innocence

A gentle spirit now above
Once animated what lies here
Till heav'n announc'd in tenderest love
"Ascend Immortal to yon sphere."

The lambkin at the great behest
Gave up its life without one groan;
When lo! In robes supernal drest
He found the bright abodes his own!

Most glorious and delightful scenes
Rush'd full upon his raptur'd sense;
Beyond what fancy ever dreams,
Or Eden knew in innocence.

Adieu! Adieu! My sweest boy,
Adieu till life's vain dream be o'er;

[Inscribed to Lady Duncannon.]


SWEET blushing Nymph, who loves to dwell
In the dark forest's silent gloom;
Who smiles within the Hermit's cell,
And sighs upon the rustic's tomb;
Who, pitying, sees the busy throng,
The slaves of fashion's giddy sway;
Who in a wild and artless song,
Warbles the feath'ry hours away.

Oft have I flown thy steps to trace,
In the low valley's still retreat,
Oft have I view'd thy blooming face,
In the small cottage, proudly neat!

Because he puts the compromising chart
Of hell before your eyes, you are afraid;
Because he counts the price that you have paid
For innocence, and counts it from the start,
You loathe him. But he sees the human heart
Of God meanwhile, and in His hand was weighed
Your squeamish and emasculate crusade
Against the grim dominion of his art.

Never until we conquer the uncouth
Connivings of our shamed indifference
(We call it Christian faith) are we to scan
The racked and shrieking hideousness of Truth

. O Friend! I know not which way I must look
For comfort, being, as I am, opprest,
To think that now our life is only drest
For show; mean handy-work of craftsman, cook,
Or groom! -- We must run glittering like a brook
In the open sunshine, or we are unblest:
The wealthiest man among us is the best:
No grandeur now in nature or in book
Delights us. Rapine, avarice, expense,
This is idolatry; and these we adore:
Plain living and high thinking are no more:

Sweet friend, the world, like some fair infant blessed,
Radiant with sportive grace, around thee plays;
Yet 'tis not as depicted in thy breast--
Not as within thy soul's fair glass, its rays
Are mirrored. The respectful fealty
That my heart's nobleness hath won for thee,
The miracles thou workest everywhere,
The charms thy being to this life first lent,--
To it, mere charms to reckon thou'rt content,
To us, they seem humanity so fair.
The witchery sweet of ne'er-polluted youth,
The talisman of innocence and truth--

How like an angel came I down!
How bright are all things here!
When first among his works I did appear
O how their glory me did crown!
The world resembled his eternity,
In which my soul did walk;
And ev'ry thing that I did see
Did with me talk.

The skies in their magnificence,
The lively, lovely air;
Oh how divine, how soft, how sweet, how fair!
The stars did entertain my sense,
And all the works of God, so bright and pure,
So rich and great did seem,
As if they ever must endure

Blandly mother
takes him strolling
by railroad and by river
-he's the son of the absconded
hot rod angel-
and he imagines cars
and rides them in his dreams,

so lonely growing up among
the imaginary automobiles
and dead souls of Tarrytown

to create
out of his own imagination
the beauty of his wild
forebears-a mythology
he cannot inherit.

Will he later hallucinate
his gods? Waking
among mysteries with
an insane gleam
of recollection?

In two large columns on thy motley page
Where Roman wit is strip'd with English rage;
Where ribaldry to satire makes pretence,
And modern scandal rolls with ancient sense:
Whilst on one side we see how Horace thought,
And on the other how he never wrote;
Who can believe, who view the bad, the good,
That the dull copyist better understood
That spirit he pretends to imitate,
Than heretofore that Greek he did translate?
Thine is just such an image of his pen,
As thou thyself art of the sons of men,

Veil, Lord, mine eyes till she be past,
When Folly tempts my sight;
Keep Thou my palate and my taste
From gluttonous delight.
Stop Thou mine ear from sirens’ songs,
My tongue from lies restrain;
Withhold my hands from doing wrongs,
My feet from courses vain.

Teach, likewise, ev’ry other sense
To act an honest part,
But chiefly settle innocence
And pureness in my heart;
So naught without me or within,
Shall work an ill effect,
By tempting me to act a sin,
Or virtues to neglect.

Hail sacred shades! cool, leavy House!
Chaste treasurer of all my vows,
And wealth! on whose soft bosom laid
My love's fair steps I first betrayed:
Henceforth no melancholy flight,
No sad wing, or hoarse bird of night,
Disturb this air, no fatal throat
Of raven, or owl, awake the note
Of our laid echo, no voice dwell
Within these leaves, but Philomel.
The poisonous ivy here no more
His false twists on the oak shall score,
Only the woodbine here may twine
As th'emblem of her love and mine;