LOVE! in such a wilderness as this, Where transport and security entwine, Here is the empire of thy perfect bliss, And here thou art a god indeed divine.
Here shall no forms abridge, no hours confine
The views, the walks, that boundless joy inspire!
Roll on, ye days of raptur'd influence, shine!
Nor blind with ecstacy's celestial fire,
Shall love behold the spark of earth-born time expire.
Three little moons, how short, amidst the grove,
And pastoral savannas they consume!
While she, beside her buskin'd youth to rove,
Delights, in fancifully wild costume,
Her lovely brow to shade with Indian plume;
And forth in hunter-seeming vest they fare;'
But not to chase the deer in forest gloom;
'Tis but the breath of heav'n-the blessed air-
And interchange of hearts unknown, unseen to share
What though the sportive dog oft round them note,
Or fawn, or wild bird bursting on the wing;
Yet who, in love's own presence, would devote
To death those gentle throats that wake the spring;
Or writhing from the brook its victim bring?
No-nor let fear one little warbler rouse;
But, fed by Gertrude's hand, still let them sing,
Acquaintance of her path, amidst the boughs,
That shade ev'n now her love, and witness'd first her
Now labyrinths, which but themselves can pierce,
Methinks, conduct them to some pleasant ground,
Where welcome hills shut out the universe,
And pines their lawny walk encompass round;
There, if a pause delicious converse found,
'Twas but when o'er each heart th' idea stole,
(Perchance awhile in joy's oblivion drown'd)
That come what may, while life's glad pulses roll,
Indissolubly thus should soul be knit to soul.
And in the visions of romantic youth,
What years of endless bliss are yet to flow!
But mortal pleasure, what art thou in truth!
The torrent's smoothness, ere it dash below!
And must I change my song? and must I show,
Sweet Wyoming! the day, when thou wert doom'd.
Guiltless, to mourn thy loveliest bow'rs laid low!
When where of yesterday a garden bloom'd,
Death overspread his pall, and black'ning ashes gloom'd.
Sad was the year, by proud oppression driv❜n,
When transatlantic Liberty arose,
Not in the sunshine, and the smile of heav'n,
But wrapt in whirlwinds and begirt with woes:
Amidst the strife of fratricidal foes,
Her birth star was the light of burning plains ;*
Her baptism is the weight of blood that flows
From kindred hearts-the blood of British veins→→
And famine tracks her steps, and pestilential pains.
Yet, ere the storm of death had rag'd remote,
Or siege unseen, in heav'n reflects its beams,
Who now each dreadful circumstance shall note,
That fills pale Gertrude's thoughts, and nightly dreams:
Dismal to her the forge of battle gleams
Portentous light! and Music's voice is dumb;
Save where the fife its shrill reveillé screams,
Or midnight streets re-echo to the drum,
That speaks of madd'ning strife, and blood-stain'd fields
It was in truth a momentary pang;
Yet how comprising myriad shapes of woe!
* Alluding to the miseries that attended the American civil war.
First when in Gertrude's ear the summons rang,
A husband to the battle doom'd to go!
Nay, meet not thou,' (she cries,) 'thy kindred foe!
But peaceful let us seek fair England's strand -
Ah, Gertrude! thy beloved heart, I know
'Would feel like mine, the stigmatizing brand,
"Could I forsake the cause of freedom's holy band!
'But shame-but flight-a recreant's name to prove, To hide in exile ignominious fears;
'Say, ev'n if this I brook'd, the public love Thy father's bosom to his home endears: And how could I his few remaining years, 'My Gertrude, sever from so dear a child?" So, day by day, her boding heart he cheers; At last that heart to hope is half beguil'd,
And pale through tears suppress'd the mournful beauty smil'd.
Night came, and in their lighted bow'r, full late,
The joy of converse had endur'd-when hark!
Abrupt and loud, a summons shook their gate;
And heedless of the dog's obstrep'rous bark,
A form has rush'd amidst them from the dark,
And spread his arms, and fell upon the floor:
Of aged strength his limbs retain the mark;
But desolate he look'd, and famish'd poor,
As ever shipwreck'd wretch lone left on desert shore.
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