Earlier Poems (1830-1836) | Page 3

were there;--?Alas! for every tear is dried?Those blazoned tablets knew,?Save when the icy marble's side?Drips with the evening dew.
Or gaze upon yon pillared stone,?The empty urn of pride;?There stand the Goblet and the Sun,--?What need of more beside??Where lives the memory of the dead,?Who made their tomb a toy??Whose ashes press that nameless bed??Go, ask the village boy!
Lean o'er the slender western wall,?Ye ever-roaming girls;?The breath that bids the blossom fall?May lift your floating curls,?To sweep the simple lines that tell?An exile's date and doom;?And sigh, for where his daughters dwell,?They wreathe the stranger's tomb.
And one amid these shades was born,?Beneath this turf who lies,?Once beaming as the summer's morn,?That closed her gentle eyes;?If sinless angels love as we,?Who stood thy grave beside,?Three seraph welcomes waited thee,?The daughter, sister, bride
I wandered to thy buried mound?When earth was hid below?The level of the glaring ground,?Choked to its gates with snow,?And when with summer's flowery waves?The lake of verdure rolled,?As if a Sultan's white-robed slaves?Had scattered pearls and gold.
Nay, the soft pinions of the air,?That lift this trembling tone,?Its breath of love may almost bear?To kiss thy funeral stone;?And, now thy smiles have passed away,?For all the joy they gave,?May sweetest dews and warmest ray?Lie on thine early grave!
When damps beneath and storms above?Have bowed these fragile towers,?Still o'er the graves yon locust grove?Shall swing its Orient flowers;?And I would ask no mouldering bust,?If e'er this humble line,?Which breathed a sigh o'er other's dust,?Might call a tear on mine.
TO AN INSECT
The Katydid is "a species of grasshopper found in the United States, so called from the sound which it makes."--Worcester. I used to hear this insect in Providence, Rhode Island, but I do not remember hearing it in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where I passed my boyhood. It is well known in other towns in the neighborhood of Boston.
I LOVE to hear thine earnest voice,?Wherever thou art hid,?Thou testy little dogmatist,?Thou pretty Katydid?Thou mindest me of gentlefolks,--?Old gentlefolks are they,--?Thou say'st an undisputed thing?In such a solemn way.
Thou art a female, Katydid?I know it by the trill?That quivers through thy piercing notes,?So petulant and shrill;?I think there is a knot of you?Beneath the hollow tree,--?A knot of spinster Katydids,---?Do Katydids drink tea?
Oh tell me where did Katy live,?And what did Katy do??And was she very fair and young,?And yet so wicked, too??Did Katy love a naughty man,?Or kiss more cheeks than one??I warrant Katy did no more?Than many a Kate has done.
Dear me! I'll tell you all about?My fuss with little Jane,?And Ann, with whom I used to walk?So often down the lane,?And all that tore their locks of black,?Or wet their eyes of blue,--?Pray tell me, sweetest Katydid,?What did poor Katy do?
Ah no! the living oak shall crash,?That stood for ages still,?The rock shall rend its mossy base?And thunder down the hill,?Before the little Katydid?Shall add one word, to tell?The mystic story of the maid?Whose name she knows so well.
Peace to the ever-murmuring race!?And when the latest one?Shall fold in death her feeble wings?Beneath the autumn sun,?Then shall she raise her fainting voice,?And lift her drooping lid,?And then the child of future years?Shall hear what Katy did.
THE DILEMMA
Now, by the blessed Paphian queen,?Who heaves the breast of sweet sixteen;?By every name I cut on bark?Before my morning star grew dark;?By Hymen's torch, by Cupid's dart,?By all that thrills the beating heart;?The bright black eye, the melting blue,--?I cannot choose between the two.
I had a vision in my dreams;--?I saw a row of twenty beams;?From every beam a rope was hung,?In every rope a lover swung;?I asked the hue of every eye?That bade each luckless lover die;?Ten shadowy lips said, heavenly blue,?And ten accused the darker hue.
I asked a matron which she deemed?With fairest light of beauty beamed;?She answered, some thought both were fair,--?Give her blue eyes and golden hair.?I might have liked her judgment well,?But, as she spoke, she rung the bell,?And all her girls, nor small nor few,?Came marching in,--their eyes were blue.
I asked a maiden; back she flung?The locks that round her forehead hung,?And turned her eye, a glorious one,?Bright as a diamond in the sun,?On me, until beneath its rays?I felt as if my hair would blaze;?She liked all eyes but eyes of green;?She looked at me; what could she mean?
Ah! many lids Love lurks between,?Nor heeds the coloring of his screen;?And when his random arrows fly,?The victim falls, but knows not why.?Gaze not upon his shield of jet,?The shaft upon the string is set;?Look not beneath his azure veil,?Though every limb were cased in mail.
Well, both might make a martyr break?The chain that bound him to the stake;?And both, with but a single ray,?Can melt our very hearts away;?And both, when balanced, hardly seem?To stir the scales, or rock the beam;?But that is dearest, all the while,?That wears for