Stanzas
'T is sweet to think of days gone by,
When life and all its charms were new,
And seem'd as bright to childhood's eye,
As morning's liquid gems of dew.
To think of joys that long have fled,
Of youthful hopes indulged in vain,
Of feelings waken'd from the dead,
And sorrows that have ceased to pain.
To let the thoughts excursive rove,
In many a wild prophetic dream,
To pour the prayer for those we love
And feel that we are dear to them—
To think of friends we fondly loved,
Who calmly now in darkness sleep,
By all our joys and griefs unmoved—
To think with soften'd breast and weep!
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poem by Elizabeth Margaret Chandler from Poetical Works (1836)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Repentance
Our Father, God! behold us raise
Our hopes, our thoughts, our hearts, to thee;
Yet not to lift the hymn of praise,
But humbly bow the suppliant knee.
For we have sinn'd before thy face,
Have seen unmoved our brothers’ woe,
Though on his cheeks hot tear-drops trace
Deep furrows in their burning flow.
We knew that on his limbs were bound
The fetters man should never wear;
We knew that darkness hemm'd him round,
And grief, and anguish, and despair.
We knew—but in our selfish hearts,
There waked no throb of answering pain;
Yet, now, at last, the tear-drop starts,
We weep the oppress'd one's galling chain.
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poem by Elizabeth Margaret Chandler from Poetical Works (1836)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Forget Me Not
TO A. G. C.
Forget me not! though fate from thine,
My path of life may sever,
Still think of days of “auld lang syne,”
And moments fled forever.
When many a year has pass'd away,
And other ties have bound us,
Oh! then let memory sometimes stray,
To those that now surround us
Should pomp and pride be round thee then—
When day's bright beam is o'er thee,
And other forms shall meet thy ken—
Mine may not stand before thee.
But when the orb of day hath set,
Beneath the burning ocean,
And holy thoughts around thee met,
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poem by Elizabeth Margaret Chandler from Poetical Works (1836)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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To A *****
My own Annette! my own Annette!
How often turn my thoughts to thee,
And those sweet hours when erst we met,
And shared our thoughts in converse free!
Around me the soft moonshine pours
A quiet flood of silver light;
And thus o'er memory's hoarded stores,
The star of thought is gleaming bright.
Yet, though long years have glided past,
Since last thy hand was clasp'd in mine,
The chain that friendship o'er us cast,
Hath felt no link of love untwine.
And we may meet in other hours,
And love where we have loved, again;
And talk of all the early flowers
We gather'd on life's by-past plain.
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poem by Elizabeth Margaret Chandler from Poetical Works (1836)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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To A Friend of My Youth
We met in childhood—careless met,
Nor wept to think that we must sever;
We parted with no fond regret—
No tear lest we should part forever.
Our souls had not commingled then;
The wreath of Friendship had not bound us;
We knew not we should meet again,—
And yet our parting did not wound us.
Again we met—long years have flown,
The sun of youth has risen o'er us,
And friends we loved have smiled and gone,
And changing scenes have pass'd before us.—
We meet!—but not again to part,
Without one transient pang of mourning;
Oh no! the burning tear would start,
At thought of joys no more returning.
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poem by Elizabeth Margaret Chandler from Poetical Works (1836)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Slave Produce
Eat! they are cates for a lady's lip,
Rich as the sweets that the wild bees sip;
Mingled viands that nature hath pour'd,
From the plenteous stores of her flowing board,
Bearing no trace of man's cruelty—save
The red life-drops of his human slave.
List thee, lady! and turn aside,
With a loathing heart, from the feast of pride;
For, mix'd with the pleasant sweets it bears,
Is the hidden curse of scalding tears,
Wrung out from woman's bloodshot eye,
By the depth of her deadly agony.
Look! they are robes from a foreign loom,
Delicate, light, as the rose leaf's bloom;
Stainless and pure in their snowy tint,
As the drift unmarked by a footstep's print.
Surely such garment should fitting be,
For woman's softness and purity.
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poem by Elizabeth Margaret Chandler from Poetical Works (1836)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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The Kneeling Slave
Pity the negro, lady! her's is not,
Like thine, a blessed and most happy lot!
Thou, shelter'd ‘neath a parent's tireless care,
The fondly loved, the theme of many a prayer,
Blessing, and blest, amidst thy circling friends,
Whose love repays the joys thy presence lends,
Tread'st gaily onward, o'er thy path of flowers,
With ceaseless summer lingering round thy bowers.
But her—the outcast of a frowning fate,
Long weary years of servile bondage wait.
Her lot uncheer'd by hope's reviving gale,
The lowest in life's graduated scale—
The few poor hours of bliss that cheer her still,
Uncertain pensioners on a master's will—
'Midst ceaseless toils renew'd from day to day,
She wears in bitter tears her life away.
She is thy sister, woman! shall her cry,
Uncared for, and unheeded, pass thee by?
Wilt thou not weep to see her rank so low,
And seek to raise her from her place of woe?
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poem by Elizabeth Margaret Chandler from Poetical Works
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The Sugar-Plums
No, no, pretty sugar-plums! stay where you are!
Though my grandmother sent you to me from so far;
You look very nice, you would taste very sweet,
And I love you right well, yet not one will I eat.
For the poor slaves have labour'd, far down in the south,
To make you so sweet and so nice for my mouth;
But I want no slaves toiling for me in the sun,
Driven on with the whip, till the long day is done.
Perhaps some poor slave child, that hoed up the ground,
Round the cane in whose rich juice your sweetness was found,
Was flogg'd, till his mother cried sadly to see,
And I'm sure I want nobody beaten for me.
So grandma, I thank you for being so kind,
But your present, to-day, is not much to my mind;
Though I love you so dearly, I choose not to eat
Even what you have sent me by slavery made sweet.
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poem by Elizabeth Margaret Chandler from Poetical Works (1836)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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To A Crocus
An' so ye ‘ve oped your leaves at last—
I ‘ve often pitied ye, when fast
The drivin’ snaw has o'er ye past,
Puir bonnie thing,
Ye dared too soon the moody blast,
This damp cauld spring.
Ye ‘ve lifted up your gou'den head,
Too soon from off its wintry bed,
When late the faithless sunshine shed,
A saft warm gleam,
Then left ye, ere your leaves could spread,
Beneath its beam.
Sic’ is the hapless doom of those
Round whom her chain stern slavery throws,
Wha, born to naught but wrongs and woes,
An’ mony a tear,
Find storms and gloom around them close,
In life's young year.
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poem by Elizabeth Margaret Chandler from Poetical Works (1836)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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The Sylvan Grave
Lay me not, when I die, in the place of the dead,
With the dwellings of men round my resting place spread,
But amidst the still forest, unseen and alone,
Where the waters go by with a murmuring tone;
Where the wild bird above me may wave its dark wing,
And the flowers I have loved from my ashes may spring;
Where affection's own blossom may lift its blue eye,
With an eloquent glance from the place where I lie.
Let the rose and the woodbine be there, to enwreath
A bright chaplet of bloom for the pale brow of death;
And the clover's red blossom be seen, that the hum
Of the honey-bee's wing, may for requiem come:
And when those I have loved, ‘midst the changes of earth,
The clouds of its sorrow, its sunshine of mirth,
Shall visit the spot where my cold relics lie,
And gaze on its flowers with a tear-moisten'd eye—
Let them think that my spirit still sometimes is there,
My breath the light zephyr that twines in their hair,
And these flowers, in their fragrance, a memory be,
To tell them thus sweet was their friendship to me.
poem by Elizabeth Margaret Chandler from Poetical Works (1836)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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