20 A POET'S DAUGHTER A POET'S DAUGHTER BY F. G. HALLECK Written for Miss ***, at the request of her father. 'A LADY asks the minstrel's rhyme.' A lady asks? There was a time When, musical as play-bells' chime To wearied boy, That sound would summon dreams sublime But now the spell hath lost its sway Gone are the plumes and pennons gay Of young romance; There linger but her ruins gray And broken lance. "This is no world,' so Hotspur said, For tilting lips' and 'mammets' made, My thoughts recline I'm busy in the cotton trade, And sugar line. "Tis youth, 't is beauty asks-the green And growing leaves of seventeen Are round her; and, half hid, half seen, A POET'S DAUGHTER. Nursed by the virtues she hath been Blind passion's picture-yet for this Her's-who admired a serpent's hiss Beauty-the fading rainbow's pride, Age-strengthened, like the oak, storm-tried, Youth's coffin-hush the tale it tells! Be silent, memory's funeral bells! Lone in my heart, her home, it dwells, And where the grave-mound greenly swells 'But she who asks has rank and power, Armies her train, a throne her bower, 21 22 A POET'S DAUGHTER. A queen? Earth's regal suns have set. Empires to-day are upside down, Give me, in preference to a crown, 'Another asks-though first among A poet's daughter? Could I claim Your blood would glow Proudly, to sing that gentlest name A poet's daughter! Dearer word Lip hath not spoke, nor listener heard, TO A BLANK SHEET OF PAPER Fit theme for song of bee and bird From morn till even, And wind-harp, by the breathing stirred My spirit's wings are weak-the fire Her name needs not my humble lyre She hath already from her sire All bard can give. TO A BLANK SHEET OF PAPER. BY O. W. HOLMES WAN Visaged thing! thy virgin leaf Who can thy unborn meaning scan? Love may light on thy snowy cheek, 23 24 TO A BLANK SHEET OF PAPER Satire may lift his bearded lance, Perchance a vision of the night, If it should be in pensive hour, Some sorrow moving theme I try, But if in merry mood I touch Thy leaves, then shall the sight of thee Sow smiles as thick on rosy lips, As ripples on the sea. The Weekly press shall gladly stoop To gild its leaden leaves. Thou hast no tongue, yet thou canst speak. |