The Poetical Writings of Fitz-Greene Halleck/Album Verses
ALBUM VERSES.
ithin a rock, whose shadows linger,
At moonlight hours, on Erie’s sea,
Some unseen, Indian spirit’s finger
Woke in far times sweet minstrelsy.
’Twas in the summer twilight only,
When evening winds the green leaves stirred,
And all beside was mute and lonely
Its wild aërial tones were heard.
So I—that fabled rock resembling,
With heart as cold, and head as hard—
Appear, although with fear and trembling,
At Beauty’s call, as Beauty’s bard.
Yet why despair if winds can summon
Minstrels and music when they please?
For who but deems the lips of woman
More potent than an evening breeze?
Her lips the magic word have spoken,
That bids me call from far and near
Each minstrel-pen, to leave its token
Of fealty and of friendship here.
These consecrated leaves are given
To you, ye rhyme-composing elves;
To poets who were taught by Heaven,
And poets who have taught themselves.
To wits, whose thistle-shafts by flowers
Are hid, their points in balsam dipped;
To humor, in his happiest hours,
And punsters—if their wings are clipped.
But friendship, with her smiling features,
Will come, ’tis hoped, without a call;
For though your wits are clever creatures,
One line of hers is worth them all.
Let names of heroes and of sages,
On history’s leaf eternal be;
A few brief years on Beauty’s pages
Are worth their immortality.
At least this charmèd book permits us
To brave oblivion’s withering power,
Till she who summons us, forgets us;
And who would live beyond that hour?