The daily crescent. [volume] ([New Orleans, La.]) 1848-1851, 1848-07-13
DAILY CRESCENT.
THE DEFORMFn


Beneath an aged oak, whose limbs old Time
Had coated with his green gray moss, man
Was seated on the velvet sward - What crime
As speaking to himself, he so began
I" o Heaven, have before thee done go His heart,
Too bi 2 with woe, denied him further speech,
But to his deep gray eye hot tears did start,
And he dropped his head in anguish In reach,
Beside the solitary stranger, lay
An open letter. traced by hand so fair
Conceived by Her whose smile to him was day;
And yet her words had launched him in dispar
A broken sigh
Stole from his wounded heart, and on the wing
Of playful zephyr 'scaped to heaven.
IT was mouInful thus to see him mourn. The spring
The very fountain whence all joys are given
To man, seemed broken, while his swelling soul
Convulsed with poignant grief heaved up his breast
In wild spasmodic measure. To control
Such anguish, or to lull it into rest
Needs more than mortal power for the heart
Dependent of each impress the mind
Cannot Tepose in calmness, but win start
And trembe, like aspen in the wind
At clouds of woe or sorrow. On his brow
Sat genius-not anayed in conscious pride
And pOwr-but all subdued and dropping now.
As if O'erwhem'd by the dark rolling tide
OF cureless misery within his breast.
IT was not rejection of his proffered love
That robbed his bosom of its golden rest,
For pride would lift his fevent heart above
The sharp sting of passion unrequited;
The of that rejection, the blow
By which all his hopes and peace were blighted
In deep and unextinguishable
He was detOmed and yet within his breast
Had wayward nature fixed the pureSt spring 4,
Of virtue and of ove-a sad bequest,
Whose gentlest impulse woos its sharpest sting
Grown calm again, again he did essay
To breathe his sorrows the quiet air
In language whose deep pathos did betray
The burning eloquence of love- in prayer
He said
To thee my mother this sorrow owe.
All why, in natures chaste divinity,
Should that sweet stream-a mothers fondness-now
Exchanging onward to infnty
Of all thought space and time Was not thy love
That cultivated in this crooked breast
Each gentle impulse parented by Jove
In thy propitious hour? Was caIessed
And made to drink sweet poison from the spring
Of mothers tenderness thatI might learn
TOcamly bear the sharp, exquisite sting
Of grim detOmity-that might yearn
For that eternal sleep, whose potent veil
The monster and the classic form conceals
In dread cold oblivion thy wall,
Dear mother, not thy gentle kind appeals
To misplaced feeling in this blghted trunk,
Were filter music for my childhoOd's ear;
Then had never climbed. sunk,
Nor ever loved, nor hoped, shed one tear;
But would have borne this mockery of form
Fixed in my mind whereby to mould each thought
And action, and so triumph Fer the storm
Walked by that virtue thy pure fondness taught"
And thou, dear Amy yes, dear Amy yet
Art first to wake me from my blissfu dream
Of love- Yet why should with vain regret
Look back at JOY and thee The golden stream
That bore me onward TO the wished for goal
Has wrecked my bark upon the hidden rock
Deionnity it shOne not in my soul
My eyes, when inward turn'd received no shock
No miIrOrd monster lay repOsing there;
But all was calm and beautiful NJ flow
Of love for thee was purer than the air
That chasteneth the rain.drOps into snow;
Twas born of virtue and esteem, and grew
To excellence too cOnsummate for earth
As how'r absorb their life. bestowing dew
This love destroys the Eden of its birth.
Why dids thou cling unto that fatal strain
of romance-whispered of another love!
Why urged thou to wander Der again
Those scenes of joy, that might dearly prove
Thy gentleness of heart, and deeper drink
At Hopes unguarded fountain-that sweet stream
Beneath whose magic power the senses sink
Into loves gentle, chaste, seraphic dream?
All why He spoke more. His gst ming eye,
With glowing resignation, turned on high
To those bright realms where all our sorrows die
Where angeI-spiHts sail from star to star,
Like wing d battaliOns wagng spOrtive war.
He spoke more His spirit broke Earth's chain,
And back to Life Immortal sped again! RAMBLER.