| |
| IN early days, when Fancy sheds | |
| Illusive colors round our heads, | |
| Her prism before my wondering eyes | |
| Display’d the world in rainbow dyes, | |
| Fruits like the emerald clusters found | 5 |
| In Arab tales, beneath the ground, | |
| Woo’d me to pluck from every tree, | |
| As, ere the dew-drops left the lea, | |
| I climb’d the Hill of Hope that stood | |
| Fast by my native solitude. | 10 |
| How fair a prospect met me here! | |
| Of woods, and plains, and rivers clear— | |
| Of neighbor mountains dark and high, | |
| That mix’d, receding, with the sky; | |
| Fields with the waving treasure stored, | 15 |
| Whence rustic plenty decks her board; | |
| Valleys within whose sheltering breast | |
| The sons of labor take their rest;— | |
| But fairer far than aught in view | |
| Beneath the cloudless cope of blue, | 20 |
| More tempting bright, appear’d to me | |
| The smooth expanse of burnish’d sea; | |
| The sea of life, where thousand sails | |
| Spread their white bosoms to the gales. | |
| How blest, methought, along that tide | 25 |
| Of waveless beauty still to glide, | |
| Or ’mid those sea-green isles to stray | |
| Where purer sunbeams seem to play! | |
| Where, as the tales of Poets tell, | |
| The lovely maids of ocean dwell! | 30 |
| What rapture, could I steal so near | |
| As once their magic shells to hear! | |
| Or on some coral rock behold | |
| Them sit, and braid their locks of gold! | |
| Others have wish’d, and wish’d in vain, | 35 |
| What I, more happy, may attain. | |
| Impatient o’er life’s sea to roam, | |
| I lightly bade adieu to home. | |
| Pleased with my bark and snowy sail, | |
| I freely gave them to the gale, | 40 |
| And saw, with triumph, how I flew | |
| Past many a timid, loitering crew. | |
| Less bright, indeed, the ocean seem’d, | |
| Than view’d at distance, I had deem’d, | |
| And lovelier still, and lovelier grew | 45 |
| The softening landscape that withdrew. | |
| When seaward far, I first perceive | |
| The crested billows rougher heave, | |
| And, while a cloud obscures the sun, | |
| Feel the keen gust precursive run | 50 |
| Along the main. Alarm’d to find | |
| Such trackless distance left behind, | |
| I turn’d in terror toward the shore | |
| My venturous prow, but, ’midst the roar | |
| Of volleying thunder, hail, and rain, | 55 |
| That burst tempestuous, strove in vain. | |
| While by the winds my slender bark | |
| Was hurried o’er the waters dark, | |
| Ah! then, how look’d my native dell! | |
| How sweet to fancy, who can tell! | 60 |
| Dash’d on a lonely isle, at last, | |
| I, haply, by the shock was cast, | |
| Beyond the furious surges’ reach, | |
| Wounded and senseless, on the beach. | |
| Who to relieve me now appears? | 65 |
| Some Nymph unruffled ocean hears, | |
| On sunny days and silver nights, | |
| Warble along his rocky heights? | |
| Did those fair daughters of the wave | |
| Transport me to their sparry cave, | 70 |
| And singing sweetly in my ear | |
| Recall the spirit to her sphere? | |
| Ah, no! those sirens never rise | |
| But when soft azure clothes the skies, | |
| And all their craggy islets sleep | 75 |
| Reflected in the glassy deep, | |
| And gaudy barks with streamers gay | |
| Are lingering to applaud their lay: | |
| When seas are rough and tempests blow, | |
| They keep their coral bowers below. | 80 |
| A hospitable matron bore | |
| My drench’d, cold members from the shore, | |
| Whose humble dwelling ever stood | |
| Open to sufferers from the flood. | |
| Each art reviving there she tries, | 85 |
| Till life again relumed my eyes. | |
| When from the death-like swoon I woke, | |
| She gently thus the silence broke. | |
| “I need not, stranger, ask thy tale; | |
| I saw thee court the fav’ring gale; | 90 |
| I know the picture fancy drew, | |
| Cheating thy inexperienced view. | |
| When, next, on Hope’s fair hill you stand, | |
| Take Wisdom’s volume in your hand; | |
| Compare the scene, at distance gay, | 95 |
| With what those sacred pages say: | |
| They will reveal the hidden snare, | |
| Life’s shoals and quicksands all declare; | |
| They tell of rocks and storms, in seas | |
| That scarcely seem to know a breeze; | 100 |
| Of clouds that fatal tempests hold | |
| Beneath their gorgeous skirts of gold; | |
| When sun, nor star, displays its light, | |
| They can direct your feet aright; | |
| They will exalt your quickening eyes | 105 |
| From earth’s poor pageant to the skies.” | |
| Religion thus her thoughts express’d: | |
| I lock’d the counsel in my breast. | |
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