To the century plant

Plant of a hundred years! destroying Time
Passes thy gentle race with hurrying trend,
Leaves their bright petals colorless and dim,
Strews with their withered leaves the mossy bed,
And sweeps them onward with the countless dead,
Ere the swift passing of the summer hour --
But, beauteous flower, above thy towering head
An age hath passed and left no trace of power:
Plant of a hundred years, thou seem'st Time's favorite flower!

I would that he had passed less lightly o'er thee,
And on thy polished leaves some record made,
Of all the scenes that long since passed before thee,
When round thee waved a forest, in whose shade
The Indian lover wooed his dusky maid, --
When the red warriors lit their council fires,
As peal'd the war-cry over hill and glade,
And then in triumph raised the funeral pyre
Of the ill-fated captive, bride, or son, or sire.

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poem by Anne Lynch Botta from Poems (1848)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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The dumb creation

Deal kindly with those speechless ones,
That throng our gladsome earth;
Say not the bounteous gift of life
Alone is nothing worth.

What though with mournful memories
They sigh not for the past?
What though their ever joyous Now
No future overcast?

No aspirations fill their breast
With longings undefined;
They live, they love, and they are blest,
For what they seek they find.

They see no mystery in the stars,
No wonder in the plain;
And Life's enigma wakes in them
No questions dark and vain.

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poem by Anne Lynch Botta from Poems (1848)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Books for the people

"Let there be light."

Light to the darkened mind
Bear, like the sun, the world's wide circle round,
Bright messengers that speak without a sound!
Sight on the spirit blind
Shall fall whene'er ye pass; your living ray
Shall change the night of ages into day: --
God speed ye on your way!

In closet and in hall,
Too long alone your message hath been spoken:
The spell of gold that bound ye there is broken;
Go forth and shine on all;
The world's inheritance, the legacy
Bequeathed by Genius to the race are ye;
Be like the sunlight, free!

A mighty power ye wield!
Ye wake grim centuries from their deep repose,

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poem by Anne Lynch Botta from Poems (1848)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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A farewell to Ole Bull

There was a fountain in my heart
Whose deeps had not been stirred;
A thirst for music in my soul
My ear had never heard; --

A feeling of the incomplete
To all bright things allied;
A sense of something beautiful,
Unfilled, unsatisfied.

But, waked beneath thy master-hand,
Those trembling chords have given
A foretaste of that deep, full life
That I shall know in Heaven.

In that resistless spell, for once,
The vulture of Unrest,
That whets its beak upon my heart,
Lies, charmed, within my breast.

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poem by Anne Lynch Botta from Poems (1848)
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To Miss Edith M. Thomas

Your Pegasus, Edith, is hitched to a star,
While mine drags along a Sixth Avenue car;
Yours bears you away to the far empyrean,
Mine carries me down through the quarters plebeian.
Now, soaring aloft, you stop at Antares,
Call it home, that 's the place for Penates and Lares;
Or back to old Greece with her heroes and gods,
You get up a flirtation in sonnets and odes.
(Though they hailed from Olympus, that classical spot,
These "old parties," confess, were a pretty bad lot.)
Then with dear Mother Nature you make very free
To fathom her secrets of bird, flower, and tree;
To live with her ever on intimate terms,
A freedom on your part, she always confirms,
Although so exclusive she is with the rest of us,
Never giving her password or key to the best of us.
But you have them both, and can seek at your pleasure
Her most secret haunts, her most precious treasure;
And she calls you in accents as winning and mild,
As some fond old grandmother calls a pet child.

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poem by Anne Lynch Botta from Poems (1848)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Until death

Make me no vows of constancy, dear friend,
To love me, though I die, thy whole life long,
And love no other till thy days shall end;
Nay, it were rash and wrong.

If thou canst love another, be it so;
I would not reach out of my quiet grave
To bind thy heart, if it should choose to go:
Love should not be a slave.

My placid ghost, I trust, will walk serene
In clearer light than gilds these earthly morns,
Above the jealousies and envies keen
Which sow this life with thorns.

Thou wouldst not feel my shadowy caress,
If after death my soul should linger here;
Men's hearts crave tangible, close tenderness,
Love's presence, warm and near.

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poem by Anne Lynch Botta from Poems (1848)
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A thought by the sea shore

"Even in our ashes live their wonted fires."

Bury me by the sea,
When on my heart the hand of Death is press'd.
If the soul lingers ere she join the bless'd,
And haunts awhile her clay,
Then 'mid the forest shades I would not lie,
For the green leaves, like me, would droop and die.

Nor 'mid the homes of men,
The haunts of busy life, would I be laid:
There ever was I lone, and my vexed shade
Would sleep unquiet then:
The surging tide of life might overwhelm
The shadowy boundaries of the silent realm.

No sculptured marble pile,
To bear my name, be reared upon my breast, --
Beneath its weight my free soul would not rest;
But let the blue sky smile,

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poem by Anne Lynch Botta from Poems (1848)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Memory

Maiden of the lofty brow,
Mournful eye and cheek of snow;
Thou whose gaze is ever cast
On the pageant of the Past;
Tell me what thou seest there;
Tell me what its voices bear.

"Wheresoe'er I turn mine eyes,
Gorgeous visions on them rise.
In the distance, dim and far,
I see the glorious pomp of war:
Grecian phalanx, Persian host,
Darken now yon rocky coast;
Now the youth of Macedon,
Half the trembling earth has won;
Now o'er barbaric hordes and kings,
The Roman eagle flaps his wings.
Where the Crusaders' ranks advance,
I see their burnished armor glance;
And turban'd Turk, in eastern garb,

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poem by Anne Lynch Botta from Poems (1848)
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To a friend, on being asked for some verses

I thought the Soul of Song had made
This heart of mine her sepulchre;
For all her golden dreams had fled,
And I could win no note from her.

But when for thee thou bid'st her sing,
That spell dissolves her icy chain;
She slowly plumes her drooping wing,
And strikes her shattered chords again.

For more than lifeless would she be,
If thou shouldst bid her wake in vain;
And lost her chords, if still for thee
She could not wake one living strain.

For thee -- that hours of deep distress,
And days of gloom with kindness lit,
Till half I blessed the bitterness
That gave me thee to sweeten it.

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poem by Anne Lynch Botta from Poems (1848)
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Requiem

To what bright world afar didst thou belong,
Thou whose pure soul seemed not of mortal birth?
From what fair clime of flowers and love and song,
Cam'st thou, a star beam to our shadowed earth?
What hadst thou done, sweet spirit in that sphere,
That thou wert banished here?

Here, where our blossoms early fade and die,
Where autumn frosts despoil our loveliest bowers,
Where song goes up to heaven an anguished cry
From wounded hearts, like perfume from crushed flowers;
Where Love despairing waits and weeps in vain,
His Psyche to regain.

Thou cam'st not unattended on thy way; --
Spirits of grace and beauty, joy and love,
Were with thee ever, bearing each some ray
From the far home that thou hadst left above;
And ever at thy side, upon our sight
Gleamed forth their wings of light.

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poem by Anne Lynch Botta from Poems (1848)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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