POEM 1: Written on the day that I left the Bowery* (1805)

Farewell to the Suns early ray

Which thro’ the thin foliage is seen

Farewell, to the Bird on the Spray

And farewell, the now faded green

—–

I go – where Sickness & Death

Have spread their dire influence around

Where Disease was inhaled with the breath**

And the victims of both have been found

—–

Where the Parent with sorrowing eye

Has watched o’er her agonized child

And suppressing the heart-rending sigh

Her feelings – so acute made her wild

In madness that rest was procured

Which Reason could never obtain.

And while its bright power was obscured

She felt a relief from her pain

Such scenes fill the Bosom with woe

And caused the unbidden tear

In unrestrained torrents to flow

On the sad and premature bier

Oh God! may my prayer ascend

And be heard in thy Mighty Domain

My city, oh deign to defend

Let millions not lose (?) thee in vain.

NOTES by me:* The lower part of the city where she lived was evacuated that summer, and the Nathans fled along with most Jews. A marine hospital was set up off Staten Island to treat the sick. Because of the timely evacuation, many fewer died that year than in earlier epidemics.** here she is referring to miasma. Most doctors and lay people believed that people caught yellow fever by breathing in bad smells of decaying things and bodies.

POEM 2 Reflections on passing our new Burial Ground (1829?)

Within those walls made sacred to the dead,

Where yet no spade has rudely turned a sod,

No requiem changed for a spirit fled,

No prayer been offered to the throne of God.

There in due form shall holy rites be given,

And the last solemn strain float so high in Air,

That listening Angels shall bear it to Heaven,

And the soul of the just be deposited there.

—

Perhaps a Head white as Mountains Snow

When colder far, than that its semblance wears

May find a rest where weeping willows grow

And moisten the Graves with the drips of their tears.

And there may the mourner solitary stray

In pensive mood to seek a Mother’s Tomb

And giving range to mem’rys early day

Sorrowing ask why has she gone so soon

Forbear to question—in low submission bend

to Him who rules in graciousness of power

who calls the Beings of his realms below

To place them in his own Eternal Bower.

Mortal let this console _____repine no more

written in the 77th year of my age [ie 1829]