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To Miss Brinckerhoff

Eliza, when the southern gale
Expands the broad majestic sail,
While Friendship breathes the parting sigh,
And sorrow glitters in each eye,
The vessel leaves the flying shores,
Receding spires and less'ning tow'rs;
And as it cleaves the lucid sea,
The distant tumult dies away:

Then pensive as the deck you quit,
Caressing sable rob'd regret,
Indulging every rising fear,
And urging on the pendant tear,
While Recollection's flatt'ring eye
Your former pleasures magnify;
Then shall your guardian spirit smile,
Rejoic'd that Fate rewards his toil;
And as he mounts on ærial wing,
Thus to his kindred angels sing:
'Hail, happy hour that snatch'd my fair
'To æther pure, from city air,
'Where Vice triumphant lifts her head
'And hisses Virtue to the shade;
'Where Temperance vacates each feast;
'Where Piety is grown a jest;
'Where Flatt'ry, dress'd in robes of truth,
'Inculcates pride in heedless youth;
'Where oft with folded wings I spy
'The torpid soul inactive lie,
'Shut up in sense, forbid to rear
'Her plume beyond our atmosphere.

'How bless'd my charge, whom gentler fate
'Leads early to the green retreat,
'Where every object thoughts inspire
'Exalted to seraphic fire;
'And where the speculative mind
'Expatiates free and unconfin'd;
'There surely I shall find access
'To cherish ev'ry budding grace,
'Enlarging still each nobler pow'r,
'Till active, like myself they soar.

'And when my pupil learns her worth,
'She'll feel a just contempt for earth,
'And six her elevated sight
'Alone on primogenial light:
'Nor shall her charms external fade,
'But bloom and brighten in the shade;
'While innate graces still shall rise,
'And dart their radiance thro' her eyes.'

poem by Ann Eliza Bleecker from The Posthumous Works of Ann Eliza Bleecker
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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