Classic Poem

EPISTLE .

Can words, O loveliest of thy sex! express
My soul's devotion in its wild excess?
This hand, extended, might as soon contain.
The mighty waters of the boundless main.

Tender and ardent is that heart of thine,
But ah! not pierced, — not rapt, — not lost as mine!
What man e'er shone on woman's dazzled gaze
As thou on mine, bright sun-beam of my days!
Tho' every youthful charm were round him placed,
Narcissus boasted, or Adonis graced.

Hope, Love, and Extacy's adorning sway,
Inert and pale, upon my senses lay,
Till, on their dull expanse, in floods of light,
Stream'd those dear eyes — a day upon my night!
Shed kindling graces o'er my altering frame,
Till I nor look, nor seem, nor am the same.
Thus all my thoughts, with secret force, persuade,
Had ne'er on me these melting glances play'd;
The honour'd object of thy tender cares,
Whose now changed form a love-born magic wears,
No more had lived, than life could be retain'd,
When nor by air nor aliment sustain'd;
A human shape indeed might breathe and move,
Some dim resemblance of the man you loved;
But, had his eyes been found indeed the same,
Untouch'd by Passion's soul-enkindling flame?
Source of that glow of intellect refined,
That meets the efflux of thy fervent mind!
The same his lip, without its conscious smiles,
Gay progeny of hope, and tender wiles?
Thro' life's dull path plodding their destined way,
In the trite business of the vapid day,
Would equal grace his listless limbs have crown'd,
As when o'er the unburden'd earth they bound,
Seek, with elastic speed, her gladdening sight,
Who speaks in music, and who moves in light?
Ah no! such cold privation had assign'd
His form unlovely, as opake his mind.

In the dun slip, a garden falsely call'd,
Narrow and long, with dusty brick enwall'd,
Behind the crowded streets, whose mansions high
Breathe the thick smoke, that shrowds the summer sky,
If there a hapless rose-tree meets the view,
How faint its odour, and how dimits hue!
A dusky red each rivell'd orbit wears,
And tinged with livid yellowness appears.
Borne where th' exhaling scents perfume the dawn,
From glowing border, or from verdant lawn,
Where soft showers fall, and tepid breezes blow,
And setting suns in golden radiance flow,
What living bloom the swelling globes array!
What rich luxuriance loads the bending spray!
Its poignant sweets the stealing gales disclose,
And Flora boasts the splendour of her rose.

So boasts Emillia of the form and face
Love, and her charms, endow'd with all their grace,
That lost to them, no eye had e'er allured
A canker'd rose, by sunless walls immured.

Light of my life, with all thy cloudless rays,
Shine ever thus, and gild my future days;
Still shed those vital beams, whose blest controul
My frame illumined, and inspired my soul!