Chapter M: S. B. D (6)

_Love is a tyrant, with a silken chain_--
What! pouting, Miss? you toss your head in vain;
You know full well I’ve reason to complain,
Love serves me many a trick--Let’s try again.

But not of Love I’ll sing,
Who’s ever on the wing,
And will not stay a moment more
Than he’s caress’d, and fondled o’er;
I’ll choose some nobler theme,
Commanding more esteem;
Come, come, how dull you seem!
Rouse up, you surely dream!
I’ve rack’d my brains until they fairly ache;
Come, help me now, sweet Muse, for pity’s sake;
You know I can’t a single couplet make
Worth any thing, till you my genius wake.

What! art thou drowsy still?
Come now, I’ll take it ill,
If, at my need, you serve me so;
O! surely you don’t mean to go!
Fold up your tiny wing,
You darling little thing!
Forget the tyrant king,
And hear me while I sing:--

SONG.

_Sweet Poetry! thine influence o’er me shed,_
_For thou canst charm when other charms have fled_;
O! now you smile, and raise your lovely head;
Well, kiss me, dear! make friends; I’ll go to bed.

CHARLESTON, _February 8, 1841_.

SONG.

O! that I could ever live
Where the ocean waves do play,
And make delightful harmony,
Both night and day!

How they thrill upon the heart,
Murmurs of the restless wave,
When rolling waters gracefully
The fair beach lave!

In the stillness of the night,
How I love to hear the sound,
It seems to lull the daylight cares
To sleep profound!

When the storm is rising too,
When the startled waves run high,
Even then it seems to me
All melody!

So, ’twill please me well to live
Where the ocean waves do play,
And make delightful harmony,
Both night and day!

FEBRUARY 26, 1841.

SONG.

O! happy days of childhood!
Ye have left me all too soon,
When I wandered in the wildwood,
And sang sweet “Bonnie Doon.”

When merry voices ringing,
In the tones of childish glee,
Told that no sad cares were clinging
To my young friends or me.

Oft in the woodland hiding,
How we ran from tree to tree,
Or on young pine saplings riding,
We laughed in ecstasy!

Or in the waters wading,
On the smooth and sea-girt shore,
While the western sun was fading,
We frolick’d more and more.

O! happy days of childhood!
Ye will never more return;
For the waters and the wildwood,
In vain, in vain I yearn.

CHARLESTON, _February 26, 1841_.

TO MRS. WILLIAM H----.

Written after receiving from her a beautiful bunch of flowers.

I do thank thee, lovely lady,
For these bright and fragrant flowers;
O! how sweetly such mementos
Lend their charms to lonely hours!

Here are roses, freshly blooming,
Free from blight, and free from stain;
Time will mar their brilliant beauty,
But their fragrance will remain.

So, when time shall part us, lady,
Though I view thy charms no more,
Think not mem’ry will forsake me,
Nor thy smiles to me restore.

When my roses all have faded,
When life’s flowers are pale and dead,
When my spring has changed to winter,
When its frosts are on my head;

Like an evergreen shall flourish
All my memory of thee,
Or like roses, freshly blooming;
Shall these hours return to me.

_Love me_, lady, gentle lady,
All unworthy though I be;
’Twill be sweet to think hereafter
I was once beloved by THEE.

MCPHERSONVILLE, _April 22, 1841_.

THE DREAM OF THE SICK.

But for me, O thou picture-land of sleep!
Thou art all one world of affections deep.

MRS. HEMANS.

In the dim twilight of my darkened room,
When worn and wasted by long suffering,
I lay, and thought upon the past. No bloom
To my wan face could even mem’ry bring;
For fever’s fiery thirst had drunk my blood,
And stolen from my cheek the vital flood.

A breath of air--a zephyr from the west,
Came stealing through the latticed window frame;
To me, as comes a dear expected guest,
One long beloved and waited for, it came;
It bore a message to my fainting heart,
And caused sweet tears through my closed eyes to start.

It told my heart that love was ling’ring still
Around the places where I once did dwell;
In every grove--near every bubbling rill--
On every mound--in every peaceful dell--
The guardian spirit of the place was love;
I left it there, nor will it thence remove.

Well, as I said, it came; the zephyr’s breath
Came to my pillow from the far off west;
Twas a long journey through a world of death,
But, till it reach’d me, would it take no rest,
That messenger of love;--all spent it came;
A dying zephyr to a dying frame.

I felt the faint breeze wand’ring o’er my cheek,
Then sank to sleep; and as I slept, I dream’d;
And in that blessed dream I felt not weak
And dying; no! with youthful step I seem’d
O’er well remembered scenes again to roam,
Once more a tenant of my western home.

O! there I wandered as in days of yore,
And back to life came dear departed ones;
I saw them as I’ve seen them oft before,
My own, my best beloved! and setting suns
Threw their mild dying light on many a scene,
Where, in my dream, we roved through forests green.

How long I slept I know not. Long, long hours
I seem’d communing with the joyous past;
Sometimes I saw the brilliant summer flowers,
And sometimes heard the moaning winter blast.
Dreams are not bounded by the lapse of time,
Nor chain’d to place, mind in its flight sublime.

In peaceful paths we wander’d hand in hand,
We three, whose hearts had “melted into one;”
On flowery hills inhaled the breezes bland,
And silent watched the slow descending sun;
While, every moment, grew more soft, more faint,
The rosy hue that sunset loves to paint.

I woke. ’Twas but a dream; but dreams have power
To cheer the heart when real joys have fled;
And, while I thought of many a by-gone hour,
I to my throbbing heart this promise made:
“If e’er in distant lands again I roam,
I’ll speed me to that zephyr’s western home.”

CHARLESTON, _May 20, 1841_.

THE END.

Transcriber’s Notes

Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected. Variations in hyphenation and accents have been standardised but all other spelling and punctuation remains unchanged.

Italics are represented thus _italic_.