Infatuation: A Poem, Spoken Before the Mercantile Library Association of Boston, October 9, 1844 |
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Infatuation: A Poem, Spoken Before the Mercantile Library Association of ... Park Benjamin No preview available - 2018 |
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bard Beauty beneath bloom BOSTON bower boys at school brain breath bright broker's board brows chain charming Controlling Love crowded diamonds discursive Doctor Dunce earth empire enchanted fair faith fame and honor Fame's fire fitly flame folly fools gain gale gaze Go to thy gold grateful shore grown hand harp heart Heaven humble immortal Infatuation land Lest light lost love inspired lyre mankind Mesmer mind minstrels Monarch Muse naught never nights o'er PARK BENJAMIN patriot Pedlars Perchance plain plumes poem poet Polka poor Richard praise pride profane rage renown rhymes robes ruled satire scenes scorn sell shade shine sink slave sleep smile soar soft song soul spark star strain strange sublime sung sweet swift thee thine thou throng Thy power thy rest toil tomb treason triumph truth verse wast wave zephyr
Popular passages
Page 11 - Now o'er the world Infatuation sheds The Polka's poppies into vacant heads. Asleep, the Polka seems a tangled maze, Awake, the Polka prompts a hundred lays ; Polka the halls, the balls, the calls resound, And Polka skims, Camilla-like, the ground. Where roves in groves the nonsense-doating nymph, And dreams by streams as smooth and clear as lymph, Some leaf as brief as woman's love flits by, And brings dear Polka to her pensive eye. So in swift circles, backward forward wheeled, The Polka's graces...
Page 2 - BROWN, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. BOSTON: PRINTED BY FREEMAN AND BOLLES, WASHINGTON STREET.
Page 18 - ... placed in every honest hand — Not to chastise, but quicken, lest like those, Who sink on snow, their misty brains be froze. Such constant foldings of the hands to sleep, But half-alive these modern sluggards keep ; And if somnambulists must ofttimes fall, Unless awakened by a touch or call ; 'Tis passing strange that some, more stupid grown, Permitted are to go about alone. Great faith it needs, according to my view, To trust in that which never could be true. "From Nature's chain, whatever...
Page 27 - ... a truth ; Old age's retrospect and hope of youth ; Was ever so much compassed in a word ? Was ever contradiction more absurd * By love inspired, fops take a world of pains To prove that bodies may exist sans brains ; The former so fantastically dress'd, The latter's absence may be safely guess'd. By love inspired, the scholar quits his books And finds no learning save in Mary's looks ; How bright the lesson ! how sublime the style ! Greek in her glance and Sanscrit in her smile. By love inspired,...
Page 10 - Oh, friends ! oh, brothers ! hear a patriot's prayer : Pay all your debts, no matter how or where ; Pay all your debts, leave not a penny more Than keeps starvation from a beggar's door : Sell your best coat, your hat, your shoes beside — Bare-footed honesty may strut in pride, Bare-headed worth maintains a special grace, Credit in weeds shames villainy in lace ; And he who pays is always he who rules, For debt make slaves as idleness makes fools.
Page 8 - Thou shalt not kill :" And tell me not that all beneath our clime, Share not the blame, though guiltless of the crime ; We are Americans by bond and blood, From Georgia's swamps to Niagara's flood, Let Riot rage or credit fail and die, We all are culprits in the general eye ; The voice of Europe no distinction draws, A common country makes a common cause. The deeds and laws of States alike unknown, To foreign powers the Union speaks alone. If Pennsylvania refuse to pay, If Indiana name a distant...
Page 28 - ... the frolic zephyrs play, And budding trees assume their green array. In vain for him, bright in her cloudless noon, Sails the slow splendor of the harvest moon, While the hushed landscape in the mellow beam Sleeps as if conscious of some happy dream. For him the roses, lovers of sweet dews, In vain their perfumes through the air diffuse And show the diamonds in their velvet laps : At him in vain the ladies set their caps. He lives that lonely, miserable thing Of whom to frighten babies nurses...
Page 15 - ... mood, Sing songs of shirts like any one but Hood. Oh, silly creatures ! strive to imitate As best ye may the vices of the great, Act noble Byron in the wild desire To catch some spark of his immortal fire, In vacant musing waste the hours of light, And drink for inspiration all the night ; Not yours the triumph, but the shame and sin, Ye lack the genius though ye have the gin ! Not such wast thou, of such the pioneer ; Oh minstrel sweet, to Hope and Memory dear ! England's best poet, Scotland's...
Page 30 - ... sing, when music fails In such a nest of tuneful nightingales. I thought of LESSING'S fable and applied Its humbling moral to my soaring pride : Let me not tempt too bold, too grand a strain ; Plain is my subject, let my verse be plain. Resolving thus, my rapid pen sped o'er— Like some light barque that seeks a grateful shore — A sea of paper : has it sought in vain, Attendant friends, that grateful shore to gain ? Has my swift voyage a single care beguiled ? On my recital has one kind lip...
Page 10 - ... men, grown furious as the fagot's blaze Unveiled Christ's symbols to their fiend-like gaze ; Not these alone, with all their awful train, Inspire deep dread and infinite disdain. The star of empire on its westward sway On mobs and murder pours its tranquil ray. VOL. XV. NO. LXXV1I. 34 False prephets preach and false believers throng In fanes accursed by violence and wrong. Still from the South Disunion's impious hand Flings a dark banner to the startled land ; Waves o'er the altar which our fathers...