Samuel Kettell, ed. Specimens of American Poetry. 1829.
By LoveFitz-Greene Halleck (17901867)
W
Ere yet its leaves are green,
Ere yet, by shower and sunbeam nurst
Its infant life has been;
The wild bee’s slightest touch might wring
The buds from off the tree,
As the gentle dip of the swallow’s wing
Breaks the bubbles on the sea.
A home in the free air,
Pluck them, and there remains a wound
That ever rankles there.
The blight of hope and happiness
Is felt when fond ones part,
And the bitter tear that follows is
The life-blood of the heart.
’T is the fire-fly’s light at even,
’T is dim as the wandering stars that burst
In the blue of the summer heaven.
A breath can bid it burn no more,
Or if, at times, its beams
Come on the memory, they pass o’er
Like shadows in our dreams.
A being and a power,
And smiled in scorn upon the dew
That fell in its first warm hour,
’T is the flame that curls round the martyr’s head,
Whose task is to destroy;
’T is the lamp on the altars of the dead,
Whose light is not of joy!
The infant buds of Love,
And tread his growing fire to earth,
Ere ’t is dark in clouds above;
Cherish no more a cypress tree
To shade thy future years,
Nor nurse a heart-flame that may be
Quench’d only with thy tears.