Jenks' Portland Gazette. Maine Advertiser

Selected Poetry.

THE REVERIE.

BY MARIA KIDDER.

COME, dusky shadows of the night,
Companions of the midnight hour:
Sleep binds his fillet o'er my brow,
And silence guards the lonely bower:
Ah, come! this restless mind engage
Soothe it with retrospective bliss,
Recall the joys of early life,
And all the present gloom dismiss.
Give me one golden minute back,
Of those whom prosp'rous fortune smiled.
When friendship smoothed each passing care,
And pleasure's witching voice beguiled:
Cast back those dreams of fond romance,
That lull'd me with a precious name,
With faith's firm pledge, with honor's vow,
Love's soft deceit and transient flame.
Dreary and toilsome is the path,
When life's aërial schemes are flown.
When kind illusion's cheat no more
And sober Reason claims her own:
Burns then the ardent patriot's fire?
Avails the stoic's boasted aid?
Alas! hear godlike Brutus mourn,
How "Virtue's self was but a shade."
The world's wide desert I survey
With fainting step, and cheerless breath;
No soul congenial blends with mine,
I taste no bliss, I feel no rest;
Fled the bright forms which Fancy drew.
Nor hope's gay visions cheer my eye,
Oh drown the sense of present woe!
Oh save me from reality!