Manuscript letter

Archives Number: 1011/002.001-010#020

Impromptu written upon our familiar ledge between the two Fannies.
O blessed seat! oh sights of joy!
Kind Providence which deigns one such,
Give to the Man’s heart what the Boy
Knew of sweet Natures genuine touch.
My seat between two dearest ones
Whose thought serene but mirrors mine,
While round our rocky shelf, all tones
Of Earth and Heaven for us combine.
Tones from the sky of tenderest tinct
From trampling waves of sterner meaning
And from our Hearts, by pleasure linked,
Past kindred ones the Present screening.
Afar the sunset cuts the wave,
Imprisoned in a purple line
To timorous barks a willing slave
That to its patient breast incline.
They hover, struck with light, anon
A pencilled shadow they retire
[p. 2] Sunk in the pearly gray are gone!
Then, shifting, burn in cones of fire!
Hung in the net-work of the foam
Ephemeral diamonds shine & die
And torn from their night-haunted home
Shells sparkle in the amber sky
In undulating files we note
The ridges of the in-bursting Sea
Mark their white-birth in [crossed out: fields] plains remote
Till past in swollen ranks they flee!
Squadrons led on to stormy tunes
An army of exulting Braves
Whose torn flags blot the saddening moon
Their Queen whose tears shall gild their graves.
Ay! it is stirring to behold
The streaming of their awful line
Their hot assaults on bulwarks cold
Rocks, that victorious o’er them shine.
So swelled, so fought with tumult wild
Napoleon’s last terrific wave
So over the wreck cold England smiled
[p. 3] And spurned to air the extinguished brave!
ADDRESSED: MISS AUSTIN. / BOSTON. / FAVD BY MR. N. APPLETON.

• Keywords: correspondence; frances elizabeth (appleton) longfellow; frances e. a. longfellow papers (long 20257); long archives; people; document; poetry; thomas gold appleton; Correspondence (1011/002); (LONG-SeriesName); Letters from Frances Longfellow (1011/002.001); (LONG-SubseriesName); 1840 (1011/002.001-010); (LONG-FileUnitName)