To Miss Brinckerhoff
Eliza, when the southern gale
Expands the broad majestic sail,
While Friendship breathes the parting sigh,
And sorrow glitters in each eye,
The vessel leaves the flying shores,
Receding spires and less'ning tow'rs;
And as it cleaves the lucid sea,
The distant tumult dies away:
Then pensive as the deck you quit,
Caressing sable rob'd regret,
Indulging every rising fear,
And urging on the pendant tear,
While Recollection's flatt'ring eye
Your former pleasures magnify;
Then shall your guardian spirit smile,
Rejoic'd that Fate rewards his toil;
And as he mounts on ærial wing,
Thus to his kindred angels sing:
'Hail, happy hour that snatch'd my fair
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poem by Ann Eliza Bleecker from The Posthumous Works of Ann Eliza Bleecker
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To the same (Mr. L-----) II
From plains and peaceful cots I send
The humble wishes of a friend:
May love still spread his silken wing,
And life to you be ever spring:
May virtue guide you with her clue,
Life's mazy path to wander thro';
And may your offspring the blest tract pursue:
On you may Heav'n benignly smile,
And inward peace external cares beguile;
Long may you live supremely blest,
Then die, and be a Saviour's guest.
The wish is o'er, permit me to descend
To the familiar converse of a friend.
Well, you've done right to get a wife,
For change the comfort is of life;
Besides, I've read in ancient story,
A virtuous wife's a crown of glory:
And yet 'tis true that some adorn
Their husband's brows with crown of horn:
The wisest man on earth we find
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poem by Ann Eliza Bleecker from The Posthumous Works of Ann Eliza Bleecker
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An evening prospect
Come my Susan, quit your chamber,
Greet the op'ning bloom of May,
Let us on you hillock clamber,
And around the scene survey.
See the sun is now descending,
And projects his shadows far,
And the bee her course is bending
Homeward thro' the humid air.
Mark the lizard just before us,
Singing her unvaried strain,
While the frog, abrupt in chorus,
Deepens thro' the marshy plain.
From yon grove the woodcock rises,
Mark her progress by her notes,
High in air her wings she poises,
Then like lightning down she shoots.
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poem by Ann Eliza Bleecker from The Posthumous Works of Ann Eliza Bleecker
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A thought on death
Alas! my thoughts, how faint they rise,
Their pinions clogg'd with dirt;
They cannot gain the distant skies,
But gravitate to earth.
No angel meets them on the way,
To guide them to new spheres;
And for to light them, not a ray
Of heavenly gace appears.
Return then to thy native ground,
And sink into the tombs;
There take a dismal journey round
The melancholy rooms:
There level'd equal king and swain,
The vicious and the just;
The turf ignoble limbs contain,
One rots beneath a bust.
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poem by Ann Eliza Bleecker from The Posthumous Works of Ann Eliza Bleecker
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Hope arising from retrospection
Alas! my fond enquiring soul,
Doom'd in suspence to mourn;
Now let thy moments calmly roll,
Now let thy peace return.
Why should'st thou let a doubt disturb
Thy hopes, which daily rise,
And urge thee on to trust his word
Who built and rules the skies?
Look back thro' what intricate ways
He led thy unfriended feet;
Oft mourning in the cheerless maze,
He ne'er forsook thee yet.
When thunder from heav'n's arch did break,
And cleft the sinking ship,
His mercy snatch'd thee from the wreck,
And from the rolling deep:
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poem by Ann Eliza Bleecker from The Posthumous Works of Ann Eliza Bleecker
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To the same (Mr. L-----) I
Dear Sir, when late in town you chose
To correspond no more in prose,
My viscious muse---(but 'tis in vain
Of her abuses to complain)---
Neglects to aid, as I expected,
And so I must be self-directed.
You've broke th' agreement, Sir, I find;
(Excuse me, I must speak my mind)
It seems, in your poetic fit,
You mind not jingling, when there's wit;
And so to write like Donne you chose,
Whose prose was verse, and verse was prose:
From common tracts of rhyming stray,
And versify another way.
Indeed it suits, I must aver,
A genius to be singular.
On F---r kept in durance vile,
Did once more erring fortune smile:
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poem by Ann Eliza Bleecker from The Posthumous Works of Ann Eliza Bleecker
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Elegy on the death of Cleora
No more of Zephyr's airy robe I'll sing,
Or balmy odours dropping from his wing,
Or how his spicy breath revives the lands,
And curls the waves which roll o'er crystal sands.
No more I'll paint the glowing hemisphere,
Or rocks ambitious, piercing upper air;
The subjects of the grave demand my lay,
Spectator now, I soon shall be as they.
Cleora, art thou gone? thou dost not hear
The voice of grief, nor see the dropping tear;
And yet, it soothes my sorrows while I mourn
In artless verse, and weep upon thy urn.
---Tho' bright from thee the rays of beauty stream'd,
Thy mind irradiate, stronger graces beam'd;
The meteor shone so permanent and fair,
Who'd not mistook the vapour for a star?
---E'en then---when lying poets flattering breath
Pronounc'd so fair a form exempt from death;
The icy angel met her on the plain,
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poem by Ann Eliza Bleecker from The Posthumous Works of Ann Eliza Bleecker
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Peace
All hail vernal Phoebus! all hail ye soft breezes!
Announcing the visit of spring;
How green are the meadows! the air how it pleases!
How gleefully all the birds sing!
Begone ye rude tempests, nor trouble the æther,
Nor let blushing Flora complain,
While her pencil was tinging the tulip, bad weather
Had blasted the promising gem.
From its verdant unfoldings, the timid narcissus
Now shoots out a diffident bud;
Begone ye rude tempests, for sure as it freezes
Ye kill this bright child of the wood:
And Peace gives new charms to the bright beaming season;
The groves we now safely explore
Where murd'ring banditti, the dark sons of treason,
Were shelter'd and aw'd as before.
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poem by Ann Eliza Bleecker from The Posthumous Works of Ann Eliza Bleecker
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The Storm
Come let us sing how when the Judge Supreme
Mounts the black tempest, arm'd with pointed flame,
What clust'ring horrors form his awful train:
Columns of smoke obscure the crystal skies,
The whirlwind howls, the livid lightning flies,
The bursting thunder sounds from shore to shore,
Earth trembles at the loud prolonged roar:
Down on the mountain forests rush the hail,
Th' aspiring pines fall headlong in the vale;
The riv'lets, swell'd with deluges of rain,
Rise o'er their banks and overflow the plain.
Th'affrighted peasant ope's his humble door,
While from his roof the clatt'ring torrents pour,
He sees his barns all red with conflagration,
His flocks borne off by sudden inundation;
His teeming fields, robb'd of their wavy pride,
By cat'rects tumbling down the mountain's side.
The shock suspends his pow'rs, he stands distrest,
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poem by Ann Eliza Bleecker from The Posthumous Works of Ann Eliza Bleecker
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To Miss M. V. W
Peggy, amidst domestic cares to rhyme
I find no pleasure, and I find no time;
But then, a Poetess, you may suppose,
Can better tell her mind in verse than prose:
True---when serenely all our moments roll,
Then numbers flow spontaneous from the soul:
Not when the mind is harrassed by cares,
Or stunn'd with thunders of intestine wars,
Or circled by a noisy, vulgar throng,
(Noise ever was an enemy to song.)
What tho' the spiral pines around us rise,
And airy mountains intercept the skies,
Faction has chac'd away the warbling Muse,
And Echo only learns to tattle news,
Each clown commences politician here,
And calculates th' expences of the year;
He quits his plow, and throws aside his spade,
To talk with squire about decrease of trade:
His tedious spouse detains me in her turn,
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poem by Ann Eliza Bleecker from The Posthumous Works of Ann Eliza Bleecker
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