To Mr. Barbauld: With A Map of The Land of Matrimony

The sailor worn by toil and wet with storms,
As in the wished-for port secure he rides,
With transport numbers o’er the dangers past
From threatening quicksands and from adverse tides.
Joyous he tells among his jocund mates
Of loud alarms that chased his broken sleep,
And blesses every kinder star that led
His favoured vessel though the raging deep.

Thus canst thou, Rochemont, view this pictured chart,
And trace thy voyage to the promised shore;
Thus does thy faithful bosom beat with joy,
To think the tempest past, the wanderings o’er?
Canst thou recall the days when jealous Doubt,
When boding Fears thy anxious heart oppresst,
When Hope, our star, shone faintly through the gloom,
And the pale cheek betrayed the tortured breast?
And say;—the land through Fancy’s glass descried,
The bright Elysian fields her pencil drew,—
Has time the dear ideas realized?
Or are her optics false, her tints untrue?
O say they are not!—Though life’s ceaseless cares,
Life’s ceaseless toils demand thy golden hours,
Tell her glad heart whose hand these lines confess,
That Peace resides in Hymen’s happy bowers.

But soon the restless seaman longs to change
His bounded view and tempt the deeps again;
Careless he breaks from weeping Susan’s arms,
To fight with billows and to plough the main.
So shalt not thou, for no returning prow
E’er cut the ocean which thy bark has past;
Too strong relentless Fate has fixed her bars,
And I my destined captive hold too fast.