Classic Poem

FROM CUSTOM AND DELICACY, OF ENJOYING SOCIAL FRIENDSHIP WITH THE FAIR-SEX .

Had soft Aspasia's sex been man,
What Friendship's holy chains
Had link'd our beings, Fortune's plan,
Our pleasures and our pains?

Alike our ruder, milder sports,
Our studies too the same;
Companions both in shades and courts,
In paths of love or fame.

By bright collision, patriot beams
Had flush'd from soul to soul;
And War had seen, in Union's streams,
Our tide of glory roll.

There Fate, that strikes the noblest breast,
Had surely reverenc'd thine;
The thirsty lance I then had bless'd
For only wounding mine.

But ah! my sweeter downy hours,
Had I been chang'd, not you;
What tranquil joys, if kinder powers
Had made me woman too!

Made each the other's softer care,
One table then had fed,
One chamber lodg'd the faithful pair,
Ah, do not blush! — one bed.

Both sitting at one busy loom
In Nature's vernal bow'r,
Had rivall'd Nature's vernal bloom,
Creating both one flow'r.

Both screen'd from summer's sultry view,
In shades by haunted stream,
Had own'd the moral vision true
That youthful poets dream.

Sweet wisdom, couch'd in mystic rhyme,
Yet bending o'er the brook,
Had gather'd morals more sublime
From great Creation's book;

And felt our mixing souls refine
In purer wisdom's ray,
The being Virtue's friend and thine
Had clear'd our mists away.

My morning incense, evening pray'r,
With thine had soar'd above,
With thine ascending sweeter there
On wings of song and love.

Vain dreams! for custom's laws, combin'd
With Virtue's stern decree,
Divide the beings Nature join'd,
Divide my fair from me.