Spirit Of Jefferson

To Miss Kate

"The True Virginian"

When memory is impotent to call back the bright poesy:

That I loved in thee by the laddered odds sweet bay:

And sorrowful locks with an up broken grasp:

My heart knows the way of its power lessened tide

When the rivulet that yieldeth a flower fair

When the evergreen plant that we watered with tears

Shall cease to bud blossom and bloom

Shall die o'er the loved one's youth

when thy heart that all love shall be turned cold as stone

And thy bright smiling face wears a frown

When these things shall be, which impossibly seem,

The remembrance of thee will have flown

from morning 'til e'en

Shall chain it e'en light to the world:

And hue writ in mist light gleam of beauty

From their place the heavens are hurled,

When the seasons that ever go round in their time

Shall cease to return in their time.

When the earth shall refuse to yield fruit up to man,

And the harvests decay in their prime;

When lovers and friends cease to cling 'round thy path

And thou art in sorrow left lone;

When these things shall be, which impossible seem,

The remembrance of thee will have flown.

When the lights in the North shine dimly and dark,

And its ice-girded shores shall wear

The mantle of night through each turn of the year,

And the Laplander yields to despair

When the snows of the Alps shall be melted away,

And the Avalanche cease to roll down

When the volcanic fires that burn throughout time

Go out, and their peaks cease to frown;

When liberty's bird shall descend from its height,

And its scream shall be heard as a moan;

When these things shall be, which impossible seem,

The remembrance of thee will have flown.

When years roll by and the autumn of life,

Comes on, and the heart beateth low;

When the frost of old age falleth white on the brow,

And the blood through the veins courseth slow;

When the tide of existence is ebbing away,

And its current is hushed to repose;

When the once troubled waters all smoothly appear,

When time which all probability,

Nor ripples nor bubbles disclose;

And the mind wanders back through old time;

A bright vision of thee shall appear to me then

Writ on memory's pages sublime.

Charlestown, Oct. 4, 1851.