-and gaze upon the waves below.
Poor CHATTERTON! he sorrows for thy fate
Who would have praised and loved thee, ere too late.
Poor CHATTERTON! farewell! of darkest hues
This chaplet cast I on thy unshaped tomb;
But dare no longer on the sad theme muse,
Lest kindred woes persuade a kindred doom:
For oh! big gall-drops, shook from FOLLY's wing,
Have blackened the fair promise of my spring;
And the stern FATE transpierced with viewless dart
The last pale Hope that shivered at my heart!
Hence, gloomy thoughts! no more my soul shall dwell
On joys that were! No more endure to weigh
The shame and anguish of the evil day,
Wisely forgetful! O'er the ocean swell
Sublime of Hope I seek the cottaged dell
Where VIRTUE calm with careless step may stray;
And, dancing to the moon-light roundelay,
The wizard PASSIONS weave a holy spell!
O CHATTERTON! that thou wert yet alive!
Sure thou would'st spread the canvas to the gale,
And love, with us, the tinkling team to drive
O'er peaceful Freedom's undivided dale;
And we, at sober eve, would round thee throng,
Hanging, enraptured, on thy stately song!
And greet with smiles the young-eyed POESY
All deftly masked, as hoar ANTIQUITY.
Alas vain Phantasies! the fleeting brood
Of Woe self-solaced in her dreamy mood!
Yet will I love to follow the sweet dream,
Where Susquehannah pours his untamed stream;
And on some hill, whose forest-frowning side
Waves o'er the murmurs of his calmer tide,
Will raise a solemn CENOTAPH to thee,
Sweet Harper of time-shrouded MINSTRELSY!
And there, soothed sadly by the dirgeful wind,
Muse on the sore ills I had left behind.
MILD Splendour of the various-vested Night!
Mother of wildly-working visions! hail!
I watch thy gliding, while with watery light
Thy weak eye glimmers through a fleecy veil;
And when thou lovest thy pale orb to shroud
Behind the gathered blackness lost on high;
And when thou dartest from the wind-rent cloud
Thy placid lightning o'er the awakened sky.
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