The dearest hours that soul has ever known Have been upon thy brink: would it could wait, And, parted, watch thee still! --to stay and moan With thee, were better than my promised fate. Ladaüanna! monarch of the North! Father of streams unsung, be sung by me! Receive a lay that flows resistless forth! Oh, quench the fervour that consumes, in thee! I've seen more beauty on thy banks, more bliss, Dew falls not on a happier land than this; Fruits spring from desert wilds, and Love sits throned on snow; Snows that drive warmth to shelter in the heart; Snows that conceal, beneath their moonlit heaps, How many grades of life thou view'st! thy wave A hardy race, sprung from the Gaul, and gay, Where yet no mass-bell tinkles from the shore. The pensive nun throws back the veil that hides And trims her lamp, and hangs it in her tower; Who had been lost, what heart from breaking saved, The plaided soldier, in his mountain pride Views his white limbs reflected in thy tide, While wave the sable plumes that shade his manly face. The song of Ossian mingles with thy gale, Dreams of his misty isle, and drops for her a tear. Thou'st seen the trophies of that deathless day, Youthful Columbia, ply thy useful arts; Rear the strong nursling that thy mother bore, Called Liberty. Thy boundless fields, thy marts, Enough for thee: tempt these brown rocks no more; Or leave them to that few, who, blind to gold, And scorning pleasure, brave with higher zest A doubtful path; mid pain, want, censure, bold To pant one fevered hour on Genius' breast. Nature's best loved, thine own, thy virtuous West, Bade Death recede, who the fallen victor pressed, SULLY, of tender tints transparent, fain I would thy skill a while; for Memory's showing, Or he who sketched the Cretan: gone her Greek, Could he paint beauty, warmth, light, happiness, Or soul concentrate in one form-his power I'd ask. But Nature, Nature, when thou wilt, Which these, thy nectared waves, reflect and love to bear. Nature, all-powerful Nature, thine are ties That seldom break: though the heart beat so cold, That Love and Fancy's fairest garland dies— Though false, though light as air-thy bonds may hold. * In allusion to West's celebrated picture, "The Death of Wolfe." † Vanderlyn-see his picture of " Ariadne.” The mother loves her child: the brother yet Her who hath blest him once, though seas may roll between. But can a friendship, pure and rapture-wrought, O stream, O country of my heart, farewell! Else, how endure my weary lot—the strife THERE John Neal. MUSIC OF THE NIGHT. HERE are harps that complain to the presence of To the presence of Night alone— In a near and unchangeable tone Like winds, full of sound, that go whispering by, Yes! harps that complain to the breezes of Night, Growing fainter and fainter, as ruddy and bright Like a conqueror, shaking his brilliant hair On the clouds that unfold, Breaking onward in flame, while an ocean divides Yes! strings that lie still in the gushing of Day, That awake, all alive, to the breezes of Night. But thick as the stars, all this music is made; In one sweet, dreamy tone, Are ever blown, Forever and forever. The livelong night ye hear the sound, And rival minstrels meet. |