The New Penelope, and Other Stories and PoemsVictor, Frances Fuller
General
The New Penelope, and Other Stories and Poems
Victor, Frances Fuller
Northwest Coast of North America -- Social life and customs; Pacific Coast (U.S.) -- Social life and customs
The golden-vested bees
Find sweetest sweetness in--
Such odors dwelt within
The moist red hearts of these--
Alas, no longer give out blissful breath,
But odors rank with death.
Their dewiness is dank;
It chills my pallid arms,
Once blushing 'neath their charms;
And their green stems hang lank,
Stricken with leprosy, and fair no more,
But withered to the core.
Vain thought! to bear along,
Into this torrid track,
Whence no one turneth back
With his first wanderer's song
Yet on his lips, thy odors and thy dews,
To deck these dwarfed yews.
No more within thy vales,
Beside thy plashing wells,
Where sweet Euterpe dwells
With songs of nightingales,
And sounds of flutes that make pale Silence glow,
Shall I their rapture know.
Farewell, ye stately palms!
Clashing your cymbal tones,
In thro' the mystic moans
Of pines at solemn psalms:
Ye myrtles, singing Love's inspired song,
We part, and part for long!
Farewell, majestic peaks!
Whereon my listening soul
Hath trembled to the roll
Of thunders that Jove wreaks--
And calm Minerva's oracles hath heard
All more than now unstirred!
Adieu, ye beds of bloom!
No more shall zephyr bring
To me, upon his wing,
Your loveliest perfume;
No more upon your pure, immortal dyes,
Shall rest my happy eyes.
I pass by; at thy foot,
O, mount of my delight!
Ere yet from out thy sight,
I drop my voiceless lute:
It is in vain to strive to carry hence
Its olden eloquence.
Your sacred groves no more
My singing shall prolong,
With echoes of my song,
Doubling it o'er and o'er.
Haunt of the muses, lost to wistful eyes,
What dreams of thee shall rise!
Rise but to be dispelled--
For here where I am cast,
Such visions may not last,
By sterner fancies quelled:
Relentless Nemesis my doom hath sent--
This cruel banishment!
LOST AT SEA.
A fleet set sail upon a summer sea:
'Tis now so long ago,
I look no more to see my ships come home;
But in that fleet sailed all 'twas dear to me.
Ships never bore such precious freight as these,
Please God, to any woe.
His world is wide, and they may ride the foam,
Secure from danger, in some unknown seas.
But they have left me bankrupt on life's 'change;
And daily I bestow
Regretful tears upon the blank account,
And with myself my losses rearrange.
Oh, mystic wind of fate, dost hold my dower
Where I may never know?
Of all my treasure ventured what amount
Will the sea send me in my parting hour!
'TWAS JUNE, NOT I.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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