The National Republican And Ohio Political Register

Selected Poetry.

From Knight's Quarterly Review.

FAREWELL.

Farewell! farewell! that word of sever'd hearts,
Hath seldom been to me a sadder sound.
A stranger from thy home of peace departs,
Yet all he quits to him is holy ground.
I feel the sanctity of love around,
Domestic love and quiet tenderness;
And never may on earth a spot be found
So rich in all that gentle spirits bless,
In all that poets dream, and never half express,

Through the green lanes no longer shall I roam,
To cull the wild flowers wet with early dews;
Or bear my motley prize in triumph home,
And gravely lecture on their forms and hues:
No more o'er Bernard's tale of nature muse
Unsocial: or on listless couch reclined.
Watch thy small hands the cheering leaf infuse,
And laugh, beneath thy quiet look to find
The smile of silent thought, the sparkle of the mind.

Not soon shall I forget our darkened cell,
The mid-day twilight of our fragrant bower,
Where morning's coolness lingering loved to dwell
And roses and the rich syringa flower
In blended beauty seemed to overpower
The very air with sweetness. Many a lay
Of love and sorrow wiled the sultry hour—
Of him who saw his loved one's wedding day,
Then broken-hearted died in silence far away.

The sun sunk down unclouded, and the breeze
Came wafting freshness from the pale grey sky,
And murmured in the quivering aspen trees;
And oft, unconsciously, in wandering by,
We paused, and listened, with a smile and sigh
To that low melancholy music: few
And dim the stars were twinkling: and the eye
And ear a feeling of sweet sadness drew
From whispering winds and leaves, and evening's shadowy hue.

And Thou, with whom in twilight walk I strayed.
Wilt thou forgive me, if I turn to thee?
For once or twice, in solitude and shade,
A smile so simply sweet looked up to me,
That, wanderer as I am and fancy free,
That look still haunts me like a lovely dream;
By lonely midnight musing still I see
That vision bright and beautiful, a gleam
Of momentary light on life's o'er-shadowed stream.

And this shall be my solitary pleasure
In studious cloister pale or green arcade;
And long will Memory linger o'er her treasure
The vine-clad cottage, and the rustic shade
With woven willow and the wood-bine made,
The portal turret, and the hoary spire,
In the soft sheen of summer-moon arrayed,
Or flashing with the lightning's livid fire,
Then deeper seeming still in darkness to retire.

Farewell! the smile of peace—the laugh of mirth—
The silent sadness of the pallid brow—
To many a kindly thought had given birth,
Which shrunk from utterance, till I breathed them now.
And thou, the friend of days more boyish—thou,
The friend of evenings still remembered well—
To me some thoughts of friendship yet allow,
And there will yet be magic in the spell,
Which calls up happy dreams from memory's haunted cell.