William Baxter To Miss M. B. B. (1841)

 

T H E   L A D I E S '   R E P O S I T O R Y .
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CINCINNATI, APRIL, 1841.

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O r i g i n a l .
T O   M I S S   M. B. B.
BY WM. BAXTER.
THERE are charms around thee, thou gifted one,
Which dazzle my eyes while they gaze upon--
Charms not like those of which lovers speak--
The downcast eye and the blushing cheek;
                                    But beauty I find
In thee more precious--the beauty of mind.

Thou hast been to the pure Parnassian fount,
Where it wells from its source, the Grecian mount;
For the lowland streams, where many recline,
Could never inspire such thoughts as thine:
                                    To the rocky brink,
Thou hast been, where none but the poets drink.

Thou didst not wait in the vallies so fair,
Till the scanty stream came wandering there;
But mounting aloft thou wast watching near
Where its waters gush so fresh and so clear,
                                    And drank of the wave
Which sparkles so bright near the Muses' cave.

And thou in the famed Arcadian bowers,
Hast wandered alone in thy childhood's hours,
Or roved through the fair Calypso's Isle,
Where youth and beauty for ever smile,
                                    And in thy soft strain,
We hear the sweet song of the Nymphs again.

I have heard thy song in thy own sweet voice,
And its cadences soft made my spirit rejoice;
I have caught the glance of thy flashing eye,
As it beamed with a poet's ecstasy,
                                    And poetic fire
Breathed in the notes of thy sounding lyre.

Fame yields thee a garland--O take and wear
The wreath in the folds of thy raven hair;
Green be its leaves, and fadeless its flowers,
As those which e'er bloom in Elysian bowers:
                                    No proud hand shall
Dare pluck a green leaf from thy coronal.

 

[The Ladies' Repository (April 1841): 126.]

ABOUT THE ELECTRONIC EDITION

      William Baxter's "To Miss M. B. B." was first published in The Ladies' Repository, and Gatherings of the West: A Monthly Periodical Devoted to Literature and Religion, Vol. 1, No. 4, April 1841, p. 126. This volume, edited by L. L. Hamline, was published in Cincinnati by J. F. Wright and L. Swormstedt for the Methodist Episcopal Church.

      Addenda and corrigenda are earnestly solicited.

Ernie Stefanik
Derry, PA

Created 30 March 2000.
Updated 28 June 2003.

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