I COME from the deeps where the mermaiden twines, I breathed on the harp at Zephyrus' cave, And the strain, as it rose, glided upward with me; No dwelling on earth, but my home is the wave, And my couch is the coral grove, deep in the sea. SONG OF THE ZEPHYR SPIRIT. 261 Thou hast dreamed-hast thou not?-of those wave girdled bowers, Where all that can win the heart, beams on the sight: Where life is a frolic through fancies and flowers, And the soul lives in dreams of a lasting delight. Thou wouldst win what thy dreams have long brought to thy view, Thou wouldst dwell with the moon that now beams upon thee, To the fears of the earth-to its cares, bid adieu, With my breath I will fan thee when noon-day is nigh, The gentlest of mermaids will lull thee to sleep; She will watch by thy couch when the sun passes by, Nor fly when the moon leaves her home in the deep. Each joy thou hast sighed for, shall there be thine own, The sorrows of time from thy slumbers shall flee, Then come with me-win all the pleasures I've shown, Come rest in the coral grove, deep in the sea. ODE TO JAMESTOWN. BY J. K. PAULDING. OLD cradle of an infant world, Her gallant wing and soared away, What solemn recollections throng, What touching visions rise, As wandering these old stones among, I backward turn mine eyes, And see the shadows of the dead flit round, Like spirits, when the last dread trump shall sound! The wonders of an age combined In one short moment memory supplies, ODE TO JAMESTOWN. They throng upon my wakened mind, As time's dark curtains rise. The volume of a hundred buried years, I hear the angry ocean rave, As o'er the drowned earth it whirl'd, I see a train of exiles stand, The daring pioneers of fate, Who braved the perils of the sea and earth, I see the gloomy Indian range His woodland empire, free as air; I see the gloomy forest change, The shadowy earth laid bare, And, where the red man chased the bounding deer, The smiling labours of the white appear. I see the haughty warrior gaze In wonder or in scorn, 263 264 ODE TO JAMESTOWN. As the pale faces sweat to raise Their scanty fields of corn, While he, the monarch of the boundless wood, A moment, and the pageant's gone; The palefaced strangers stand alone And the proud wood king, who their arts disdained, The forest reels beneath the stroke Of sturdy woodman's axe; The earth receives the white man's yoke, And pays her willing tax Of fruits, and flowers, and golden harvest fields, And all that nature to blithe labour yields. Then growing hamlets rear their heads, And gathering crowds expand, Far as my fancy's vision spreads, O'er many a boundless land, Till what was once a world of savage strife, Empire to empire swift succeeds, Each happy, great, and free; |