But my heart would still yearn for the sound of the waves That sing as they flow by my forefathers' graves; If manhood yet honors my cheek with a tear, I care not who sees it, no blush for it here! Farewell to the deep-bosomed stream of the West! Till the channel is dry where its waters have rolled ! DECEMBER, 1854. By some contriving junto planned, And signed per order of Committee; It touches every tenderest spot, My patriotic predilections, My well known-something-don't ask what, They make a feast on Thursday next, And hope to make the feasters merry; Our friends will come with anxious faces (To see our blankets off, no doubt, And trot us out and show our paces). They hint that papers by the score Are rather musty kind of rations; They don't exactly mean a bore, But only trying to the patience; Should bring the dews of Hippocrene The same old story; that's the chaff To catch the birds that sing the ditties; Upon my soul, it makes me laugh To read these letters from Committees ! They 're all so loving and so fair, All for your sake such kind compunction,'T would save your carriage half its wear To touch its wheels with such an unction! Why, who am I, to lift me here And beg such learned folk to listen, To ask a smile, or coax a tear Beneath these stoic lids to glisten? H As well might some arterial thread As well some hair-like nerve might strain The springing haunches gathered shorter, Was stretching through the last hot quarter! Ah me! you take the bud that came Self-sown in your poor garden's borders, And hand it to the stately dame That florists breed for, all she orders; She thanks you · it was kindly meant – (A pale affair, not worth the keeping,) — To join the tea-leaves used for sweeping. Fresh gathered for the hour of meeting, Pale though its outer leaves may be, Rose-red in all its inner petals, Where the warm life we cannot see The life of love that it We meet from regions far away, Like rills from distant mountains streaming; The sun is on Francisco's bay O'er Chesapeake the lighthouse gleaming; While summer girds the still bayou In chains of bloom, her bridal token, Yet Nature bears the self-same heart Beneath her russet-mantled bosom, As where with burning lips apart She breathes, and white magnolias blossom; The self-same founts her chalice fill With showery sunlight running over, On fiery plain and frozen hill, On myrtle-beds and fields of clover. |