A floweret crush'd in the bud,
A nameless piece of babyhood,
Was in her cradle coffin lying;
Extinct, with scarce the sense of dying ·
So soon to exchange the imprisoning womb
For darker closets of the tomb!
She did but ope an eye, and put
A clear beam forth, then straight up shut
For the long dark, ne'er more to see
Through glasses of mortality.
Riddle of destiny, who can show
What thy short visit meant, or know
What thy errand here below?
Shall we say that Nature blind
Check'd her hand and changed her mind,
Just when she had exactly wrought
A finish'd pattern without fault ?
Could she flag, or could she tire,
Or lack'd she the Promethean fire
(With her nine moons' long working sicken'd)
That should thy little limbs have quicken'd?
Limbs so firm, they seemed to assure
Life of health and days mature :
Woman's self in miniature!
Limbs so fair, they might supply
(Themselves now but cold imagery)
The sculptor to make beauty by.
Or did the stern-eyed fate descry,
That babe, or mother, one must die;
So in mercy left the stock,
And cut the branch; to save the shock
Of young years widow'd; and the pain,
When single state comes back again
To the lone man who, 'reft of wife,
Thenceforward drags a maimed life?
The economy of Heaven is dark;
And wisest clerks have miss'd the mark,
Why human buds, like this, should fall,
More brief than fly ephemeral,
That has his day; while shrivell'd crones
Stiffen with age to stocks and stones;
And crabbed use the conscience sears
In sinners of a hundred years.
Mother's prattle, mother's kiss,
Baby fond, thou ne'er wilt miss
Rites which custom does impose,
Silver bells and baby clothes;
Coral redder than those lips,
Which pale death did late eclipse;
Music framed for infants' glee,
Whistle never tuned for thee;
Though thou want'st not, thou shalt have them,
Loving hearts were they which gave them..
Let not one be missing; nurse,
See them laid upon the hearse
Of infant slain by doom perverse.
Why should kings and nobles have
Pictured trophies to their grave;
And we, churls, to thee deny
Thy pretty toys with thee to lie,
A more harmless vanity?
WHILE this tawny Ethiop prayeth,
Painter, who is she that stayeth
By, with skin of whitest lustre,
Sunny locks, a shining cluster,
Saint-like seeming to direct him
To the Power that must protect him?
Is she of the heaven-born three,
Meek Hope, strong Faith, sweet Charity;
Or some cherub ?
They you mention
Far transcend my weak invention.
"Tis a simple Christian child,
Missionary young and mild,
From her stock of Scriptural knowledge,
Bible-taught without a college,
Which by reading she could gather,
Teaches him to say OUR FAther
To the common Parent, who
Colour not respects, nor hue.
White and black in him have part,
Who looks not to the skin, but heart.
* A picture by Henry Meyer. Esq.
CROWN me a cheerful goblet, while I pray
A blessing on thy years, young Isola;
Young, but no more a child. How swift have flown
To me thy girlish times, a woman grown
Beneath my heedless eyes! in vain I rack
My fancy to believe the almanac,
That speaks thee twenty-one.
Remain❜d a child, and at thy sovereign will
Gamboll❜d about our house, as in times past.
Ungrateful Emma, to grow up so fast,
Hastening to leave thy friends!-for which intent,
Fond runagate, be this thy punishment.
After some thirty years, spent in such bliss
As this earth can afford, where still we miss
Something of joy entire, mayst thou grow old
As we whom thou has left! That wish was cold.
Oh far more aged and wrinkled, till folks say,
Looking upon thee reverend in decay,
"This dame for length of days and virtues rare,
With her respected grandsire may compare "
Grandchild of that respected Isola,
Thou shouldst have had about thee on this day
Kind looks of parents, to congratulate
Their pride grown up to woman's grave estate;
But they have died, and lest thee to advance
Thy fortunes how thou mayst, and owe to chance
The friends which nature grudged. And thou wilt find
Or make such, Emma, if I am not blind
To thee and thy deservings.
Had too much sorrow in it. Fill again
Another cheerful goblet, while I say,
Health, and twice health, to our lost Isola."
By Enfield lanes and Winchmore's verdant hill,
Two lovely damsels cheer my lonely walk
The fair Maria, as a vestal still,
And Emma brown, exuberant in talk.
With soft and lady speech the first applies
The mild correctives that to grace belong
To her redundant friend, who her defies
With jest, and mad discourse, and burst of song.
Oh differing pair, yet sweetly thus agreeing,
What music from your happy discord rises,
While your companion hearing each, and seeing,
Nor this, nor that, bu. both together, prizes;
This lesson teaching, which our souls may strike,
That harmonies may be in things unlike!
I was not train'd in academic bowers,
And to those learned streams I nothing owe
Which copious from those twin fair founts do flow;
Mine have been anything but studious hours.
Yet can I fancy, wandering mid thy towers,
Myself a nursling, Granta, of thy lap;
My brow seems tight'ning with the doctor's cap,
And I walk gowned; feel unusual powers.
Strange forms of logic clothe my admiring speech.
Old Ramus' ghost is busy at my brain,
And my scull teems with notions infinite.
Be still, ye reeds of Camus, while I teach
Truths which transcend the searching schoolmen's veш And half had stagger'd that stout Stagirite!
TO A CELEBRATED FEMALE PERFORMER IN THE "BLIND BOY."
RARE artist! who with half thy tools, or none,
Canst execute with ease thy curious art,
And press thy powerful'st meanings on the heart,
Unaided by the eye, expression's throne!
While each blind.sense, intelligential grown
Beyond its sphere, performs the effect of sight...
Those orbs alone, wanting their proper might,
All motionless and silent seem to moan
The unseemly negligence of nature's hand,
That left them so forlorn. What praise is thine,
Oh mistress of the passions! artist fine!
Who dost our souls against our sense command,
Plucking the horror from a sightless face,
Lending to blank deformity a grace.
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