Part 2 — JENNY LIND.

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BY MISS M. SAWIN.

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A world’s sweet enchantress, unbounded in fame,

O how shall I sing of so peerless a name—

Thy tones, from the wilds of a picturesque land,

The billows of ocean have borne to our strand;

Though I ne’er have beheld thee, yet bound in thy spell,

My bosom thine echoes still onward would swell—

Would enshrine in my song the sweet soul of thy strains,

Till fresh incense should rise from our mountains and plains.

Though long on the altar thou’st kindled the fire,

Oh how shall it burn on the strings of the lyre!

’Tis the music of Nature sublimed in thy lays

Which has won thee thy guerdon of lore and of praise;

’Tis hence that the depths of the spirit it thrills,

That responses start forth from mountains and hills,

That no barriers the flight of thine echoes can bind,

Which are borne o’er the earth on the wings of the wind.

There is glowing within us, all restless, a lyre,

Which would swell like an angel’s its anthems of fire,

But the shroud of mortality fetters its strings—

Yet thou while on earth hast unfolded thy wings,

Canst dwell with the fairies in chalice of flowers,

And glide with the wood nymphs in deep sylvan bowers;

Canst float with the moonbeams in dew-silvered trees,

And rise on the wings of the morn’s fragrant breeze,

While sunbeams are waking the rapturous lays

Of dew-drops and birds, and yet all ’neath their blaze;

Canst hover o’er ocean when storm it enthrones,

And bear from the foam-crested surges their tones;

When dark are the skies and the thunder-clouds lower,

With the eagle’s bold flight to the mountain’s crest soar;

The streams of the forest to their fountains canst wind,

And caverns resounding in solitude find;

Enshrined in thy spirit their voices canst keep,

Sublimed by thine alchemy subtile and deep,

At thy will from thy spirit their harmonies sweep,

And I ween thou hast soared to the portals of Heaven,

Or some angel a tone to thy praises has given.

O, Jenny, the brightest cynosure below!

The fount in thy bosom must here cease to flow;

Like the sear leaves of autumn which shroud the old years,

Thy harp-strings must perish ’mid wailings and tears;

Thy lovers who bend at thy purity’s shrine,

Enchained by the spells of thy carols divine,

When no temple’s proud arches resound with thy strain,

In the wilds of thy forests shall seek thee in vain;

But when from thy tomb they despairing return,

In lyres immortal thine echoes shall burn.

Alas! that thy music should ever here die,

Should leave the sad earth and ascend to the sky;

Yet when thou art fled to the seraphim throng

Will fancy yet list to thy glorified song,

Will dream that no harp on the heavenly plains

Has music so sweet as are there thy high strains.

Though we never may list while on earth to thy lays,

For the boon of thy being high Heaven we’ll praise;

Where thy strains are ascending must Paradise be—

Humanity’s scale is exalted in thee.

There is a tone in my bosom as yet unexpressed,

And fain would I bid it to ever there rest,

But the woes of the earth for its utterance plead,

Then may it go forth as a merciful deed:—

O, Jenny, while shining so brilliant on high,

Like the Lyrian star on the vault of the sky,

While the peers of the realms bow in homage to thee,

Dost never thy race in their miseries see?

To the charm of thy music we ever would yield,

By thee would be borne to Elysium’s field,

And forgetful that wrong or that wo were on earth,

Forever would list to thine angel-like mirth.

But the heart fraught with sympathies true, must embrace

The lowest as well as the stars of our race—

Round the poor and the wretched in bitterness twine—

On devotion’s wings rise to where pure seraphs shine;—

In our pathway to Heaven we encounter the thorn,

Each brother’s woes feel and the proud tyrant’s scorn—

The way that our holy Redeemer has trod

But leads us through tears to the throne of our God.

I know that thine own gushing spirit is free

As the winds that o’ersweep the high mountains and sea;

Thy genius has burst from all species of chains,

And freedom unbounded swells forth in thy strains;

But while ever exulting on fetterless wing,

Wouldst not the blest boon to each lorn spirit bring?

Thy music, which thrills to the depths of the heart,

Might bid us to deeds of true chivalry start;

Might bid the kind fountain in proud bosoms flow,

To heal the crushed hearts that are writhing in wo.

Both Knowledge and Virtue like angels descend,

The sad thralls of Sin and of Darkness to rend,

Perchance that the tyrant may yield to thy charms,

And avert the dread doom of the Future’s alarms,

Till unwilling vassals no more bend the knee,

But rise at his bidding and ever be free.

And the gold thou hast won by the charm of thy name,

To its splendor might add the philanthropist’s fame,

Till many an oasis from deserts shall spring,

When the arches of Heaven with thy praises shall ring.