Alnwick Castle, with other poem / Fitz-Greene Halleck [electronic text]

A POET'S DAUGHTER.

FOR THE ALBUM OF MISS * * * AT THE REQUEST OF
HER FATHER.

"A LADY asks the Minstrel's rhyme." A lady asks? There was a time When, musical as play-bell's chime To wearied boy, That sound would summon dreams sublime Of pride and joy.

But now the spell hath lost its sway, Life's first-born fancies first decay, Gone are the plumes and pennon's gay Of young Romance; There linger but her ruins gray, And broken lance.

'Tis a new world—no more to maid, Warrior or bard, is homage paid; The bay-tree's, laurel's, myrtle's shade, Men's thoughts resign;— Heaven placed us here to vote and trade, Twin tasks divine!

"Tis youth, 'tis beauty asks,—the green "And growing leaves of seventeen "Are round her; and, half hid, half seen, "A violet flower, "Nursed by the virtues she hath been "From childhood's hour."

Blind passion's Picture,—yet for this We woo the life-long bridal kiss, And blend our every hope of bliss With her's we love; Unmindful of the serpent's hiss In Eden's grove.

Beauty—the fading rainbow's pride, Youth—'twas the charm of her who died At dawn, and by her coffin's side A grandsire stands, Age-strengthened, like the oak storm-tried Of mountain lands.

Youth's coffin—hush the tale it tells, Be silent, memory's funeral bells! Lone in one heart, her home, it dwells Untold till death, And where the grave-mound greenly swells O'er buried faith.

"But what if her's are rank and power, "Armies her train, a throne her bower, "A kingdom's gold her marriage dower, "Broad seas and lands? "What if from bannered hall and tower "A queen commands?"

A queen? Earth's regal moons have set. Where perished Marie Antoinette? Where's Bordeaux's mother? Where the jet- Black Haytian dame? And Lusitania's coronet? And Angoulème?

Empires to-day are upside down, The castle kneels before the town, The monarch fears a printer's frown, A brickbat's range; Give me, in preference to a crown, Five shillings change.

"But her who asks, though first among "The good, the beautiful, the young, "the birthright of a spell more strong "Than these have brought her; "She is your kinswoman in song, "A Poet's daughter."

A Poet's daughter? Could I claim The consanguinity of fame, Veins of my intellectual frame! Your blood would glow Proudly to sing that gentlest name Of aught below.

A Poet's daughter—dearer word Lip hath not spoke nor listener heard, Fit theme for song of bee and bird From morn till even, And wind-harp by the breathing stirred Of star-lit heaven.

My spirit's wings are weak, the fire Poetic comes but to expire, Her name needs not my humble lyre To bid it live; She hath already from her sire All bard can give.

1831.