FAME! HOW FALSE AND FLEETING.
AND what is Fame?-When hope, the morning-star
Of life, arose, enthusiast! thou wouldst climb
Her steepy height, to hear th' acclaiming roar
Of thousands echoing round thee, like a choir
Of Ocean, wafted o'er a mountain-head.---
In the dark womb of some weird solitude
Where Destiny delights to colour years;
Or by some gush of beauty, or the glow
Of emulation, quicken'd by a mighty name,-
Did first her music whisper, be thou great?
No matter: midnight watchings, gloom and tears,
Thy heart a fever, and thy brain on fire,—
The martyrdoms of thought, have won the prize;
And midmost thou, among the laurell'd tribe
A paramount art throned! And dear to thee,
Young hero of the mind, is first renown;
Fresh, warm, and pure, as early love, ere Time
Hath nipt it with his frosty wing. Awhile,
In Paradise thou dream'st, and seem'st to hear
The hailing worship of Posterity.
But now, come down from thy celestial height!
Descend, and struggle with the heartless crew
Who out of others' tears extract their joy.
The rocky nature of ignoble minds,
Ambitious Spite, and unrelenting Hate,
And all who nibble at each young renown,-
'Tis thine to wrestle with; thy spell is o'er,
And glory is a feast for Shame:-reproach
It not, true happiness it never breathed.
FORCE OF EARLY IMPRESSIONS.
Now dawns the moment, doom'd in future years
To waken triumph, or be born in tears;
When morals sway, religion lives or dies,
And cited principles to action rise.—
Oh! thou o'er whom a mother's eye hath
Or round thy cradle frequent vigils kept;
Whose infant soul a father's love survey'd,
And oft for thee with Heaven communion made;
Be thine the circle where true Friendship lives
In the pure light exalted spirit gives;
And far from thee the infamous and vile,
Who murder feeling with a Stoic smile,
Blaspheme the innocence of early days,
Make virtue vice, impiety a praise,
Disease the health of unpolluted mind,
And call it glory to disgrace mankind!
What though the eye may sparkle o'er the glass,
Or fondling words for fascination pass,
While flow'rs of friendship oft appear to bloom,
Born in the sunshine of a festive room,-
A day will come when sterner truths prevail,
And friendship dwindles into folly's tale!
But should'st thou waver, when the awful hour
Of pleasure tempteth with a demon's pow'r,
And time and circumstance together seem
To dazzle nature with too bright a dream,—
Let home and virtue, what thou wert and art,
A mother's feeling, and a father's heart,
Full on thy mem'ry rise with blended charm,
And all the serpent in thy soul disarm!
For who shall say, when first temptations win
A yielding mind to some enchanted sin,
What future crime, that once appear'd too black
For life to wander o'er its hell-ward track,
May lead the heart to some tremendous doom,
Whose midnight hovers round an early tomb?
Let home be vision'd, where thy budding days
Their beauty open'd on a parent's gaze:
In these, what memories of thee abound!-
Thy chamber echoes with its wonted sound;
The flow'r you rear'd, a sister's nursing hand
Still fondly guards, and helps each leaf expand;
The page you ponder'd with delighted brow
Was ever dear,-but oh! far dearer now;
The walk you lov'd with her sweet smile to share,
She oft repeats, and paints your image there;
And when a glory hath array'd the sky,
Her fancy revels in your fav'rite die ;
While oft at ev'ning, when domestic bloom
Hath flung a freshness round a social room,
When hearts unfold, and music's winged note
Can waft a feeling wheresoe'er it float,
Some chord is touch'd, whose melodies awake
The pang of fondness for a brother's sake;
And eyes are conscious, as they gaze around
Where looks are falling, there a son was found!
FEMININE GRACE, THE INCENTIVE TO
NOBLE DEEDS.
AND what were life, if woman's heart
Attemper'd with no guiding art
The moral beauty of the mind,
Whereby the world is kept refined,
And each soft hue opinion wears
Its lovely origin declares ?—
Go, find a land where female grace
Is honour'd by no gallant race,
And man's dominion deems it vile
To bend beneath a woman's smile,
But tramples with a brute delight
On mental rank and moral right,—
How darkly do her people sink!
How meanly act, how basely think!
No loftiness that clime reveals,
No purity the spirit feels;
Corruption cankers law and throne,
The language breathes a dungeon tone.
And seldom there hath Virtue smiled :-
But, wither'd, weaken'd, and defiled,
It moulders on from age to age,
The scorn of hero, bard, and sage,
And seems on glorious earth to be
The plague-spot of her infamy!
FIRST LOVE.
Он, lovely pair!
Warm is the gush of young affection; sweet
The overflowing of affianced hearts,
Each into each with holy rapture pour'd;
Now is the spring-time of the soul, whose bloom
Is love, ne'er felt but once, and ne'er but once
Enjoy'd! On would ye float for ever thus,
O'er moonlight seas, in one immortal bliss.
FRENCH REVOLUTION.
ONCE, France and Freedom were a mingled name; And now, when all their wrathful clouds are roll'd Away, the shadows which they cast, endure, Clothing the soul of memory with fear.
Her Revolution, who that saw, forgets?
Or who that felt, and does not feel?-The storm
That makes a midnight of convulsed day,
Is weak, to that rebellion of despair,
When buried passions, like an earthquake, burst
From out an injured Nation's heart! And such
Was thine, afflicted France! the far-off thrones
Of tyrants stagger'd, distant empires quail'd,
When like th' embodied spirit of thy wrongs
The Revolution darken'd on the world,—
Ringing a peal that echoed Europe round,
And died in thunder o'er the Atlantic deep!—
But thou wert too unholy to be free,
Too grasping to be great; and when thy thirst
For havoc brutalized the scene of blood,—
As though re-action for all human wrong
Were centred in it for one dire revenge,
I heard Heaven curse thee, and exulting hail'd
The cry of Freedom, for the voice of Hell!-
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