Ann Eliza Bleecker

To Mr. Bleecker

Yes, I invok'd the Muses' aid
To help me write, for 'tis their trade;
But only think, ungrateful Muses,
They sent Dame Iris with excuses,
They'd other business for to follow,
Beg'd I'd apply to God Apollo.

The God said, as heav'n's charioteer,
He had no time to mind us here;
Said if we rac'd round earth like Phoebus
One day, it sadly would fatigue us;
Yet we expect, when tir'd at night,
He'd stay from bed to help us write:
Nor need we ask his sister Phoebe,
For turning round had made her giddy;
Her inspiration would confuse us,
So counsell'd us to coax the Muses.
Quite disappointed at this lecture
I left his worship sipping nectar;
But, pettishly as I left his dome,
It chanc'd I met the Goddess Wisdom.
No wonder she is wife, 'tis said
She was the product of Jove's head.

'Bright Queen,' said I, 'in these abodes
'I beg'd a favour of the Gods:
'They wish'd the poets at the devil,
'And the nine ladies were uncivil:
'Apollo told me he was lazy,
'And call'd his sister Phoebe crazy.
'Permit me then your kind protection;
'From you I cannot fear rejection.'

Tritonia gave me smiles and nods,
(The unsual compliments of Gods,)
And look'd benign as rising sun,
Which gave me courage to go on.
'---Oh Goddess! let your powerful arms
'Keep young Ulyssus from all harms;
'Attend him in each strange adventure,
'And be, in human form, his mentor:
'Oh bid him shun Circean feasts,
'Whose magic pow'r turns men to beasts;
'Nor let him touch the fatal tree,
'Lest he forget Penelope:
'Keep him from a Calypso's arms,
'And all the treacherous Syren's charms:
'In Cyclop cells let him not enter;
'Permit him not at games to venture;
'Sure as he does, he is undone,
'Each sharper is a lestrigon;
'Nor city luxury inure him,
'To be a modern epicurian;
'(For Temperance, celestial maid,
'Is still a virtue of the shade:)
'And dire diseases burn each vein
'Of those who Temperance prophane,
'And kill her sacred beeves in vain.
'The Grecians once to Pluto's glooms
'So sunk for slaughter'd hecatombs.
'If men believ'd in transmigration,
'How would it spare the brute creation?
'But, Goddess! let him soon return,
'Nor twice ten years in absence mourn;
'To those who love, a month appears
'As long as twenty tedious years.'

Minerva rais'd her ægis high,
That blaz'd effulgence thro' the sky,
And, smiling took the common oath,
To be immensely kind to both;
Then down from heaven's pure æther flew
Swifter than light---in search of you.

A complaint

Tell me thou all pervading mind,
   When I this life forsake,
Must ev'ry tender tie unbind,
   Each sweet connection break?

How shall I leave thee, oh! my love,
   And blooming progeny?
If I without thee mount above,
   'Twill be no heav'n to me.

Ah! when beneath the arching vault
   My lifeless form's remov'd,
Let not oblivion sink the thought,
   How much, how long I lov'd.

Come oft my grassy tomb to see,
   And drop thy sorrows there;
No balmy dews of heav'n shall be
   Refreshing as thy tear.

There give thy griefs full vent to flow
   O'er the unconscious dead,
With no spectator to thy woe
   But my attendant shade.

Recollection

Soon as the gilded clouds of evening fly,
And Luna lights her taper in the sky,
The silent thought inspiring solemn scene
Awakes my soul to all that it has been.
I was the parent of the softest fair
Who ere respir'd in wide Columbia's air;
A transient glance of her love beaming eyes
Convey'd into the soul a paradise.
How has my cheek with rapture been suffus'd,
When sunk upon my bosom she repos'd?
I envied not the ermin'd prince of earth,
Nor the gay spirit of æriel birth;
Nor the bright angel circumfus'd with light,
While the sweet charmer liv'd to bless my sight.

What art thou now, my love!---a few dry bones,
Unconscious of my unavailing moans:
Oh! my Abella! oh! my bursting heart
Shall never from thy dear idea part!
Thro' Death's cold gates thine image will I bear,
And mount to heav'n, and ever love thee there.

To Mr. Bleecker, on his passage to New York

METHINKS I see the broad majestic sheet
Swell to the wind; the flying shores retreat;
I see the banks, with varied foliage gay,
Inhale the misty sun's reluctant ray;
The lofty groves stripped of their verdure, rise
To the inclemence of autumnal skies.
Rough mountains now appear, while pendent woods
Hang o'er the gloomy steep, and shade the floods;
Slow moves the vessel, while each distant sound
The caverned echoes doubly loud rebound;
A placid stream meanders on the steep,
Till tumbling from the cliff, divides the frowning deep.

      Oh! tempt not fate on those stupendous rocks,
Where never shepherd led his timid flocks;
But shagged bears in those wild deserts stray,
And wolves, who howl against the lunar ray;
There builds the ravenous hawk her lofty nest,
And there the soaring eagle takes her rest;

The solitary deer recoils to hear
The torrent thundering in the midway air.
Ah! let me intercede, -- ah! spare her breath,
Nor aim the tube charged with a leaden death.

      But now advancing to the opening sea,
The wind springs up, the lessening mountains flee;
The eastern banks are crowned with rural seats,
And nature's work the hand of art completes.
Here Philips' villa, where Pomona joins
At once the product of a hundred climes;
Here, tinged by Flora, Asian flowers unfold
Their burnished leaves of vegetable gold.
When snows descend, and clouds tumultuous fly
Through the blue medium of the crystal sky,
Beneath his painted mimic heaven he roves
Amidst the glass-encircled citron groves;
The grape and luscious fig his taste invite,
Hesperian apples glow upon his sight;
The sweet auriculas their bells display,
And Philips finds in January, May.

      But on the other side the cliffs arise,
Charybdis-like, and seem to prop the skies:
How oft with admiration have we viewed
Those adamantine barriers of the flood!
Yet still the vessel cleaves the liquid mead,
The prospect dies, the aspiring rocks recede;
New objects rush upon the wondering sight,
Till Phoebus rolls from heaven his car of light,
And Cynthia's silver crescent gilds the night.

      I hear the melting flute's melodious sound,
Which dying zephyrs waft alternate round,
The rocks in notes responsive soft complain,
And think Amphion strikes his lyre again.
Ah! 'tis my Bleecker breathes our mutual loves,
And sends the trembling airs through vocal groves.

Thus having led you to the happy isle,
Where waves circumfluent wash the fertile soil,
Where Hudson, meeting the Atlantic, roars,
The parting lands dismiss him from their shores,
Indulge the enthusiast muse her favourite strain
Of panegyric, due to Eboracia's plain.

      There is no land where heaven her blessings pours
In such abundance, as upon these shores;
With influence benign the planets rise,
Pure is the ether, and serene the skies;
With annual gold, kind Ceres decks the ground,
And gushing springs dispense bland health around;
No lucid gems are here, or flaming ore,
To tempt the hand of avarice and power;
But sun-burnt labour, with diurnal toil,
Bids treasures rise from the obedient soil,
And commerce calls the ships across the main,
For gold exchanging her superfluous grain;
While concord, liberty, and jocund health,
Sport with young pleasure 'mid the rural wealth.

An Evening Prospect

COME, my Susan, quit your chamber,
      Greet the opening bloom of May,
Let us up yon hillock clamber,
      And around the scene survey.

See the sun is now descending,
      And projects his shadows far,
And the bee her course is bending
      Homeward through the humid air.

Mark the lizard just before us,
      Singing her unvaried strain,
While the frog abrupt in chorus
      Deepens through the marshy plain.

From yon grove the woodcock rises,
      Mark her progress by her notes,
High in air her wing she poises,
      Then like lightning down she shoots.

Now the whip-poor-will beginning,
      Clamorous on a pointed rail,
Drowns the more melodious singing
      Of the catbird, thrush, and quail.

Pensive Echo from the mountain
      Still repeats the sylvan sounds;
And the crocus-bordered fountain
      With the splendid fly abounds.

There the honey-suckle blooming,
      Reddens the capricious wave;
Richer sweets, the air perfuming,
      Spicy Ceylon never gave.

Cast your eyes beyond this meadow,
      Painted by a hand divine,
And observe the ample shadow
      Of that solemn ridge of pine.

Here a trickling rill depending,
      Glitters through the artless bower
And the silver dew descending,
      Doubly radiates every flower.

While I speak, the sun is vanish'd,
      All the gilded clouds are fled;
Music from the groves is banish'd,
      Noxious vapours round us spread.

Rural toil is now suspended,
      Sleep invades the peasant's eyes;
Each diurnal task is ended,
      While soft Luna climbs the skies.

Queen of rest and meditation!
      Through thy medium, I adore
Him-- the Author of creation,
      Infinite and boundless power!

He now fills thy urn with glory,
      Transcript of immortal light;
Lord! my spirit bows before thee,
      Lost in wonder and delight.

Lines to Grief

COME Grief, and sing a solemn dirge
      Beneath this midnight shade;
From central darkness now emerge,
      And tread the lonely glade.

This is the cheerless hour of night,
      For sorrow only made;
When no intrusive rays of light,
      The silent gloom pervade.

Though such the darkness of my soul,
      Not such the calmness there;
But waves of guilt tumultuous roll
      'Midst billows of despair.

Fallacious Pleasure's tinsel train
      My soul rejects with scorn;
If higher joys she can't attain,
      She'd rather choose to mourn.

For bliss superior she was made;
      Or for extreme despair;
If pain awaits her past the dead,
      Why should she triumph here?

Tho' Reason points at good supreme,
      Yet Grace must lead us thence
Must wake us from this pleasing dream,
      The idle joys of Sense.

Surely I wish the blackest night
      Of Nature to remain,
Till Christ arise with healing light,
      Then welcome day again.

Hymn

JESUS CHRIST! regard my anguish,
      Oh! commiserate my pain;
Bid my soul no longer languish,
      Bid my spirit not complain.

'T is my comfort thou'rt omniscient,
      All my griefs are known to thee,
Saviour! thou art all sufficient,
      To relieve a wretch like me.

Now thy clemency discover,
      Give my wounded soul repose,
E'er my transient life is over,
      E'er my sorrowing eyelids close.

By thy passion I conjure thee,
      By thy painful sweat of blood,
Let my sighing come before thee,
      Seal my pardon now with God.

Return to Tomhanick

HAIL, happy shades! though clad with heavy snows,
At sight of you with joy my bosom glows;
Ye arching pines, that bow with every breeze,
Ye poplars, elms, all hail! my well-known trees!
And now my peaceful mansion strikes my eye,
And now the tinkling rivulet I spy;
My little garden, Flora, hast thou kept,
And watch'd my pinks and lilies, while I wept?
Or has the grubbing swine, by furies led,
The enclosure broke, and on my flowrets fed?
Ah me! that spot with blooms so lately grac'd,
With storms and driving snows, is now defaced;
Sharp icicles from every bush depend,
And frosts all dazzling o'er the beds extend:
Yet soon fair spring shall give another scene,
And yellow cowslips gild the level green;
My little orchard sprouting at each bough,
Fragrant with clustering blossoms deep shall glow:
Ah! then 't is sweet the tufted grass to tread,
But sweeter slumbering is the balmy shade;
The rapid humming-bird, with ruby breast,
Seeks the parterre with early blue-bells drest,
Drinks deep the honeysuckle dew, or drives
The labouring bee to her domestic hives:
Then shines the lupine bright with morning gems,
And sleepy poppies nod upon their stems;
The humble violet, and the dulcet rose,
The stately lily then, and tulip blows.

      Farewell, my Plutarch! farewell, pen and muse!
Nature exults --shall I her call refuse?
Apollo fervid glitters in my face,
And threatens with his beam each feeble grace:
Yet still around the lovely plants I toil,
And draw obnoxious herbage from the soil;
Or with the lime-twigs little birds surprise;
Or angle for the trout of many dyes.

     But when the vernal breezes pass away,
And loftier Phoebus darts a fiercer ray,
The spiky corn then rattles all around,
And dashing cascades give a pleasing sound;
Shrill sings the locust with prolonged note,
The cricket chirps familiar in each cot.
The village children, rambling o'er yon hill,
With berries all their painted baskets fill.
They rob the squirrel's little walnut store,
And climb the half-exhausted tree for more;
Or else to fields of maze nocturnal hie,
Where hid, the elusive water-melons lie;
Sportive, they make incisions in the rind,
The riper from the immature to find;
Then load their tender shoulders with the prey,
And laughing, bear the bulky fruit away.