The Rhode Island American, And General Advertiser

Original Poetry
To the Editors of The Rhode-Island American.
GENTLEMEN
You may put the enclosed either in the paper
or in the fire, as you please. The former
will not flatter me, because I am no candidate
for poetical fame, and the latter will not mortify
me, because the piece is only three days
old has not been seen by any person living
myself excepted. It was written to shew to
what extent an ardent imagination may be
wrought up, when the mind has been poisoned
by early impressions. The devil is much more
common than is generally thought and although
it does not frequently break out in the manner
here related, yet I am of opinion that there are
but few persons of warm imagination who do
not feel the effect of some extravagant fancy
that has emanated from seeds sown in the cradle.
I could quote many examples from among
the greatest men that have lived. It appears
to me that parents ought to be as particular in
choosing a nurse for their children, as they
would in selecting a preceptor for them afterwards.
I am acquainted with several young
ladies who have extracted a considerable portion
of this poison from the froth of modern novels.
Nothing is more common than to see
them at the age of fourteen or fifteen weeping
for whole days together over some cobweb romance
of a haunted castle and marrow bones.

THE GOBLIN QUEEN, OR THE
BEAUTIFUL MAID.
A BALLAD.

Near the dark rolling Hudson throws
fretful its wave
On the rocks that project in his flood;
There lived a divine, truly pious and grave,
Who anxiously sought to reclaim and to save;
And his name was Alpheus the good.

The partner that charmed him in early life,
Long since in the earth had been laid;
But still there remained for the loss of his wife.
One only lov'd daughter, the joy of his life,
ELVIRA, the beautiful maid.

The rose in its pride had no hues like her cheek;
The violet, no blue like her eye:
The one was transparent, was glowing and
sleek;
The other, tho' voiceless, such language would
speak,
That the swains all reply'd with a sigh.

Ere her mind was yet formed, in her infantine
years,
Her fancy was oft led astray:
For the nurse would awaken her juvenile fears,
By telling what sign in the Candle appears.
Ere the soul can be taken away.

And she told her oft times of the ghosts that
were seen
While her mother lay sick in her bed;
How a ghastly grim spectre array'd like a
queen,
Had appear'd on the wall, and made frightful
the scene
By the crown that it wore on its head.

And then she would tell, how in dead of the
night,
Each spirit is freed from its chain;
How mournful they ramble envelop'd in white,
Till the crow of the cock, ere morning is light,
Remands them to prison again.

Such tales often heard, on the maid had im-
press'd
Of the fate of the soul a distrust;
A sad superstition pervaded her breast,
For she fear'd that the spirit could never find
rest,
When the body was laid in the dust.

Tho' her form was adorn'd with each delicate
trace,
And gentleness liv'd in her mind:
Tho' ador'd by the world for her beauty and
grace,
Yet love in her bosom could never find place
'Twas a temple to sorrow consigned.

Yet sometimes a joy-beam would light up a
smile,
And expressive illumine her eye;
But a stranger so vagrant, not long could be-
guile;
Like a dove that alights from his journey a while,
Then launches again to the sky.

One night as she lay, while with thinking op-
press'd,
A moon-beam play'd bright on the wall;
At times twas o'ershadow'd by clouds in the
west,
It trembled through foliage, seem'd never at
rest,
Till darkness succeeded to all.

From this, sad reflections arose in her mind
Of the changes of fate here below;
Like the moon-beam that flutters on wings of
the wind,
Our joys are o'erclouded, nor virtue can bind,
Till the darkness of death ends our woe.

All the while, on the wall she kept fastened
her eye,
Till reflection was followed by fear;
Her bosom seem'd stifled with many a sigh,
And she gaz'd. and she gaz'd, and she could
not tell why,
Till her sight was bedimin'd with a tear.
At length, while she steadfastly gaz'd on the
place,
A vision arose to her view
At first, a dim light without form, without trace,
Alternate a tiger, a coffin, a face,
And then 'twas a grave broken through.

Still intent on the grave, she saw with affright
In the bottom a carcase was laid;
By degrees it kept changing, grew plainer to
sight;
Around all was dark, but the spectre was white:
Twas the form of a beautiful maid.

Erect then it stood, and the grave disappear'd.
The face seem'd to look like her own;
She call'd "who is there;" no answer was
heard.
One hand held a dagger, that hand was up-
rear'd,
And its head was adorn'd with a crown.

But still it kept changing in form and in face;
Deeper sunk were the eyes in the head;
More deadly, more dim, they kept sinking
apace,
Till at last of their balls there remained not a
trace,
But a dark gloomy hole in their stead.

Around their deep sockets, a rim of bright fire
Gave no light to the hollows within;
The flesh on its visage all seem'd to expire:
The lips were dissolving, the teeth still entire
Projected with horrible grin.

The gems in the crown that it wore on its head,
Added dread to the terrible shade;
For each was an eye-ball, fresh pluck'd from
the dead,
With a ghastly dim glare they were fix'd on
the bed,
Where the trembling Elvira was laid.

From the point of the dagger she saw the blood
drip
In a skull that adhered to the wall.
All at once from its posture the ghost seem'd
to leap,
Nor tables, nor sofas, impeded its step,
It appeared as it passed through them all.

ELVIRA half dying with terror and dread,
Cri'd aloud with a scream of despair.
On this side, on that side, she oft turn'd her
head;
She drew o'er her visage the clothes of the bed,
But still the grim vision was there.

In a swoon the fair maiden forgot the grim
shade;
With her fancy the vision had fed.
Herself like the ghost of the beautiful maid,
All lifeless and wan, on the pillow was laid,
Array'd in the garb of the dead.

Insensate all night, she awoke with the morn;
Animation, not life, was renewed;
For the gem of existence forever was gone,
Reason died in the conflict, the maid then for-
lorn,
A victim by fancy pursued.

When night o'er the world, drew her thick
woven pall,
Elvira was trembling with dread;
She still saw the spectre that gleamed on the
wall,
The rim of bright fire round the eye without
ball,
And the crown that it wore on its head.

From the maid's blooming visage the rose fled
away,
And the lily was seen in its place;
Her cheeks grew more hollow as flesh felt de-
cay,
Her eye-balls kept sinking by day, and by night,
And death seem'd to live in her face.

Her poor weeping father attempted relief,
But alas! his endeavours were vain;
He tried all his powers to solace her grief,
To shew the true cause, and confirm her belief
But the demon was fix'd in the brain.

Not long was Elvira a slave to the spright;
Death came like a friend to her aid;
He spread o'er her eye-balls his mantle of
night,
And all who then saw her, shed tears at the
sight
Of the ghost of the beautiful maid.

Her father soon follow'd, unwilling to stay
When his last only hope was no more;
The grief of his losses soon swept him away,
With a soul ripe for Heaven, he welcom'd the
day
When his journey so painful was o'er.

His mansion is desert! to ruin consign'd,
No voice is now heard in the hall;
At night, when the moon in the west has de-
clin'd,
Her beams as they burst through the clouds
and the wind
Still tremulous dance on the wall.
H.