TO THE
SUN-FLOWER.*
 
WHERE is the MAN who thus can nobly say?
I hail’d bright TRUTH in her eternal source;
Pursued her flight thro’ all the realms of day,
Nor ceased to follow her celestial course,
’Till that Almighty power, who rules the sphere,
Spread wide the mental night, and check’d my bold career.
 
If on this earth that man sublime there be,
That man, O lovely flower! resembles thee.
 
The breeze that wakens with the orient DAWN,
Scarce from thy bosom shakes the quiv’ring dew;
Scarce is the dusky veil of NIGHT withdrawn,
Ere thy fond eye expanding to the view,
With kindling rapture meets the golden gleam,
That now ascends the sky, now floats along the stream.
 
And when the burning blaze of summer NOON,
Darts from the midway heaven’s etherial height;
Thy daring eye, broad as the rising moon,
With transport gazes on the KING of LIGHT;
Tho’ all around thee droop the languid head,
And all the energies of life are fled.
 
And oft as EVENING sheds the dewy tear,
O’er the pale relics of departed day,
And in the blue expanse of Heaven, appear
The first faint gleams of many a starry ray,
Dost thou responsive to the zephyr’s sigh,
Mourn the past radiance of the western sky.
 
Thus, thus, may NATURE’s more than magic charm,
Attract for ever my admiring gaze;
Her purer dictates all my bosom warm,
And guide me far from SUPERSTITION’s maze.
Tho’ lost to yon vain world, may ACHMED prove
True to the last faint gleam of REASON, FAITH, and LOVE!