The Alexandrian: A Commercial, Agricultural And Literary Journal

RETREAT OF THE MUSES.

FOR THE ALEXANDRIAN.

TO FANCY.—BY ALBERTO.

'Tis thine, O! fancy, thine the magic power,
To roll back years of long departed time
And cull from visions of the olden hour,
The fame of worth, and obloquy of crime;
'Tis thine to call up forms of sleeping dust,
And bid new life reanimate the clay,
The good, the bad, the merciless and just,
The past, the present, and the future day,
Re-live, and are, by thy creative sway.

'Tis thine to trace through ocean's parted wave,
The mystic wonders of its dark abode;
'Tis thine, to solve the secrets of the grave,
And view through starry spheres the living God.

With thee to waft his mind on buoyant wing,
Man e'en essays to bound unmeasur'd space;
At pleasure grasps the sceptre of a king,
And frowns a despot on his subject race,
Or smiles, a peaceful shepherd in the sylvan chase.

'Tis thine, to change the shrunken form of age,
And give disease the youthful rose of health;
Thy smiles the ills of poverty assuage,
A crust's a feast, its value boundless wealth.

'Tis thine to decorate the wasted scene,
Where bloom was once, but desolation now.
To robe dull winter in the smiling green
Of rural spring, or summer's arid glow,
And bid the frosted fields with vegetation grow.

Without thee, life were but a breathing ill,
A sluggish dreaming through the lapse of years,
And aim of mind, and mastery of will
A doubtful struggle with our griefs and fears.

What were the pleasures of times cold to-day,
If fancy could not from the future take,
And lead the eye from present scenes away,
Bidding the evening clouds of sorrow break,
Amid the sunshine splendor of the morning's wake.