From which the breeze derives its liquid balm.
Oh! in my youth, this hour has been to me
Bright as the fairy arch upon the clouds
Of earthly grief and gloom, and even now
It gives the silent fountain of my heart
A renovated action, and recalls
The energies that long ago were mine.
My fancy wanders as I thus portray
The lineaments on which 'tis bliss to gaze:
How beautiful their prototype! to whom
I breath'd in youth the most impassion'd words,
And felt as if Elysium had disclosed
Its glory to my eye--around this brow,
Stainless as marble, cluster golden curls
Like sunbeams on the bosom of the cloud,
And o'er the radiant azure orbs beneath,
The snowy lids suspend their glossy fringe.
Upon such beauty shall my pencil stamp
Its immortality, and make it seem
More beautiful in Fancy's softest glow;
And, my beloved! when this warm hand that traced
Thy pictured charms is mouldering in the dust,
Thou wilt proclaim the painter's mastery,
And consecrate the canvass with a power
Which shall defy the wasting hand of Time!

G.R.C.

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