UNCERTAINTY OF LITERARY FAME,
BY CHARLES WEST THOMSON, Esq.
CHARLES WEST THOMSON, ESQ.
PHILOMATHEAN HALL, February 14th, 1840.
Sir, The Philomathæan Society of Pennsylvania College, having heard with pleasure the interesting poem delivered on the evening of the ninth anniversary, have authorised the undersigned to tender you their acknowledgments, and respectfully solicit a copy for publication.
You are certainly entitled to control the poem, of which you have done me the honor to request a copy. Circumstances have necessarily made it a hasty, and I fear, a very faulty production--and I regret that it is not more worthy of your attention, and that of the public to whom you propose to confide it. Such as it is, however, I place it entirely at your disposal.
To Messrs. GEORGE S. FOUKE,
HENRY BAKED,
JOHN E. GRAEFF,
WM. B. MCCLELLAN,
E. BREIDENBAUGH,
W. MCMILLAN,
Very respectfully and truly yours,
Committee of Arrangement.
THE human soul is like the vestal's fire,
Lit with a flame that never must expire;
And conscious of its destination high,
It fain would spread its angel wings to fly,
Soaring beyond the bounds of space and time,
To a more perfect and etherial clime,
Where all its fairest hopes of bliss are won,
And every star is kindled to a sun.
Yet, bound and fettered by this earthly chain,
It almost deems its native longings vain;
Until, asserting its empyrean birth,
It seeks to rise above this grovelling earth,
And makes a genial home, serene and fair,
In the calm quiet of the upper air;
Where midst its dreamings, it may build perchance,
A little fairy region of romance,
To sportive thoughts and gentle feelings dear,
Circled with cloud and sunbeam-smile and tear-
Where, for the "airy nothings" of bright thought,
A local dwelling and a name are wrought,
And the unfashioned "beings of the mind"
In all their grace and beauty stand defined.
The glorious fancies oft in dreams portrayed,
There rise and shine in all their charms arrayed;
And, from the treasures of the mental deep,
Where long they rested in unhonored sleep,
Genius calls up, with talisman's control,
The bright creations of the poet's soul.
Lo! what a host on Shakspeare's page appears,
To wake our mirth or rob us of our tears-
Creatures so formed to nature's genuine tone,
That every age may claim them as its own.
They come around us-bright imaginings-
A lengthened train, like Banquo's line of kings-
Juliet, that loving and that lovely sprite,
Soft as the moonbeam of a summer's night—
And fair Cordelia, faithful to the last,
Tho' from a father's bounty sternly cast-
And Beatrice, the witty and the gay,
As full of pranks as children are of play—
And Rosalind, the first of fairy things,
Most lightsome of all creatures that want wings-
And Desdemona, loving thro' all ill,
Wronged unto death, and in death loving still-
All these, awakened into life, appear
As beings of to day, distinct and clear—
Brought from the realms of fancy to supply
A pictured beauty to the poet's eye.
And History, too, revives her buried dead,
And calls them once again on earth to tread;
Past ages roll their shadowy mists away,
And give us back Rome's proud and glorious day,
When Antony, too weak to break the spell
Woven by Egypt's matchless syren, fell-
When to ambition's dizzy summit led,
Lured to his fate, the noble Cæsar bled-
When 'gainst his ingrate country in the field,
Coriolanus found his hatred yield
To the high eloquence of female eyes,
Whose glittering tears awoke his sympathies; And which, the boon they prayed for being won, Beheld the city saved, and lost the son!
And he, the great Enchanter!* whose high power
Burst on the world in an unlooked-for hour,
Whose stong creations general vote regards
As only second to the Prince of Bards:
O what a varied company he brings,
Of peers and prelates, peasants, serfs and kings!
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