Constitutional Whig

FOR THE WHIG.
THE CRISIS.

On cloudless wings the day-beam soaring
Beheld the dewy flow'rs expand,
Its gentlest breath the zephyr pouring,
Those dewy flow'rs in murmurs fanned;
The sun, the breeze, conspir'd to bring
Their tribute to the joyous spring.

And fresher than the light breeze straying
O'er blooms of every varied die,
And fairer than those flow'rs displaying
Their blushes to the morning sky,
Young Laura rov'd through glade and bower,
The fairy of that scene and hour.

And younger still, and yet a child,
I rov'd with her that sunny morn;
But feelings deep and passions wild,
Their withering trace had early worn,
And I was there, beneath the seeming
Of thoughtless mirth, a child of dreaming

Through silent dells I sought each flow'r
That lurk'd in timid sweetness there,
And cull'd it from the lonely bow'r
To wreathe amid her golden hair:
And she repaid me with a smile
That might a rougher toil beguile.

At length a seat all greenly moss't
She chose beneath the wild vines' shade
And told me of a cincture lost,
And bade me search the path we stray'd;
And I, were not the search in vain,
Should bind it in its place again.

I left her there and wander'd far,
For distant had the ramble been,
And long the quest. ere like a star,
The golden clasp reveal'd its sheen.
But swift the flight and brief the space
That bore it to the trysting-place.

In slumber deep the maiden lay,
Upon that mossy seat reclin'd;
Her fair hair to the breezes' play
Gave all its tresses unconfined,
And opening half its stainless snows.
In revel free her bosom rose,

When the rapt Persian, lowly kneeling
Adores the Fire-God's blazing shrine,
His bosom owns no wilder feeling
Than bounded, all uncurb'd, in mine--
My footstep fell without a sound,
For there, I felt, was holy ground.

A moment sped--it was the burst,
The storm-flash of the slumbering soul
When all of light and fire it nurs'd
In one fierce volume seem'd to roll;
And I had bound, with reeling brain,
The cincture in its place again!

The time is past--Oh! many a year
Hath dropt its shadowy veil between;
Yet memory holds forever dear
Each feature of that vanish'd scene:
Still memory loves that silent hour,
And dwells upon that lonely bow'r,

It is not manhood's course of strife
That forms the soul's enduring mark;
The flame that burns and shines through life
Springs from an unregarded spark--
Fate lends to childhood's lightest hour,
A saving or a damning power.

A pebble in the streamlet giant
Hath chang'd the course of many a river,
A dew-drop on the baby plant...
May warp the giant oak forever;
And life receiv'd its master tone,
The hour I bound the garter on.