LINES to PHILENIA.
Ah lovely mourner! Why should you refuse,
To lend effulgence to a humbler muse!
The orb of day with sovereign splendour crown'd,
Who spreads diffusive light and pleasure round;
In whose fair train the white rob'd hours are led,
Beneath whose beam the floweret lifts its head;
Whose sative fire and native heat sustains,
And o'er the natural world unrival'd reigns:
This genial orb with bounteous hand bequeaths,
Round the fair moon a silver radiance breaths;
While Luna, from the orient source receives,
The softer luster which she mildly gives;
With steps unequal o'er the welkin bends,
Thro' the blue vault with decent pride attends
The lucid path of that all potent ray,
Which yields, upholds, and paints the rosy day,
Mean time the unletter'd swain with grateful tongue,
Full many a care, to her praise hath sung;
Unconscious whence the consequence derives,
The homage of a gladsome heart he gives:
Thus sweet Philenia I suppos'd thy worth,
Would shield and cultivate my feebler growth;
Rich in reflected excellences, I thought
My growing name would be with muscle fraught;
That at the sound, genius would clap its wing,
And science would unnumber'd trophies bring;
That on the boldest pinions it would soar,
New paths discharge, and ampler fields explore;
While up th'eventful steep, as it ascended,
Fan'd by the breeze, my little skiff attended;
For there is fascination in a name,
Which oft bestows the glittering wreath of fame;
So, late posterity, deem they inherit,
Through a long line, the meed once paid to merit;
The kindred blood which swells their purple veins,
They fondly fancy, ancient worth sustains:
And few there are who that observance pay,
Which truth in honest colours can display.
Thus said my beating heart, and much elated,
In blithesome mood the plenteous harvest waited;
Or, of officious thought the glass presented,
And from my hopes integrity dissented,
By reason proving, that it must be wrong,
To wear what could not to myself belong,
My ready tongue the answer still supply'd,
As thus by rectitude the cause was try'd:
To taste and genius she will stand confest,
The muses will the flowing line attest;
Rich in her native strength, she stands secure,
To her the garland of applause is sure;
And while around the splendid orb I move,
My lowly verse its genial rays may prove.
This slyly arguing, while I sought for fame,
The two Constantia's might be thought the same,
For 'tis not every reader can decide,
The multitude but on the surface glide;
Al least the regent of the peaceful night,
More beauteous shows when clad in full orb'd light.
But ah, alas! The transient beam is fled,
Its cheering influence no more is spread,
The animating fair ceases to guide,
Alone I venture on the impetuous tide;
Groping my opaque way, and wandering fair,
Without the disk of my sweet polar star.
CONSTANTIA
Massachusetts Magazine
April 1790
[Notes: Judith's reference to "two Constantia's" refers to the fact that another poet was using the pen name "Constantia Philenia," causing great confusion. It also appears that Judith used the pen name "Philenia" on at least one occasion in the Massachusetts Magazine, it its March 1790 issue. She soon stopped using "Philenia," as it was also the pen name of Sarah Wentworth Apthorp Morton of Boston.]