TO THE
JASMINE.
 
LET the wild OLIVE rise with towering pride,
Deeply infix his strong tenacious root,
Spread his contorted limbs on every side,
And boast a copious load of bitter fruit.
 
What is his boast, sweet JASMINE! what to thee?
Say can it hurt the humble, to survey
The proud luxuriance of a lofty tree,
To whom thy central stem is but a spray?
 
No—fair diffuser of delightful balm!
Thy lowlier growth secures thee from the storm,
Gives thee to bloom all-lovely midst the calm,
That smiles complacent on thy slender form.
 
The fissured rock beneath the ridgy steep,
Where tangled woodbines court the western gale;
Where the close-mantling ivy loves to creep,
And the low juniper surveys the vale.
 
These, bashful BEAUTY, yield thee more delight
Than all the luxuries the vale bestows:
With thy humility—content unite,
And envy not the OLIVE or the ROSE.
 
Sweet child of purest NATURE! let me rest
Heedless of distant man beneath thy shade:
SIMPLICITY like thine, is surely blest,
No agitations thy meek state invade.
 
The little warbler midst thy foliage finds
A kind recess to raise her infant brood,
Shelter’d from feather’d foes—from boisterous winds,
Where MISCHIEF’s weazel-eye can ne’er intrude.
 
Her faithful sociate on thy light green spray,
Shall speak his tender joys in rapturous song;
With tuneful GRATITUDE thy shade repay,
And till the evening close, his strains prolong.
 
See the fall’n CEDAR, on that airy steep
How prone he lies, that rose so proud before,
Unheedful if the tempest rage, or sleep,
The dew-drop fall, or deep ning thunders roar:
 
How prone he lies! still frowns in faded state;
Frowns o’er the broken shrubs that sought his shade:
Thus fall the mighty by the hand of FATE,
That scarcely deigns thy humbler seats invade.
 
Blest be thy bow’ring branches—blest thy blooms,
Emblems of innocence and infant joy;
May light-wing’d zephyr waft their mild perfumes
To lovely bosoms, no rude thoughts annoy:
 
In virgin purity, serenely blest,
With sportive, youthful Happiness combined;
Of every tender sentiment possest,
That dwells, delicious, in the gentle mind.
 
So may’st thou live, and bloom in early SPRING,
So may soft pleasure crown thy SUMMER’s day;
Maturing AUTUMN wave her golden wing,
Long ere bald WINTER reign with tyrant sway.
 
Ah! while the circling SEASONS thus return,
Be thou serene—the boist’rous power shall mourn.