Additional Poems (1837-1848) | Page 5

lustre sparkled
through
The sable fringe of Southern skies
Or gleamed in Saxon
blue!
How oft I heard another's name
Called in some truant's tone;

Sweet accents! which I longed to claim,
To learn and lisp my own!
Too soon the gentle hands, that pressed
The ringlets of the child,

Are folded on the faithful breast
Where first he breathed and smiled;

Too oft the clinging arms untwine,
The melting lips forget,
And
darkness veils the bridal shrine
Where wreaths and torches met;
If
Heaven but leaves a single thread
Of Hope's dissolving chain,
Even
when her parting plumes are spread,

It bids them fold again;
The
cradle rocks beside the tomb;
The cheek now changed and chill

Smiles on us in the morning bloom
Of one that loves us still.
Sweet image! I have done thee wrong
To claim this destined lay;

The leaf that asked an idle song
Must bear my tears away.
Yet, in
thy memory shouldst thou keep
This else forgotten strain,
Till years
have taught thine eyes to weep,
And flattery's voice is vain;
Oh then,
thou fledgling of the nest,
Like the long-wandering dove,
Thy

weary heart may faint for rest,
As mine, on changeless love;
And
while these sculptured lines retrace
The hours now dancing by,
This
vision of thy girlish grace
May cost thee, too, a sigh.
SONG
WRITTEN FOR THE DINNER GIVEN TO CHARLES
DICKENS
BY THE YOUNG MEN OF BOSTON, FEBRUARY 1,
1842
THE stars their early vigils keep,
The silent hours are near,
When
drooping eyes forget to weep,--
Yet still we linger here;
And
what--the passing churl may ask--
Can claim such wondrous power,

That Toil forgets his wonted task,
And Love his promised hour?
The Irish harp no longer thrills,
Or breathes a fainter tone;
The
clarion blast from Scotland's hills,
Alas! no more is blown;
And
Passion's burning lip bewails
Her Harold's wasted fire,
Still
lingering o'er the dust that veils
The Lord of England's lyre.
But grieve not o'er its broken strings,
Nor think its soul hath died,

While yet the lark at heaven's gate sings,
As once o'er Avon's side;

While gentle summer sheds her bloom,
And dewy blossoms wave,

Alike o'er Juliet's storied tomb
And Nelly's nameless grave.
Thou glorious island of the sea!
Though wide the wasting flood

That parts our distant land from thee,
We claim thy generous blood;

Nor o'er thy far horizon springs
One hallowed star of fame,
But
kindles, like an angel's wings,
Our western skies in flame!
LINES
RECITED AT THE BERKSHIRE JUBILEE,
PITTSFIELD,
MASS., AUGUST 23, 1844

COME back to your mother, ye children, for shame,
Who have
wandered like truants for riches or fame!
With a smile on her face,
and a sprig in her cap,
She calls you to feast from her bountiful lap.
Come out from your alleys, your courts, and your lanes,
And breathe,
like young eagles, the air of our plains;
Take a whiff from our fields,
and your excellent wives
Will declare it 's all nonsense insuring your
lives.
Come you of the law, who can talk, if you please,
Till the man in the
moon will allow it's a cheese,
And leave "the old lady, that never tells
lies,"
To sleep with her handkerchief over her eyes.
Ye healers of men, for a moment decline
Your feats in the rhubarb
and ipecac line;
While you shut up your turnpike, your neighbors can
go
The old roundabout road to the regions below.
You clerk, on whose ears are a couple of pens,
And whose head is an
ant-hill of units and tens,
Though Plato denies you, we welcome you
still
As a featherless biped, in spite of your quill.
Poor drudge of the city! how happy he feels,
With the burs on his legs
and the grass at his heels
No dodger behind, his bandannas to share,

No constable grumbling, "You must n't walk there!"
In yonder green meadow, to memory dear,
He slaps a mosquito and
brushes a tear;
The dew-drops hang round him on blossoms and
shoots,
He breathes but one sigh for his youth and his boots.
There stands the old school-house, hard by the old church;
That tree
at its side had the flavor of birch;
Oh, sweet were the days of his
juvenile tricks,
Though the prairie of youth had so many "big licks."
By the side of yon river he weeps and he slumps,
The boots fill with
water, as if they were pumps,
Till, sated with rapture, he steals to his

bed,
With a glow in his heart and a cold in his head.
'T is past,--he is dreaming,--I see him again;
The ledger returns as by
legerdemain;
His neckcloth is damp with an easterly flaw,
And he
holds in his fingers an omnibus straw.
He dreams the chill gust is a blossomy gale,
That the straw is a rose
from his dear native vale;
And murmurs, unconscious of space and of
time,
"A 1. Extra super. Ah, is n't it PRIME!"
Oh, what are the prizes we perish to win
To the first little "shiner" we
caught with a pin!
No soil upon earth is so dear to our eyes
As the
soil we first stirred in terrestrial pies!
Then come from all parties and parts to our feast;
Though not at the
"Astor," we'll give you at least
A bite at an apple, a seat on the grass,

And