50
poems.
Adorn the scene without: but all is cold.
'Tis like, to me, the fairy home of old
Where silence dwelt one hundred weary years:
Such is such splendour; but at last appears
The love that chases all its gloom away.
Tis come, that gentle presence! will it stay?
No! as in the scene presented, 'tis alone,
And fruit and flower change again to stone:
Why, why is this? she finds her bridegroom blind,
(At least to ev'ry virtue of the mind.)
Then vanity steps in and takes the reins;
In discontent and anger he complains,
Not thinking he who makes his home no home[1]
Gives full occasion to the fair to roam.
'Tis like, to me, the fairy home of old
Where silence dwelt one hundred weary years:
Such is such splendour; but at last appears
The love that chases all its gloom away.
Tis come, that gentle presence! will it stay?
No! as in the scene presented, 'tis alone,
And fruit and flower change again to stone:
Why, why is this? she finds her bridegroom blind,
(At least to ev'ry virtue of the mind.)
Then vanity steps in and takes the reins;
In discontent and anger he complains,
Not thinking he who makes his home no home[1]
Gives full occasion to the fair to roam.
- ↑ A critic's hand has warn'd me to correct
What I must truly own is a defect,—
That in this little sketch of human life
I've not brought in the careless, faithless wife.
In one short ev'ning you would fail to trace
All, all that in society takes place;
And then the length of this may represent
That partly brain, and most—my lamp was spent!
(A future view may, more excursive, prove
How many are the principles that move!)
The thought did rise, but feeling said "forbear,"—
A sister's pen her own frail sex may spare;
And heart doth grieve when home's bright hearth grows dim,
And she forgets the vows she made to him.
- St. Johns, April 25, 1859.
