The New Hampshire Gazette

POETRY.

STANZAS
WRITTEN DURING SICKNESS.

I've plunged in every wild extreme,
That youth, and youthful folly knows,
I've tasted deeply of the stream
That round the shrine of Pleasure flows:
And like the bee from flower to flower,
Sipping each sweet, I've wander'd free;
Yet never found an earthly power,
Domestic Love! compared to Thee!
Sweeter than passion's fevered sigh,
Dearer than Pleasure's fairy dream :
Before Thee all life's sorrows fly,
Like mists before the morning beam!
Thou only canst the roses fling
That make life's rugged pathway blest ;
And scatter from thy downy wing
That peace which heals the wounded breast
It is not in the revel loud-
At mirth or Fashion's shrine,
Where rival beauties thronging crowd,
That love asserts a power divine ;
Tis when the tortured frame is torn
By all the pangs disease can give ;
Mid anguish, scarcely to be borne,
Its smiles can bid the sufferer live.
Domestic Love !- thy hand can shed
Soft opiates o'er the burning brow ;
And round the couch of sickness spread
Those soothing hopes that cheer me now!
Yes!let the libertine deride
As priestcraft, wedlock's silken chain—
But tell me, hashe ever tried
Its power, in sorrow, or in pain ?
And Thou, who in life's summer hour
Taught my young bosom to believe
Marriage, an arbitrary power
Invented only to deceive ;
Who saidst, " At sight of human ties,
Made for the base and slavish mind,
The rosy god affrighted flies,
Nor leaves one ray of bliss behind !"
Oh !--didst, thou know how false, how vain,
This doctrine of thy heart will prove ;
Thoud'st own, that Hymen's fancied chain ;
Is the true bondage wove by Love!
For where two youthful hearts unite,
And own one faith, oue fate, one'name,
Think not Love's torch will burn less bright,
Though Reason sanctified the flame !