This life is to thee like a region enchanted,
O'er which thy rich fancy its rose-color throws;
The hours as they pass thee with visions are haunted,
And thou dream'st them away in inglorious repose.
Around thee bold hearts the rude war are waging,
...
They may talk of the eloquence famous in story;
Of the names that through ages continue to shine;
There never has fallen more true oratory
From the lips of a mortal, than falleth from thine.
With pathos and passion, oh! not more replete
Is the...
In the noble army of Reform
Thou art a pioneer;
And bravely wields thy good right arm,
The broadsword and the spear.
Thou may'st not see the battle's close,
The victory may'st not win:
But the scars upon thy spirit prove,...
The brilliant west is glowing,
With sunset's farewell ray;
The silver waves are flowing,
On to the distant sea;
The pale bright stars are keeping
Their watch through night's still hours;
The dews in joy are weeping
...
Upon the sea of life,
Outspread thy spirit's sails; --
Go in thy genius forth, and breast
Its billows and its gales.
Weigh anchor and depart --
Why linger on the shore?
Seize helm and guide thy spirit's bark
...
Thou dost not dwell in this dark world of ours,
Where sorrow, want, and crime, and misery reign;
Where famine stalks; where war's dread tempest lowers;
Where stands the scaffold, and where clanks the chain.
But far upon the future's unreached shore,
...
Like the river's current rapid;
Like the lightning's flash intense;
Was the rushing, fiery torrent
Of thy fervid eloquence.
And the multitude that listened
To each breathing, burning word,
Like the ocean by the tempest,...
In full-orbed splendor now the queen of Night,
Among the stars walks in her pride of place,
And how again we miss that flood of light
That overflowed the azure fields of space.
But though her brightness meets no more the gaze,
As in her wonted...
Go, ye sweet messengers,
To that dim-lighted room,
Where lettered wisdom from the walls
Sheds a delightful gloom;
Where sits in thought profound,
One in the noon of life,
Whose flashing eye and fevered...
I love to look on that eye of blue,
For tears have not yet worn a channel through;
And the few bright summers since thy birth,
Have left thee a stranger still on earth.
A stranger -- and all, to thine untaught eyes,
Is bright with the hues of paradise....