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diff --git a/16341.txt b/16341.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6703c6c --- /dev/null +++ b/16341.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9206 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Poems, by William Cullen Bryant + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Poems + +Author: William Cullen Bryant + +Release Date: July 21, 2005 [EBook #16341] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POEMS *** + + + + +Produced by richyfourtytwo, Lesley Halamek and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + +POEMS + + + + +BY + + + + +WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. + + + + + +AUTHORIZED EDITION. + + + + + +DESSAU: + +KATZ BROTHERS. + +1854. + + + + + +TO THE READER. + + +I have been asked to consent that an edition of my poems should +be published at Dessau in Germany, solely for circulation on the +continent of Europe. To this request I have the more readily yielded, +inasmuch as the reputation enjoyed by the gentleman under whose +inspection the volume will pass through the press, assures me that the +edition will be faithfully and minutely accurate. + +_New York_, November 2, 1853. + +WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. + + + + + + +CONTENTS. + + +POEMS + + The Ages deg. + Thanatopsis + The Yellow Violet + Inscription for the Entrance to a Wood + Song.--"Soon as the glazed and gleaming snow" + To a Waterfowl + Green River + A Winter Piece + The West Wind + The Burial-place. deg. A Fragment + Blessed are they that Mourn + No Man knoweth his Sepulchre + A Walk at Sunset + Hymn to Death + The Massacre at Scio deg. + The Indian Girl's Lament deg. + Ode for an Agricultural Celebration + Rizpah + The Old Man's Funeral + The Rivulet + March + Sonnet.--To-- + An Indian Story + Summer Wind + An Indian at the Burial-place of his Fathers + Song--"Dost thou idly ask to hear" + Hymn of the Waldenses + Monument Mountain deg. + After a Tempest + Autumn Woods + Sonnet.--Mutation + Sonnet.--November + Song of the Greek Amazon + To a Cloud + The Murdered Traveller deg. + Hymn to the North Star + The Lapse of Time + Song of the Stars + A Forest Hymn + "Oh fairest of the rural maids" + "I broke the spell that held me long" + June + A Song of Pitcairn's Island + The Skies + "I cannot forget with what fervid devotion" + To a Musquito + Lines on Revisiting the Country + The Death of the Flowers + Romero + A Meditation on Rhode Island Coal + The New Moon + Sonnet.--October + The Damsel of Peru + The African Chief deg. + Spring in Town + The Gladness of Nature + The Disinterred Warrior + Sonnet.--Midsummer + The Greek Partisan + The Two Graves + The Conjunction of Jupiter and Venus deg. + A Summer Ramble + Scene on the Banks of the Hudson + The Hurricane deg. + Sonnet.--William Tell deg. + The Hunter's Serenade deg. + The Greek Boy + The Past + "Upon the mountain's distant head" + The Evening Wind + "When the firmament quivers with daylight's young beam" + "Innocent child and snow-white flower" + To the River Arve + Sonnet.--To Cole, the Painter, departing for Europe + To the fringed Gentian + The Twenty-second of December + Hymn of the City + The Prairie deg. + Song of Marion's Men deg. + The Arctic Lover + The Journey of Life + +TRANSLATIONS. + Version of a Fragment of Simonides + From the Spanish of Villegas + Mary Magdalen. deg. (From the Spanish of Bartolome Leonardo + de Argensola) + The Life of the Blessed. (From the Spanish of Luis Ponce + de Leon) + Fatima and Raduan. deg. (From the Spanish) + Love and Folly. deg. (From la Fontaine) + The Siesta. (From the Spanish) + The Alcayde of Molina. deg. (From the Spanish) + The Death of Aliatar. deg. (From the Spanish) + Love in the Age of Chivalry. deg. (From Peyre Vidal, the + Troubadour) + The Love of God. deg. (From the Provencal of Bernard Rascas) + From The Spanish of Pedro de Castro y Anaya deg. + Sonnet. (From the Portuguese of Semedo) + Song. (From the Spanish of Iglesias) + The Count of Greiers. (From the German of Uhland) + The Serenade. (From the Spanish) + A Northern Legend. (From the German of Uhland) + +LATER POEMS. + To the Apennines + Earth + The Knight's Epitaph + The Hunter of the Prairies + Seventy-Six + The Living Lost + Catterskill Falls + The Strange Lady + Life deg. + "Earth's children cleave to earth" + The Hunter's Vision + The Green Mountain Boys deg. + A Presentiment + The Child's Funeral deg. + The Battlefield + The Future Life + The Death of Schiller deg. + The Fountain deg. + The Winds + The Old Man's Counsel deg. + Lines in Memory of William Leggett + An Evening Revery deg. + The Painted Cup deg. + A Dream + The Antiquity of Freedom + The Maiden's Sorrow + The Return of Youth + A Hymn of the Sea + Noon. deg. (From an unfinished Poem) + The Crowded Street + The White-footed Deer deg. + The Waning Moon + The Stream of Life + +NOTES ( deg.) + + + * * * * * + + + + +POEMS. + + + +THE AGES. deg. + +I. + + + When to the common rest that crowns our days, + Called in the noon of life, the good man goes, + Or full of years, and ripe in wisdom, lays + His silver temples in their last repose; + When, o'er the buds of youth, the death-wind blows, + And blights the fairest; when our bitter tears + Stream, as the eyes of those that love us close, + We think on what they were, with many fears +Lest goodness die with them, and leave the coming years: + + +II. + + And therefore, to our hearts, the days gone by,-- + When lived the honoured sage whose death we wept, + And the soft virtues beamed from many an eye, + And beat in many a heart that long has slept,-- + Like spots of earth where angel-feet have stepped-- + Are holy; and high-dreaming bards have told + Of times when worth was crowned, and faith was kept, + Ere friendship grew a snare, or love waxed cold-- +Those pure and happy times--the golden days of old. + + +III. + + Peace to the just man's memory,--let it grow + Greener with years, and blossom through the flight + Of ages; let the mimic canvas show + His calm benevolent features; let the light + Stream on his deeds of love, that shunned the sight + Of all but heaven, and in the book of fame, + The glorious record of his virtues write, + And hold it up to men, and bid them claim +A palm like his, and catch from him the hallowed flame. + + +IV. + + But oh, despair not of their fate who rise + To dwell upon the earth when we withdraw! + Lo! the same shaft by which the righteous dies, + Strikes through the wretch that scoffed at mercy's law, + And trode his brethren down, and felt no awe + Of Him who will avenge them. Stainless worth, + Such as the sternest age of virtue saw, + Ripens, meanwhile, till time shall call it forth +From the low modest shade, to light and bless the earth. + + +V. + + Has Nature, in her calm, majestic march + Faltered with age at last? does the bright sun + Grow dim in heaven? or, in their far blue arch, + Sparkle the crowd of stars, when day is done, + Less brightly? when the dew-lipped Spring comes on, + Breathes she with airs less soft, or scents the sky + With flowers less fair than when her reign begun? + Does prodigal Autumn, to our age, deny +The plenty that once swelled beneath his sober eye? + + +VI. + + Look on this beautiful world, and read the truth + In her fair page; see, every season brings + New change, to her, of everlasting youth; + Still the green soil, with joyous living things, + Swarms, the wide air is full of joyous wings, + And myriads, still, are happy in the sleep + Of ocean's azure gulfs, and where he flings + The restless surge. Eternal Love doth keep +In his complacent arms, the earth, the air, the deep. + + +VII. + + Will then the merciful One, who stamped our race + With his own image, and who gave them sway + O'er earth, and the glad dwellers on her face, + Now that our swarming nations far away + Are spread, where'er the moist earth drinks the day, + Forget the ancient care that taught and nursed + His latest offspring? will he quench the ray + Infused by his own forming smile at first, +And leave a work so fair all blighted and accursed? + + +VIII. + + Oh, no! a thousand cheerful omens give + Hope of yet happier days, whose dawn is nigh. + He who has tamed the elements, shall not live + The slave of his own passions; he whose eye + Unwinds the eternal dances of the sky, + And in the abyss of brightness dares to span + The sun's broad circle, rising yet more high, + In God's magnificent works his will shall scan-- +And love and peace shall make their paradise with man. + + +IX. + + Sit at the feet of history--through the night + Of years the steps of virtue she shall trace, + And show the earlier ages, where her sight + Can pierce the eternal shadows o'er their face;-- + When, from the genial cradle of our race, + Went forth the tribes of men, their pleasant lot + To choose, where palm-groves cooled their dwelling-place, + Or freshening rivers ran; and there forgot +The truth of heaven, and kneeled to gods that heard them not. + + +X. + + Then waited not the murderer for the night, + But smote his brother down in the bright day, + And he who felt the wrong, and had the might, + His own avenger, girt himself to slay; + Beside the path the unburied carcass lay; + The shepherd, by the fountains of the glen, + Fled, while the robber swept his flock away, + And slew his babes. The sick, untended then, +Languished in the damp shade, and died afar from men. + + +XI. + + But misery brought in love--in passion's strife + Man gave his heart to mercy, pleading long, + And sought out gentle deeds to gladden life; + The weak, against the sons of spoil and wrong, + Banded, and watched their hamlets, and grew strong. + States rose, and, in the shadow of their might, + The timid rested. To the reverent throng, + Grave and time-wrinkled men, with locks all white, +Gave laws, and judged their strifes, and taught the way of right; + + +XII. + + Till bolder spirits seized the rule, and nailed + On men the yoke that man should never bear, + And drove them forth to battle. Lo! unveiled + The scene of those stern ages! What is there! + A boundless sea of blood, and the wild air + Moans with the crimson surges that entomb + Cities and bannered armies; forms that wear + The kingly circlet rise, amid the gloom, +O'er the dark wave, and straight are swallowed in its womb. + + +XIII. + + Those ages have no memory--but they left + A record in the desert--columns strown + On the waste sands, and statues fallen and cleft, + Heaped like a host in battle overthrown; + Vast ruins, where the mountain's ribs of stone + Were hewn into a city; streets that spread + In the dark earth, where never breath has blown + Of heaven's sweet air, nor foot of man dares tread +The long and perilous ways--the Cities of the Dead: + + +XIV. + + And tombs of monarchs to the clouds up-piled-- + They perished--but the eternal tombs remain-- + And the black precipice, abrupt and wild, + Pierced by long toil and hollowed to a fane;-- + Huge piers and frowning forms of gods sustain + The everlasting arches, dark and wide, + Like the night-heaven, when clouds are black with rain. + But idly skill was tasked, and strength was plied, +All was the work of slaves to swell a despot's pride. + + +XV. + + And Virtue cannot dwell with slaves, nor reign + O'er those who cower to take a tyrant's yoke; + She left the down-trod nations in disdain, + And flew to Greece, when Liberty awoke, + New-born, amid those glorious vales, and broke + Sceptre and chain with her fair youthful hands: + As rocks are shivered in the thunder-stroke. + And lo! in full-grown strength, an empire stands +Of leagued and rival states, the wonder of the lands. + + +XVI. + + Oh, Greece! thy flourishing cities were a spoil + Unto each other; thy hard hand oppressed + And crushed the helpless; thou didst make thy soil + Drunk with the blood of those that loved thee best; + And thou didst drive, from thy unnatural breast, + Thy just and brave to die in distant climes; + Earth shuddered at thy deeds, and sighed for rest + From thine abominations; after times, +That yet shall read thy tale, will tremble at thy crimes. + + +XVII. + + Yet there was that within thee which has saved + Thy glory, and redeemed thy blotted name; + The story of thy better deeds, engraved + On fame's unmouldering pillar, puts to shame + Our chiller virtue; the high art to tame + The whirlwind of the passions was thine own; + And the pure ray, that from thy bosom came, + Far over many a land and age has shone, +And mingles with the light that beams from God's own throne; + + +XVIII. + + And Rome--thy sterner, younger sister, she + Who awed the world with her imperial frown-- + Rome drew the spirit of her race from thee,-- + The rival of thy shame and thy renown. + Yet her degenerate children sold the crown + Of earth's wide kingdoms to a line of slaves; + Guilt reigned, and we with guilt, and plagues came down, + Till the north broke its floodgates, and the waves +Whelmed the degraded race, and weltered o'er their graves. + + +XIX. + + Vainly that ray of brightness from above, + That shone around the Galilean lake, + The light of hope, the leading star of love, + Struggled, the darkness of that day to break; + Even its own faithless guardians strove to slake, + In fogs of earth, the pure immortal flame; + And priestly hands, for Jesus' blessed sake, + Were red with blood, and charity became, +In that stern war of forms, a mockery and a name. + + +XX. + + They triumphed, and less bloody rites were kept + Within the quiet of the convent cell: + The well-fed inmates pattered prayer, and slept, + And sinned, and liked their easy penance well. + Where pleasant was the spot for men to dwell, + Amid its fair broad lands the abbey lay, + Sheltering dark orgies that were shame to tell, + And cowled and barefoot beggars swarmed the way, +All in their convent weeds, of black, and white, and gray. + + +XXI. + + Oh, sweetly the returning muses' strain + Swelled over that famed stream, whose gentle tide + In their bright lap the Etrurian vales detain, + Sweet, as when winter storms have ceased to chide, + And all the new-leaved woods, resounding wide, + Send out wild hymns upon the scented air. + Lo! to the smiling Arno's classic side + The emulous nations of the west repair, +And kindle their quenched urns, and drink fresh spirit there. + + +XXII. + + Still, Heaven deferred the hour ordained to rend + From saintly rottenness the sacred stole; + And cowl and worshipped shrine could still defend + The wretch with felon stains upon his soul; + And crimes were set to sale, and hard his dole + Who could not bribe a passage to the skies; + And vice, beneath the mitre's kind control, + Sinned gaily on, and grew to giant size, +Shielded by priestly power, and watched by priestly eyes. + + +XXIII. + + At last the earthquake came--the shock, that hurled + To dust, in many fragments dashed and strown, + The throne, whose roots were in another world, + And whose far-stretching shadow awed our own. + From many a proud monastic pile, o'erthrown, + Fear-struck, the hooded inmates rushed and fled; + The web, that for a thousand years had grown + O'er prostrate Europe, in that day of dread +Crumbled and fell, as fire dissolves the flaxen thread. + + +XXIV. + + The spirit of that day is still awake, + And spreads himself, and shall not sleep again; + But through the idle mesh of power shall break + Like billows o'er the Asian monarch's chain; + Till men are filled with him, and feel how vain, + Instead of the pure heart and innocent hands, + Are all the proud and pompous modes to gain + The smile of heaven;--till a new age expands +Its white and holy wings above the peaceful lands. + + +XXV. + + For look again on the past years;--behold, + How like the nightmare's dreams have flown away + Horrible forms of worship, that, of old, + Held, o'er the shuddering realms, unquestioned sway: + See crimes, that feared not once the eye of day, + Rooted from men, without a name or place: + See nations blotted out from earth, to pay + The forfeit of deep guilt;--with glad embrace +The fair disburdened lands welcome a nobler race. + + +XXVI. + + Thus error's monstrous shapes from earth are driven; + They fade, they fly--but truth survives their flight; + Earth has no shades to quench that beam of heaven; + Each ray that shone, in early time, to light + The faltering footsteps in the path of right, + Each gleam of clearer brightness shed to aid + In man's maturer day his bolder sight, + All blended, like the rainbow's radiant braid, +Pour yet, and still shall pour, the blaze that cannot fade. + + +XXVII. + + Late, from this western shore, that morning chased + The deep and ancient night, that threw its shroud + O'er the green land of groves, the beautiful waste, + Nurse of full streams, and lifter-up of proud + Sky-mingling mountains that o'erlook the cloud. + Erewhile, where yon gay spires their brightness rear, + Trees waved, and the brown hunter's shouts were loud + Amid the forest; and the bounding deer +Fled at the glancing plume, and the gaunt wolf yelled near; + + +XXVIII. + + And where his willing waves yon bright blue bay + Sends up, to kiss his decorated brim, + And cradles, in his soft embrace, the gay + Young group of grassy islands born of him, + And crowding nigh, or in the distance dim, + Lifts the white throng of sails, that bear or bring + The commerce of the world;--with tawny limb, + And belt and beads in sunlight glistening, +The savage urged his skiff like wild bird on the wing. + + +XXIX. + + Then all this youthful paradise around, + And all the broad and boundless mainland, lay + Cooled by the interminable wood, that frowned + O'er mount and vale, where never summer ray + Glanced, till the strong tornado broke his way + Through the gray giants of the sylvan wild; + Yet many a sheltered glade, with blossoms gay, + Beneath the showery sky and sunshine mild, +Within the shaggy arms of that dark forest smiled. + + +XXX. + + There stood the Indian hamlet, there the lake + Spread its blue sheet that flashed with many an oar, + Where the brown otter plunged him from the brake, + And the deer drank: as the light gale flew o'er, + The twinkling maize-field rustled on the shore; + And while that spot, so wild, and lone, and fair, + A look of glad and guiltless beauty wore, + And peace was on the earth and in the air, +The warrior lit the pile, and bound his captive there: + + +XXXI. + + Not unavenged--the foeman, from the wood, + Beheld the deed, and when the midnight shade + Was stillest, gorged his battle-axe with blood; + All died--the wailing babe--the shrieking maid-- + And in the flood of fire that scathed the glade, + The roofs went down; but deep the silence grew, + When on the dewy woods the day-beam played; + No more the cabin smokes rose wreathed and blue, +And ever, by their lake, lay moored the light canoe. + + +XXXII. + + Look now abroad--another race has filled + These populous borders--wide the wood recedes, + And towns shoot up, and fertile realms are tilled: + The land is full of harvests and green meads; + Streams numberless, that many a fountain feeds, + Shine, disembowered, and give to sun and breeze + Their virgin waters; the full region leads + New colonies forth, that toward the western seas +Spread, like a rapid flame among the autumnal trees. + + +XXXIII. + + Here the free spirit of mankind, at length, + Throws its last fetters off; and who shall place + A limit to the giant's unchained strength, + Or curb his swiftness in the forward race! + Far, like the cornet's way through infinite space + Stretches the long untravelled path of light, + Into the depths of ages: we may trace, + Distant, the brightening glory of its flight, +Till the receding rays are lost to human sight. + + +XXXIV + + Europe is given a prey to sterner fates, + And writhes in shackles; strong the arms that chain + To earth her struggling multitude of states; + She too is strong, and might not chafe in vain + Against them, but might cast to earth the train + That trample her, and break their iron net. + Yes, she shall look on brighter days and gain + The meed of worthier deeds; the moment set +To rescue and raise up, draws near--but is not yet. + + +XXXV. + + But thou, my country, thou shalt never fall, + Save with thy children--thy maternal care, + Thy lavish love, thy blessings showered on all-- + These are thy fetters--seas and stormy air + Are the wide barrier of thy borders, where, + Among thy gallant sons that guard thee well, + Thou laugh'st at enemies: who shall then declare + The date of thy deep-founded strength, or tell +How happy, in thy lap, the sons of men shall dwell. + + + + +THANATOPSIS. + + + To him who in the love of Nature holds +Communion with her visible forms, she speaks +A various language; for his gayer hours +She has a voice of gladness, and a smile +And eloquence of beauty, and she glides +Into his darker musings, with a mild +And healing sympathy, that steals away +Their sharpness, e're he is aware. When thoughts +Of the last bitter hour come like a blight +Over thy spirit, and sad images +Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall, +And breathless darkness, and the narrow house, +Make thee to shudder, and grow sick at heart;-- +Go forth, under the open sky, and list +To Nature's teachings, while from all around-- +Earth and her waters, and the depths of air,-- +Comes a still voice--Yet a few days, and thee +The all-beholding sun shall see no more +In all his course; nor yet in the cold ground, +Where thy pale form was laid, with many tears, +Nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist +Thy image. Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim +Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again, +And, lost each human trace, surrendering up +Thine individual being, shalt thou go +To mix for ever with the elements, +To be a brother to the insensible rock +And to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain +Turns with his share, and treads upon. The oak +Shall send his roots abroad, and pierce thy mould. + + Yet not to thine eternal resting-place +Shalt thou retire alone--nor couldst thou wish +Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down +With patriarchs of the infant world--with kings, +The powerful of the earth--the wise, the good, +Fair forms, and hoary seers of ages past, +All in one mighty sepulchre.--The hills +Rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun,--the vales +Stretching in pensive quietness between; +The venerable woods--rivers that move +In majesty, and the complaining brooks +That make the meadows green; and, poured round all, +Old ocean's gray and melancholy waste,-- +Are but the solemn decorations all +Of the great tomb of man. The golden sun, +The planets, all the infinite host of heaven, +Are shining on the sad abodes of death, +Through the still lapse of ages. All that tread +The globe are but a handful to the tribes +That slumber in its bosom.--Take the wings +Of morning--and the Barcan desert pierce, +Or lose thyself in the continuous woods +Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound, +Save his own dashings--yet--the dead are there: +And millions in those solitudes, since first +The flight of years began, have laid them down +In their last sleep--the dead reign there alone. +So shalt thou rest---and what, if thou withdraw +Unheeded by the living, and no friend +Take note of thy departure? All that breathe +Will share thy destiny. The gay will laugh +When thou art gone, the solemn brood of care +Plod on, and each one as before will chase +His favourite phantom; yet all these shall leave +Their mirth and their employments, and shall come, +And make their bed with thee. As the long train +Of ages glide away, the sons of men, +The youth in life's green spring, and he who goes +In the full strength of years, matron, and maid, +And the sweet babe, and the gray-headed man,-- +Shall one by one be gathered to thy side, +By those, who in their turn shall follow them. + + So live, that when thy summons comes to join +The innumerable caravan, that moves +To that mysterious realm, where each shall take +His chamber in the silent halls of death, +Thou go not like the quarry-slave at night, +Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed +By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave, +Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch +About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams. + + + + +THE YELLOW VIOLET. + + +When beechen buds begin to swell, + And woods the blue-bird's warble know, +The yellow violet's modest bell + Peeps from the last year's leaves below. + +Ere russet fields their green resume, + Sweet flower, I love, in forest bare, +To meet thee, when thy faint perfume + Alone is in the virgin air. + +Of all her train, the hands of Spring + First plant thee in the watery mould, +And I have seen thee blossoming + Beside the snow-bank's edges cold. + +Thy parent sun, who bade thee view + Pale skies, and chilling moisture sip, +Has bathed thee in his own bright hue, + And streaked with jet thy glowing lip. + +Yet slight thy form, and low thy seat, + And earthward bent thy gentle eye, +Unapt the passing view to meet, + When loftier flowers are flaunting nigh. + +Oft, in the sunless April day, + Thy early smile has stayed my walk; +But midst the gorgeous blooms of May, + I passed thee on thy humble stalk. + +So they, who climb to wealth, forget + The friends in darker fortunes tried. +I copied them--but I regret + That I should ape the ways of pride. + +And when again the genial hour + Awakes the painted tribes of light, +I'll not o'erlook the modest flower + That made the woods of April bright. + + + + +INSCRIPTION FOR THE ENTRANCE TO A WOOD. + + +Stranger, if thou hast learned a truth which needs +No school of long experience, that the world +Is full of guilt and misery, and hast seen +Enough of all its sorrows, crimes, and cares, +To tire thee of it, enter this wild wood +And view the haunts of Nature. The calm shade +Shall bring a kindred calm, and the sweet breeze +That makes the green leaves dance, shall waft a balm +To thy sick heart. Thou wilt find nothing here +Of all that pained thee in the haunts of men +And made thee loathe thy life. The primal curse +Fell, it is true, upon the unsinning earth, +But not in vengeance. God hath yoked to guilt +Her pale tormentor, misery. Hence, these shades +Are still the abodes of gladness; the thick roof +Of green and stirring branches is alive +And musical with birds, that sing and sport +In wantonness of spirit; while below +The squirrel, with raised paws and form erect, +Chirps merrily. Throngs of insects in the shade +Try their thin wings and dance in the warm beam +That waked them into life. Even the green trees +Partake the deep contentment; as they bend +To the soft winds, the sun from the blue sky +Looks in and sheds a blessing on the scene. +Scarce less the cleft-born wild-flower seems to enjoy +Existence, than the winged plunderer +That sucks its sweets. The massy rocks themselves, +And the old and ponderous trunks of prostrate trees +That lead from knoll to knoll a causey rude +Or bridge the sunken brook, and their dark roots, +With all their earth upon them, twisting high, +Breathe fixed tranquillity. The rivulet +Sends forth glad sounds, and tripping o'er its bed +Of pebbly sands, or leaping down the rocks, +Seems, with continuous laughter, to rejoice +In its own being. Softly tread the marge, +Lest from her midway perch thou scare the wren +That dips her bill in water. The cool wind, +That stirs the stream in play, shall come to thee, +Like one that loves thee nor will let thee pass +Ungreeted, and shall give its light embrace. + + + + +SONG. + + +Soon as the glazed and gleaming snow + Reflects the day-dawn cold and clear, +The hunter of the west must go + In depth of woods to seek the deer. + +His rifle on his shoulder placed, + His stores of death arranged with skill, +His moccasins and snow-shoes laced,-- + Why lingers he beside the hill? + +Far, in the dim and doubtful light, + Where woody slopes a valley leave, +He sees what none but lover might, + The dwelling of his Genevieve. + +And oft he turns his truant eye, + And pauses oft, and lingers near; +But when he marks the reddening sky, + He bounds away to hunt the deer. + + + + +TO A WATERFOWL. + + + Whither, midst falling dew, +While glow the heavens with the last steps of day, +Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue + Thy solitary way? + + Vainly the fowler's eye +Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong, +As, darkly painted on the crimson sky, + Thy figure floats along. + + Seek'st thou the plashy brink +Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide, +Or where the rocking billows rise and sink + On the chafed ocean side? + + There is a Power whose care +Teaches thy way along that pathless coast,-- +The desert and illimitable air,-- + Lone wandering, but not lost. + + All day thy wings have fanned, +At that far height, the cold, thin atmosphere, +Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land, + Though the dark night is near. + + And soon that toil shall end; +Soon shalt thou find a summer home, and rest, +And scream among thy fellows; reeds shall bend, + Soon, o'er thy sheltered nest. + + Thou'rt gone, the abyss of heaven +Hath swallowed up thy form; yet, on my heart +Deeply hath sunk the lesson thou hast given, + And shall not soon depart. + + He who, from zone to zone, +Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight, +In the long way that I must tread alone, + Will lead my steps aright. + + + + +GREEN RIVER. + + + When breezes are soft and skies are fair, +I steal an hour from study and care, +And hie me away to the woodland scene, +Where wanders the stream with waters of green, +As if the bright fringe of herbs on its brink +Had given their stain to the wave they drink; +And they, whose meadows it murmurs through, +Have named the stream from its own fair hue. + + Yet pure its waters--its shallows are bright +With coloured pebbles and sparkles of light, +And clear the depths where its eddies play, +And dimples deepen and whirl away, +And the plane-tree's speckled arms o'ershoot +The swifter current that mines its root, +Through whose shifting leaves, as you walk the hill, +The quivering glimmer of sun and rill +With a sudden flash on the eye is thrown, +Like the ray that streams from the diamond stone. +Oh, loveliest there the spring days come, +With blossoms, and birds, and wild bees' hum; +The flowers of summer are fairest there, +And freshest the breath of the summer air; +And sweetest the golden autumn day +In silence and sunshine glides away. + + Yet fair as thou art, thou shunnest to glide, +Beautiful stream! by the village side; +But windest away from haunts of men, +To quiet valley and shaded glen; +And forest, and meadow, and slope of hill, +Around thee, are lonely, lovely, and still. +Lonely--save when, by thy rippling tides, +From thicket to thicket the angler glides; +Or the simpler comes with basket and book, +For herbs of power on thy banks to look; +Or haply, some idle dreamer, like me, +To wander, and muse, and gaze on thee. +Still--save the chirp of birds that feed +On the river cherry and seedy reed, +And thy own wild music gushing out +With mellow murmur and fairy shout, +From dawn to the blush of another day, +Like traveller singing along his way. + + That fairy music I never hear, +Nor gaze on those waters so green and clear, +And mark them winding away from sight, +Darkened with shade or flashing with light, +While o'er them the vine to its thicket clings, +And the zephyr stoops to freshen his wings, +But I wish that fate had left me free +To wander these quiet haunts with thee, +Till the eating cares of earth should depart, +And the peace of the scene pass into my heart; +And I envy thy stream, as it glides along, +Through its beautiful banks in a trance of song. + + Though forced to drudge for the dregs of men, +And scrawl strange words with the barbarous pen, +And mingle among the jostling crowd, +Where the sons of strife are subtle and loud-- +I often come to this quiet place, +To breathe the airs that ruffle thy face, +And gaze upon thee in silent dream, +For in thy lonely and lovely stream +An image of that calm life appears +That won my heart in my greener years. + + + + +A WINTER PIECE. + + + The time has been that these wild solitudes, +Yet beautiful as wild, were trod by me +Oftener than now; and when the ills of life +Had chafed my spirit--when the unsteady pulse +Beat with strange flutterings--I would wander forth +And seek the woods. The sunshine on my path +Was to me as a friend. The swelling hills, +The quiet dells retiring far between, +With gentle invitation to explore +Their windings, were a calm society +That talked with me and soothed me. Then the chant +Of birds, and chime of brooks, and soft caress +Of the fresh sylvan air, made me forget +The thoughts that broke my peace, and I began +To gather simples by the fountain's brink, +And lose myself in day-dreams. While I stood +In nature's loneliness, I was with one +With whom I early grew familiar, one +Who never had a frown for me, whose voice +Never rebuked me for the hours I stole +From cares I loved not, but of which the world +Deems highest, to converse with her. When shrieked +The bleak November winds, and smote the woods, +And the brown fields were herbless, and the shades, +That met above the merry rivulet, +Were spoiled, I sought, I loved them still,--they seemed +Like old companions in adversity. +Still there was beauty in my walks; the brook, +Bordered with sparkling frost-work, was as gay +As with its fringe of summer flowers. Afar, +The village with its spires, the path of streams, +And dim receding valleys, hid before +By interposing trees, lay visible +Through the bare grove, and my familiar haunts +Seemed new to me. Nor was I slow to come +Among them, when the clouds, from their still skirts, +Had shaken down on earth the feathery snow, +And all was white. The pure keen air abroad, +Albeit it breathed no scent of herb, nor heard +Love-call of bird, nor merry hum of bee, +Was not the air of death. Bright mosses crept +Over the spotted trunks, and the close buds, +That lay along the boughs, instinct with life, +Patient, and waiting the soft breath of Spring, +Feared not the piercing spirit of the North. +The snow-bird twittered on the beechen bough, +And 'neath the hemlock, whose thick branches bent +Beneath its bright cold burden, and kept dry +A circle, on the earth, of withered leaves, +The partridge found a shelter. Through the snow +The rabbit sprang away. The lighter track +Of fox, and the racoon's broad path, were there, +Crossing each other. From his hollow tree, +The squirrel was abroad, gathering the nuts +Just fallen, that asked the winter cold and sway +Of winter blast, to shake them from their hold. + + But Winter has yet brighter scenes,--he boasts +Splendours beyond what gorgeous Summer knows; +Or Autumn with his many fruits, and woods +All flushed with many hues. Come when the rains +Have glazed the snow, and clothed the trees with ice; +While the slant sun of February pours +Into the bowers a flood of light. Approach! +The incrusted surface shall upbear thy steps, +And the broad arching portals of the grove +Welcome thy entering. Look! the massy trunks +Are cased in the pure crystal; each light spray, +Nodding and tinkling in the breath of heaven, +Is studded with its trembling water-drops, +That stream with rainbow radiance as they move. +But round the parent stem the long low boughs +Bend, in a glittering ring, and arbours hide +The glassy floor. Oh! you might deem the spot +The spacious cavern of some virgin mine, +Deep in the womb of earth--where the gems grow, +And diamonds put forth radiant rods and bud +With amethyst and topaz--and the place +Lit up, most royally, with the pure beam +That dwells in them. Or haply the vast hall +Of fairy palace, that outlasts the night, +And fades not in the glory of the sun;-- +Where crystal columns send forth slender shafts +And crossing arches; and fantastic aisles +Wind from the sight in brightness, and are lost +Among the crowded pillars. Raise thine eye,-- +Thou seest no cavern roof, no palace vault; +There the blue sky and the white drifting cloud +Look in. Again the wildered fancy dreams +Of spouting fountains, frozen as they rose, +And fixed, with all their branching jets, in air, +And all their sluices sealed. All, all is light; +Light without shade. But all shall pass away +With the next sun. From numberless vast trunks, +Loosened, the crashing ice shall make a sound +Like the far roar of rivers, and the eve +Shall close o'er the brown woods as it was wont. + + And it is pleasant, when the noisy streams +Are just set free, and milder suns melt off +The plashy snow, save only the firm drift +In the deep glen or the close shade of pines,-- +'Tis pleasant to behold the wreaths of smoke +Roll up among the maples of the hill, +Where the shrill sound of youthful voices wakes +The shriller echo, as the clear pure lymph, +That from the wounded trees, in twinkling drops, +Falls, mid the golden brightness of the morn, +Is gathered in with brimming pails, and oft, +Wielded by sturdy hands, the stroke of axe +Makes the woods ring. Along the quiet air, +Come and float calmly off the soft light clouds, +Such as you see in summer, and the winds +Scarce stir the branches. Lodged in sunny cleft, +Where the cold breezes come not, blooms alone +The little wind-flower, whose just opened eye +Is blue as the spring heaven it gazes at-- +Startling the loiterer in the naked groves +With unexpected beauty, for the time +Of blossoms and green leaves is yet afar. +And ere it comes, the encountering winds shall oft +Muster their wrath again, and rapid clouds +Shade heaven, and bounding on the frozen earth +Shall fall their volleyed stores rounded like hail, +And white like snow, and the loud North again +Shall buffet the vexed forest in his rage. + + + + +THE WEST WIND. + + +Beneath the forest's skirts I rest, + Whose branching pines rise dark and high, +And hear the breezes of the West + Among the threaded foliage sigh. + +Sweet Zephyr! why that sound of woe? + Is not thy home among the flowers? +Do not the bright June roses blow, + To meet thy kiss at morning hours? + +And lo! thy glorious realm outspread-- + Yon stretching valleys, green and gay, +And yon free hill-tops, o'er whose head + The loose white clouds are borne away. + +And there the full broad river runs, + And many a fount wells fresh and sweet, +To cool thee when the mid-day suns + Have made thee faint beneath their heat. + +Thou wind of joy, and youth, and love; + Spirit of the new-wakened year! +The sun in his blue realm above + Smooths a bright path when thou art here. + +In lawns the murmuring bee is heard, + The wooing ring-dove in the shade; +On thy soft breath, the new-fledged bird + Takes wing, half happy, half afraid. + +Ah! thou art like our wayward race;-- + When not a shade of pain or ill +Dims the bright smile of Nature's face, + Thou lovest to sigh and murmur still. + + + + +THE BURIAL-PLACE. deg. + +A FRAGMENT. + + + Erewhile, on England's pleasant shores, our sires +Left not their churchyards unadorned with shades +Or blossoms; and indulgent to the strong +And natural dread of man's last home, the grave, +Its frost and silence--they disposed around, +To soothe the melancholy spirit that dwelt +Too sadly on life's close, the forms and hues +Of vegetable beauty.--There the yew, +Green even amid the snows of winter, told +Of immortality, and gracefully +The willow, a perpetual mourner, drooped; +And there the gadding woodbine crept about, +And there the ancient ivy. From the spot +Where the sweet maiden, in her blossoming years +Cut off, was laid with streaming eyes, and hands +That trembled as they placed her there, the rose +Sprung modest, on bowed stalk, and better spoke +Her graces, than the proudest monument. +There children set about their playmate's grave +The pansy. On the infant's little bed, +Wet at its planting with maternal tears, +Emblem of early sweetness, early death, +Nestled the lowly primrose. Childless dames, +And maids that would not raise the reddened eye-- +Orphans, from whose young lids the light of joy +Fled early,--silent lovers, who had given +All that they lived for to the arms of earth, +Came often, o'er the recent graves to strew +Their offerings, rue, and rosemary, and flowers. + + The pilgrim bands who passed the sea to keep +Their Sabbaths in the eye of God alone, +In his wide temple of the wilderness, +Brought not these simple customs of the heart +With them. It might be, while they laid their dead +By the vast solemn skirts of the old groves, +And the fresh virgin soil poured forth strange flowers +About their graves; and the familiar shades +Of their own native isle, and wonted blooms, +And herbs were wanting, which the pious hand +Might plant or scatter there, these gentle rites +Passed out of use. Now they are scarcely known, +And rarely in our borders may you meet +The tall larch, sighing in the burying-place, +Or willow, trailing low its boughs to hide +The gleaming marble. Naked rows of graves +And melancholy ranks of monuments +Are seen instead, where the coarse grass, between, +Shoots up its dull green spikes, and in the wind +Hisses, and the neglected bramble nigh, +Offers its berries to the schoolboy's hand, +In vain--they grow too near the dead. Yet here, +Nature, rebuking the neglect of man, +Plants often, by the ancient mossy stone, +The brier rose, and upon the broken turf +That clothes the fresher grave, the strawberry vine +Sprinkles its swell with blossoms, and lays forth +Her ruddy, pouting fruit. * * * * * + +[Transcriber's note: The above 5 asterisks are printed as in the +Original. They do not represent a thought break.] + + + + +"BLESSED ARE THEY THAT MOURN." + + +Oh, deem not they are blest alone + Whose lives a peaceful tenor keep; +The Power who pities man, has shown + A blessing for the eyes that weep. + +The light of smiles shall fill again + The lids that overflow with tears; +And weary hours of woe and pain + Are promises of happier years. + +There is a day of sunny rest + For every dark and troubled night; +And grief may bide an evening guest, + But joy shall come with early light. + +And thou, who, o'er thy friend's low bier, + Sheddest the bitter drops like rain, +Hope that a brighter, happier sphere + Will give him to thy arms again. + +Nor let the good man's trust depart, + Though life its common gifts deny,-- +Though with a pierced and broken heart, + And spurned of men, he goes to die. + +For God has marked each sorrowing day + And numbered every secret tear, +And heaven's long age of bliss shall pay + For all his children suffer here. + + + + +"NO MAN KNOWETH HIS SEPULCHRE." + + +When he, who, from the scourge of wrong, + Aroused the Hebrew tribes to fly, +Saw the fair region, promised long, + And bowed him on the hills to die; + +God made his grave, to men unknown, + Where Moab's rocks a vale infold, +And laid the aged seer alone + To slumber while the world grows old. + +Thus still, whene'er the good and just + Close the dim eye on life and pain, +Heaven watches o'er their sleeping dust + Till the pure spirit comes again. + +Though nameless, trampled, and forgot, + His servant's humble ashes lie, +Yet God has marked and sealed the spot, + To call its inmate to the sky. + + + + +A WALK AT SUNSET. + + + When insect wings are glistening in the beam + Of the low sun, and mountain-tops are bright, + Oh, let me, by the crystal valley-stream, + Wander amid the mild and mellow light; +And while the wood-thrush pipes his evening lay, +Give me one lonely hour to hymn the setting day. + + Oh, sun! that o'er the western mountains now + Goest down in glory! ever beautiful + And blessed is thy radiance, whether thou + Colourest the eastern heaven and night-mist cool, +Till the bright day-star vanish, or on high +Climbest and streamest thy white splendours from mid-sky. + + Yet, loveliest are thy setting smiles, and fair, + Fairest of all that earth beholds, the hues + That live among the clouds, and flush the air, + Lingering and deepening at the hour of dews. +Then softest gales are breathed, and softest heard +The plaining voice of streams, and pensive note of bird. + + They who here roamed, of yore, the forest wide, + Felt, by such charm, their simple bosoms won; + They deemed their quivered warrior, when he died, + Went to bright isles beneath the setting sun; +Where winds are aye at peace, and skies are fair, +And purple-skirted clouds curtain the crimson air. + + So, with the glories of the dying day, + Its thousand trembling lights and changing hues, + The memory of the brave who passed away + Tenderly mingled;--fitting hour to muse +On such grave theme, and sweet the dream that shed +Brightness and beauty round the destiny of the dead. + + For ages, on the silent forests here, + Thy beams did fall before the red man came + To dwell beneath them; in their shade the deer + Fed, and feared not the arrow's deadly aim. +Nor tree was felled, in all that world of woods, +Save by the beaver's tooth, or winds, or rush of floods. + + Then came the hunter tribes, and thou didst look, + For ages, on their deeds in the hard chase, + And well-fought wars; green sod and silver brook + Took the first stain of blood; before thy face +The warrior generations came and passed, +And glory was laid up for many an age to last. + + Now they are gone, gone as thy setting blaze + Goes down the west, while night is pressing on, + And with them the old tale of better days, + And trophies of remembered power, are gone. +Yon field that gives the harvest, where the plough +Strikes the white bone, is all that tells their story now. + + I stand upon their ashes in thy beam, + The offspring of another race, I stand, + Beside a stream they loved, this valley stream; + And where the night-fire of the quivered band +Showed the gray oak by fits, and war-song rung, +I teach the quiet shades the strains of this new tongue. + + Farewell! but thou shalt come again--thy light + Must shine on other changes, and behold + The place of the thronged city still as night-- + States fallen--new empires built upon the old-- +But never shalt thou see these realms again +Darkened by boundless groves, and roamed by savage men. + + + + +HYMN TO DEATH. + + +Oh! could I hope the wise and pure in heart +Might hear my song without a frown, nor deem +My voice unworthy of the theme it tries,-- +I would take up the hymn to Death, and say +To the grim power: The world hath slandered thee +And mocked thee. On thy dim and shadowy brow +They place an iron crown, and call thee king +Of terrors, and the spoiler of the world, +Deadly assassin, that strik'st down the fair, +The loved, the good--that breathest on the lights +Of virtue set along the vale of life, +And they go out in darkness. I am come, +Not with reproaches, not with cries and prayers, +Such as have stormed thy stern, insensible ear +from the beginning. I am come to speak +Thy praises. True it is, that I have wept +Thy conquests, and may weep them yet again: +And thou from some I love wilt take a life +Dear to me as my own. Yet while the spell +Is on my spirit, and I talk with thee +In sight of all thy trophies, face to face, +Meet is it that my voice should utter forth +Thy nobler triumphs; I will teach the world +To thank thee.--Who are thine accusers?--Who? +The living!--they who never felt thy power, +And know thee not. The curses of the wretch +Whose crimes are ripe, his sufferings when thy hand +Is on him, and the hour he dreads is come, +Are writ among thy praises. But the good-- +Does he whom thy kind hand dismissed to peace, +Upbraid the gentle violence that took off +His fetters, and unbarred his prison cell? + + Raise then the hymn to Death. Deliverer! +God hath anointed thee to free the oppressed +And crush the oppressor. When the armed chief, +The conqueror of nations, walks the world, +And it is changed beneath his feet, and all +Its kingdoms melt into one mighty realm-- +Thou, while his head is loftiest and his heart +Blasphemes, imagining his own right hand +Almighty, thou dost set thy sudden grasp +Upon him, and the links of that strong chain +That bound mankind are crumbled; thou dost break +Sceptre and crown, and beat his throne to dust. +Then the earth shouts with gladness, and her tribes +Gather within their ancient bounds again. +Else had the mighty of the olden time, +Nimrod, Sesostris, or the youth who feigned +His birth from Libyan Ammon, smitten yet +The nations with a rod of iron, and driven +Their chariot o'er our necks. Thou dost avenge, +In thy good time, the wrongs of those who know +No other friend. Nor dost thou interpose +Only to lay the sufferer asleep, +Where he who made him wretched troubles not +His rest--thou dost strike down his tyrant too. +Oh, there is joy when hands that held the scourge +Drop lifeless, and the pitiless heart is cold. +Thou too dost purge from earth its horrible +And old idolatries;--from the proud fanes +Each to his grave their priests go out, till none +Is left to teach their worship; then the fires +Of sacrifice are chilled, and the green moss +O'ercreeps their altars; the fallen images +Cumber the weedy courts, and for loud hymns, +Chanted by kneeling multitudes, the wind +Shrieks in the solitary aisles. When he +Who gives his life to guilt, and laughs at all +The laws that God or man has made, and round +Hedges his seat with power, and shines in wealth,-- +Lifts up his atheist front to scoff at Heaven, +And celebrates his shame in open day, +Thou, in the pride of all his crimes, cutt'st off +The horrible example. Touched by thine, +The extortioner's hard hand foregoes the gold +Wrung from the o'er-worn poor. The perjurer, +Whose tongue was lithe, e'en now, and voluble +Against his neighbour's life, and he who laughed +And leaped for joy to see a spotless fame +Blasted before his own foul calumnies, +Are smit with deadly silence. He, who sold +His conscience to preserve a worthless life, +Even while he hugs himself on his escape, +Trembles, as, doubly terrible, at length, +Thy steps o'ertake him, and there is no time +For parley--nor will bribes unclench thy grasp. +Oft, too, dost thou reform thy victim, long +Ere his last hour. And when the reveller, +Mad in the chase of pleasure, stretches on, +And strains each nerve, and clears the path of life +Like wind, thou point'st him to the dreadful goal, +And shak'st thy hour-glass in his reeling eye, +And check'st him in mid course. Thy skeleton hand +Shows to the faint of spirit the right path, +And he is warned, and fears to step aside. +Thou sett'st between the ruffian and his crime +Thy ghastly countenance, and his slack hand +Drops the drawn knife. But, oh, most fearfully +Dost thou show forth Heaven's justice, when thy shafts +Drink up the ebbing spirit--then the hard +Of heart and violent of hand restores +The treasure to the friendless wretch he wronged. +Then from the writhing bosom thou dost pluck +The guilty secret; lips, for ages sealed, +Are faithless to the dreadful trust at length, +And give it up; the felon's latest breath +Absolves the innocent man who bears his crime; +The slanderer, horror-smitten, and in tears, +Recalls the deadly obloquy he forged +To work his brother's ruin. Thou dost make +Thy penitent victim utter to the air +The dark conspiracy that strikes at life, +And aims to whelm the laws; ere yet the hour +Is come, and the dread sign of murder given. + + Thus, from the first of time, hast thou been found +On virtue's side; the wicked, but for thee, +Had been too strong for the good; the great of earth +Had crushed the weak for ever. Schooled in guile +For ages, while each passing year had brought +Its baneful lesson, they had filled the world +With their abominations; while its tribes, +Trodden to earth, imbruted, and despoiled, +Had knelt to them in worship; sacrifice +Had smoked on many an altar, temple roofs +Had echoed with the blasphemous prayer and hymn: +But thou, the great reformer of the world, +Tak'st off the sons of violence and fraud +In their green pupilage, their lore half learned-- +Ere guilt had quite o'errun the simple heart +God gave them at their birth, and blotted out +His image. Thou dost mark them flushed with hope, +As on the threshold of their vast designs +Doubtful and loose they stand, and strik'st them down. + + * * * * * + + Alas! I little thought that the stern power +Whose fearful praise I sung, would try me thus +Before the strain was ended. It must cease-- +For he is in his grave who taught my youth +The art of verse, and in the bud of life +Offered me to the muses. Oh, cut off +Untimely! when thy reason in its strength, +Ripened by years of toil and studious search, +And watch of Nature's silent lessons, taught +Thy hand to practise best the lenient art +To which thou gavest thy laborious days, +And, last, thy life. And, therefore, when the earth +Received thee, tears were in unyielding eyes +And on hard cheeks, and they who deemed thy skill +Delayed their death-hour, shuddered and turned pale +When thou wert gone. This faltering verse, which thou +Shalt not, as wont, o'erlook, is all I have +To offer at thy grave--this--and the hope +To copy thy example, and to leave +A name of which the wretched shall not think +As of an enemy's, whom they forgive +As all forgive the dead. Rest, therefore, thou +Whose early guidance trained my infant steps-- +Rest, in the bosom of God, till the brief sleep +Of death is over, and a happier life +Shall dawn to waken thine insensible dust. + + Now thou art not--and yet the men whose guilt +Has wearied Heaven for vengeance--he who bears +False witness--he who takes the orphan's bread, +And robs the widow--he who spreads abroad +Polluted hands of mockery of prayer, +Are left to cumber earth. Shuddering I look +On what is written, yet I blot not out +The desultory numbers--let them stand, +The record of an idle revery. + + + + +THE MASSACRE AT SCIO. deg. + + +Weep not for Scio's children slain; + Their blood, by Turkish falchions shed, +Sends not its cry to Heaven in vain + For vengeance on the murderer's head. + +Though high the warm red torrent ran + Between the flames that lit the sky, +Yet, for each drop, an armed man + Shall rise, to free the land, or die. + +And for each corpse, that in the sea + Was thrown, to feast the scaly herds, +A hundred of the foe shall be + A banquet for the mountain birds. + +Stern rites and sad, shall Greece ordain + To keep that day, along her shore, +Till the last link of slavery's chain + Is shivered, to be worn no more. + + + + +THE INDIAN GIRL'S LAMENT. deg. + + +An Indian girl was sitting where + Her lover, slain in battle, slept; +Her maiden veil, her own black hair, + Came down o'er eyes that wept; +And wildly, in her woodland tongue, +This sad and simple lay she sung: + +"I've pulled away the shrubs that grew + Too close above thy sleeping head, +And broke the forest boughs that threw + Their shadows o'er thy bed, +That, shining from the sweet south-west, +The sunbeams might rejoice thy rest. + +"It was a weary, weary road + That led thee to the pleasant coast, +Where thou, in his serene abode, + Hast met thy father's ghost: +Where everlasting autumn lies +On yellow woods and sunny skies. + +"Twas I the broidered mocsen made, + That shod thee for that distant land; +'Twas I thy bow and arrows laid + Beside thy still cold hand; +Thy bow in many a battle bent, +Thy arrows never vainly sent. + +"With wampum belts I crossed thy breast, + And wrapped thee in the bison's hide, +And laid the food that pleased thee best, + In plenty, by thy side, +And decked thee bravely, as became +A warrior of illustrious name. + +"Thou'rt happy now, for thou hast passed + The long dark journey of the grave, +And in the land of light, at last, + Hast joined the good and brave; +Amid the flushed and balmy air, +The bravest and the loveliest there. + +"Yet, oft to thine own Indian maid + Even there thy thoughts will earthward stray,-- +To her who sits where thou wert laid, + And weeps the hours away, +Yet almost can her grief forget, +To think that thou dost love her yet. + +"And thou, by one of those still lakes + That in a shining cluster lie, +On which the south wind scarcely breaks + The image of the sky, +A bower for thee and me hast made +Beneath the many-coloured shade. + +"And thou dost wait and watch to meet + My spirit sent to join the blessed, +And, wondering what detains my feet + From the bright land of rest, +Dost seem, in every sound, to hear +The rustling of my footsteps near." + + + + +ODE FOR AN AGRICULTURAL CELEBRATION. + + +Far back in the ages, + The plough with wreaths was crowned; +The hands of kings and sages + Entwined the chaplet round; +Till men of spoil disdained the toil + By which the world was nourished, +And dews of blood enriched the soil + Where green their laurels flourished: +--Now the world her fault repairs-- + The guilt that stains her story; +And weeps her crimes amid the cares + That formed her earliest glory. + +The proud throne shall crumble, + The diadem shall wane, +The tribes of earth shall humble + The pride of those who reign; +And War shall lay his pomp away;-- + The fame that heroes cherish, +The glory earned in deadly fray + Shall fade, decay, and perish. +Honour waits, o'er all the Earth, + Through endless generations, +The art that calls her harvests forth, + And feeds the expectant nations. + + + + +RIZPAH. + + +And he delivered them into the hands of the Gibeonites, and they +hanged them in the hill before the Lord; and they fell all seven +together, and were put to death in the days of the harvest, in the +first days, in the beginning of barley-harvest. + +And Rizpah, the daughter of Aiah, took sackcloth, and spread it for +her upon the rock, from the beginning of harvest until the water +dropped upon them out of heaven, and suffered neither the birds of the +air to rest upon them by day, nor the beasts of the field by night. + +2 SAMUEL, xxi. 10. + + + Hear what the desolate Rizpah said, +As on Gibeah's rocks she watched the dead. +The sons of Michal before her lay, +And her own fair children, dearer than they: +By a death of shame they all had died, +And were stretched on the bare rock, side by side. +And Rizpah, once the loveliest of all +That bloomed and smiled in the court of Saul, +All wasted with watching and famine now, +And scorched by the sun her haggard brow, +Sat mournfully guarding their corpses there, +And murmured a strange and solemn air; +The low, heart-broken, and wailing strain +Of a mother that mourns her children slain: + + "I have made the crags my home, and spread +On their desert backs my sackcloth bed; +I have eaten the bitter herb of the rocks, +And drunk the midnight dew in my locks; +I have wept till I could not weep, and the pain +Of my burning eyeballs went to my brain. +Seven blackened corpses before me lie, +In the blaze of the sun and the winds of the sky. +I have watched them through the burning day, +And driven the vulture and raven away; +And the cormorant wheeled in circles round, +Yet feared to alight on the guarded ground. +And when the shadows of twilight came, +I have seen the hyena's eyes of flame, +And heard at my side his stealthy tread, +But aye at my shout the savage fled: +And I threw the lighted brand to fright +The jackal and wolf that yelled in the night. + + "Ye were foully murdered, my hapless sons, +By the hands of wicked and cruel ones; +Ye fell, in your fresh and blooming prime, +All innocent, for your father's crime. +He sinned--but he paid the price of his guilt +When his blood by a nameless hand was spilt; +When he strove with the heathen host in vain, +And fell with the flower of his people slain, +And the sceptre his children's hands should sway +From his injured lineage passed away. + + "But I hoped that the cottage roof would be +A safe retreat for my sons and me; +And that while they ripened to manhood fast, +They should wean my thoughts from the woes of the past. +And my bosom swelled with a mother's pride, +As they stood in their beauty and strength by my side, +Tall like their sire, with the princely grace +Of his stately form, and the bloom of his face. + + "Oh, what an hour for a mother's heart, +When the pitiless ruffians tore us apart! +When I clasped their knees and wept and prayed, +And struggled and shrieked to Heaven for aid, +And clung to my sons with desperate strength, +Till the murderers loosed my hold at length, +And bore me breathless and faint aside, +In their iron arms, while my children died. +They died--and the mother that gave them birth +Is forbid to cover their bones with earth. + + "The barley-harvest was nodding white, +When my children died on the rocky height, +And the reapers were singing on hill and plain, +When I came to my task of sorrow and pain. +But now the season of rain is nigh, +The sun is dim in the thickening sky, +And the clouds in sullen darkness rest +Where he hides his light at the doors of the west. +I hear the howl of the wind that brings +The long drear storm on its heavy wings; +But the howling wind and the driving rain +Will beat on my houseless head in vain: +I shall stay, from my murdered sons to scare +The beasts of the desert, and fowls of air." + + + + +THE OLD MAN'S FUNERAL. + + +I saw an aged man upon his bier, + His hair was thin and white, and on his brow +A record of the cares of many a year;-- + Cares that were ended and forgotten now. +And there was sadness round, and faces bowed, +And woman's tears fell fast, and children wailed aloud. + +Then rose another hoary man and said, + In faltering accents, to that weeping train, +"Why mourn ye that our aged friend is dead? + Ye are not sad to see the gathered grain, +Nor when their mellow fruit the orchards cast, +Nor when the yellow woods shake down the ripened mast. + +"Ye sigh not when the sun, his course fulfilled, + His glorious course, rejoicing earth and sky, +In the soft evening, when the winds are stilled, + Sinks where his islands of refreshment lie, +And leaves the smile of his departure, spread +O'er the warm-coloured heaven and ruddy mountain head. + +"Why weep ye then for him, who, having won + The bound of man's appointed years, at last, +Life's blessings all enjoyed, life's labours done, + Serenely to his final rest has passed; +While the soft memory of his virtues, yet, +Lingers like twilight hues, when the bright sun is set? + +"His youth was innocent; his riper age + Marked with some act of goodness every day; +And watched by eyes that loved him, calm, and sage, + Faded his late declining years away. +Cheerful he gave his being up, and went +To share the holy rest that waits a life well spent. + +"That life was happy; every day he gave + Thanks for the fair existence that was his; +For a sick fancy made him not her slave, + To mock him with her phantom miseries. +No chronic tortures racked his aged limb, +For luxury and sloth had nourished none for him. + +"And I am glad that he has lived thus long, + And glad that he has gone to his reward; +Nor can I deem that nature did him wrong, + Softly to disengage the vital cord. +For when his hand grew palsied, and his eye +Dark with the mists of age, it was his time to die." + + + + +THE RIVULET. + + +This little rill, that from the springs +Of yonder grove its current brings, +Plays on the slope a while, and then +Goes prattling into groves again, +Oft to its warbling waters drew +My little feet, when life was new, +When woods in early green were dressed, +And from the chambers of the west +The warmer breezes, travelling out, +Breathed the new scent of flowers about, +My truant steps from home would stray, +Upon its grassy side to play, +List the brown thrasher's vernal hymn, +And crop the violet on its brim, +With blooming cheek and open brow, +As young and gay, sweet rill, as thou. + + And when the days of boyhood came, +And I had grown in love with fame, +Duly I sought thy banks, and tried +My first rude numbers by thy side. +Words cannot tell how bright and gay +The scenes of life before me lay. +Then glorious hopes, that now to speak +Would bring the blood into my cheek, +Passed o'er me; and I wrote, on high, +A name I deemed should never die. + + Years change thee not. Upon yon hill +The tall old maples, verdant still, +Yet tell, in grandeur of decay, +How swift the years have passed away, +Since first, a child, and half afraid, +I wandered in the forest shade. +Thou ever joyous rivulet, +Dost dimple, leap, and prattle yet; +And sporting with the sands that pave +The windings of thy silver wave, +And dancing to thy own wild chime, +Thou laughest at the lapse of time. +The same sweet sounds are in my ear +My early childhood loved to hear; +As pure thy limpid waters run, +As bright they sparkle to the sun; +As fresh and thick the bending ranks +Of herbs that line thy oozy banks; +The violet there, in soft May dew, +Comes up, as modest and as blue, +As green amid thy current's stress, +Floats the scarce-rooted watercress: +And the brown ground-bird, in thy glen, +Still chirps as merrily as then. + + Thou changest not--but I am changed, +Since first thy pleasant banks I ranged; +And the grave stranger, come to see +The play-place of his infancy, +Has scarce a single trace of him +Who sported once upon thy brim. +The visions of my youth are past-- +Too bright, too beautiful to last. +I've tried the world--it wears no more +The colouring of romance it wore. +Yet well has Nature kept the truth +She promised to my earliest youth. +The radiant beauty shed abroad +On all the glorious works of God, +Shows freshly, to my sobered eye, +Each charm it wore in days gone by. + + A few brief years shall pass away, +And I, all trembling, weak, and gray, +Bowed to the earth, which waits to fold +My ashes in the embracing mould, +(If haply the dark will of fate +Indulge my life so long a date) +May come for the last time to look +Upon my childhood's favourite brook. +Then dimly on my eye shall gleam +The sparkle of thy dancing stream; +And faintly on my ear shall fall +Thy prattling current's merry call; +Yet shalt thou flow as glad and bright +As when thou met'st my infant sight. + + And I shall sleep--and on thy side, +As ages after ages glide, +Children their early sports shall try, +And pass to hoary age and die. +But thou, unchanged from year to year, +Gayly shalt play and glitter here; +Amid young flowers and tender grass +Thy endless infancy shalt pass; +And, singing down thy narrow glen, +Shalt mock the fading race of men. + + + + +MARCH. + + +The stormy March is come at last, + With wind, and cloud, and changing skies, +I hear the rushing of the blast, + That through the snowy valley flies. + +Ah, passing few are they who speak, + Wild stormy month! in praise of thee; +Yet, though thy winds are loud and bleak, + Thou art a welcome month to me. + +For thou, to northern lands, again + The glad and glorious sun dost bring, +And thou hast joined the gentle train + And wear'st the gentle name of Spring. + +And, in thy reign of blast and storm, + Smiles many a long, bright, sunny day, +When the changed winds are soft and warm, + And heaven puts on the blue of May. + +Then sing aloud the gushing rills + And the full springs, from frost set free, +That, brightly leaping down the hills, + Are just set out to meet the sea. + +The year's departing beauty hides + Of wintry storms the sullen threat; +But in thy sternest frown abides + A look of kindly promise yet. + +Thou bring'st the hope of those calm skies, + And that soft time of sunny showers, +When the wide bloom, on earth that lies, + Seems of a brighter world than ours. + + + + +SONNET TO ----. + + +Ay, thou art for the grave; thy glances shine + Too brightly to shine long; another Spring +Shall deck her for men's eyes,--but not for thine-- + Sealed in a sleep which knows no wakening. +The fields for thee have no medicinal leaf, + And the vexed ore no mineral of power; +And they who love thee wait in anxious grief + Till the slow plague shall bring the fatal hour. +Glide softly to thy rest then; Death should come + Gently, to one of gentle mould like thee, +As light winds wandering through groves of bloom + Detach the delicate blossom from the tree. +Close thy sweet eyes, calmly, and without pain; +And we will trust in God to see thee yet again. + + + + +AN INDIAN STORY. + + +"I know where the timid fawn abides + In the depths of the shaded dell, +Where the leaves are broad and the thicket hides, +With its many stems and its tangled sides, + From the eye of the hunter well. + +"I know where the young May violet grows, + In its lone and lowly nook, +On the mossy bank, where the larch-tree throws +Its broad dark boughs, in solemn repose, + Far over the silent brook. + +"And that timid fawn starts not with fear + When I steal to her secret bower; +And that young May violet to me is dear, +And I visit the silent streamlet near, + To look on the lovely flower." + +Thus Maquon sings as he lightly walks + To the hunting-ground on the hills; +'Tis a song of his maid of the woods and rocks, +With her bright black eyes and long black locks, + And voice like the music of rills. + +He goes to the chase--but evil eyes + Are at watch in the thicker shades; +For she was lovely that smiled on his sighs, +And he bore, from a hundred lovers, his prize, + The flower of the forest maids. + +The boughs in the morning wind are stirred, + And the woods their song renew, +With the early carol of many a bird, +And the quickened tune of the streamlet heard + Where the hazels trickle with dew. + +And Maquon has promised his dark-haired maid, + Ere eve shall redden the sky, +A good red deer from the forest shade, +That bounds with the herd through grove and glade, + At her cabin-door shall lie. + +The hollow woods, in the setting sun, + Ring shrill with the fire-bird's lay; +And Maquon's sylvan labours are done, +And his shafts are spent, but the spoil they won + He bears on his homeward way. + +He stops near his bower--his eye perceives + Strange traces along the ground-- +At once to the earth his burden he heaves, +He breaks through the veil of boughs and leaves, + And gains its door with a bound. + +But the vines are torn on its walls that leant, + And all from the young shrubs there +By struggling hands have the leaves been rent, +And there hangs on the sassafras, broken and bent, + One tress of the well-known hair. + +But where is she who, at this calm hour, + Ever watched his coming to see? +She is not at the door, nor yet in the bower; +He calls--but he only hears on the flower + The hum of the laden bee. + +It is not a time for idle grief, + Nor a time for tears to flow; +The horror that freezes his limbs is brief-- +He grasps his war-axe and bow, and a sheaf + Of darts made sharp for the foe. + +And he looks for the print of the ruffian's feet, + Where he bore the maiden away; +And he darts on the fatal path more fleet +Than the blast that hurries the vapour and sleet + O'er the wild November day. + +'Twas early summer when Maquon's bride + Was stolen away from his door; +But at length the maples in crimson are dyed, +And the grape is black on the cabin side,-- + And she smiles at his hearth once more. + +But far in the pine-grove, dark and cold, + Where the yellow leaf falls not, +Nor the autumn shines in scarlet and gold, +There lies a hillock of fresh dark mould, + In the deepest gloom of the spot. + +And the Indian girls, that pass that way, + Point out the ravisher's grave; +"And how soon to the bower she loved," they say, +"Returned the maid that was borne away + From Maquon, the fond and the brave." + + + + +SUMMER WIND. + + + It is a sultry day; the sun has drunk +The dew that lay upon the morning grass; +There is no rustling in the lofty elm +That canopies my dwelling, and its shade +Scarce cools me. All is silent, save the faint +And interrupted murmur of the bee, +Settling on the sick flowers, and then again +Instantly on the wing. The plants around +Feel the too potent fervours: the tall maize +Rolls up its long green leaves; the clover droops +Its tender foliage, and declines its blooms. +But far in the fierce sunshine tower the hills, +With all their growth of woods, silent and stern, +As if the scorching heat and dazzling light +Were but an element they loved. Bright clouds, +Motionless pillars of the brazen heaven,-- +Their bases on the mountains--their white tops +Shining in the far ether--fire the air +With a reflected radiance, and make turn +The gazer's eye away. For me, I lie +Languidly in the shade, where the thick turf, +Yet virgin from the kisses of the sun, +Retains some freshness, and I woo the wind +That still delays its coming. Why so slow, +Gentle and voluble spirit of the air? +Oh, come and breathe upon the fainting earth +Coolness and life. Is it that in his caves +He hears me? See, on yonder woody ridge, +The pine is bending his proud top, and now +Among the nearer groves, chestnut and oak +Are tossing their green boughs about. He comes! +Lo, where the grassy meadow runs in waves! +The deep distressful silence of the scene +Breaks up with mingling of unnumbered sounds +And universal motion. He is come, +Shaking a shower of blossoms from the shrubs, +And bearing on their fragrance; and he brings +Music of birds, and rustling of young boughs, +And sound of swaying branches, and the voice +Of distant waterfalls. All the green herbs +Are stirring in his breath; a thousand flowers, +By the road-side and the borders of the brook, +Nod gayly to each other; glossy leaves +Are twinkling in the sun, as if the dew +Were on them yet, and silver waters break +Into small waves and sparkle as he comes. + + + + +AN INDIAN AT THE BURIAL-PLACE OF HIS FATHERS. + + +It is the spot I came to seek,-- + My fathers' ancient burial-place +Ere from these vales, ashamed and weak, + Withdrew our wasted race. +It is the spot--I know it well-- +Of which our old traditions tell. + +For here the upland bank sends out + A ridge toward the river-side; +I know the shaggy hills about, + The meadows smooth and wide,-- +The plains, that, toward the southern sky, +Fenced east and west by mountains lie. + +A white man, gazing on the scene, + Would say a lovely spot was here, +And praise the lawns, so fresh and green, + Between the hills so sheer. +I like it not--I would the plain +Lay in its tall old groves again. + +The sheep are on the slopes around, + The cattle in the meadows feed, +And labourers turn the crumbling ground, + Or drop the yellow seed, +And prancing steeds, in trappings gay, +Whirl the bright chariot o'er the way. + +Methinks it were a nobler sight + To see these vales in woods arrayed, +Their summits in the golden light, + Their trunks in grateful shade, +And herds of deer, that bounding go +O'er hills and prostrate trees below. + +And then to mark the lord of all, + The forest hero, trained to wars, +Quivered and plumed, and lithe and tall, + And seamed with glorious scars, +Walk forth, amid his reign, to dare +The wolf, and grapple with the bear. + +This bank, in which the dead were laid, + Was sacred when its soil was ours; +Hither the artless Indian maid + Brought wreaths of beads and flowers, +And the gray chief and gifted seer +Worshipped the god of thunders here. + +But now the wheat is green and high + On clods that hid the warrior's breast, +And scattered in the furrows lie + The weapons of his rest; +And there, in the loose sand, is thrown +Of his large arm the mouldering bone. + +Ah, little thought the strong and brave + Who bore their lifeless chieftain forth-- +Or the young wife, that weeping gave + Her first-born to the earth, +That the pale race, who waste us now, +Among their bones should guide the plough. + +They waste us--ay--like April snow + In the warm noon, we shrink away; +And fast they follow, as we go + Towards the setting day,-- +Till they shall fill the land, and we +Are driven into the western sea. + +But I behold a fearful sign, + To which the white men's eyes are blind; +Their race may vanish hence, like mine, + And leave no trace behind, +Save ruins o'er the region spread, +And the white stones above the dead. + +Before these fields were shorn and tilled, + Full to the brim our rivers flowed; +The melody of waters filled + The fresh and boundless wood; +And torrents dashed and rivulets played, +And fountains spouted in the shade. + +Those grateful sounds are heard no more, + The springs are silent in the sun; +The rivers, by the blackened shore, + With lessening current run; +The realm our tribes are crushed to get +May be a barren desert yet. + + + + +SONG. + + +Dost thou idly ask to hear + At what gentle seasons +Nymphs relent, when lovers near + Press the tenderest reasons? +Ah, they give their faith too oft + To the careless wooer; +Maidens' hearts are always soft: + Would that men's were truer! + +Woo the fair one, when around + Early birds are singing; +When, o'er all the fragrant ground. + Early herbs are springing: +When the brookside, bank, and grove, + All with blossoms laden, +Shine with beauty, breathe of love,-- + Woo the timid maiden. + +Woo her when, with rosy blush, + Summer eve is sinking; +When, on rills that softly gush, + Stars are softly winking; +When, through boughs that knit the bower, + Moonlight gleams are stealing; +Woo her, till the gentle hour + Wake a gentler feeling. + +Woo her, when autumnal dyes + Tinge the woody mountain; +When the dropping foliage lies + In the weedy fountain; +Let the scene, that tells how fast + Youth is passing over, +Warn her, ere her bloom is past, + To secure her lover. + +Woo her, when the north winds call + At the lattice nightly; +When, within the cheerful hall, + Blaze the fagots brightly; +While the wintry tempest round + Sweeps the landscape hoary, +Sweeter in her ear shall sound + Love's delightful story. + + + + +HYMN OF THE WALDENSES. + + +Hear, Father, hear thy faint afflicted flock +Cry to thee, from the desert and the rock; +While those, who seek to slay thy children, hold +Blasphemous worship under roofs of gold; +And the broad goodly lands, with pleasant airs +That nurse the grape and wave the grain, are theirs. + +Yet better were this mountain wilderness, +And this wild life of danger and distress-- +Watchings by night and perilous flight by day, +And meetings in the depths of earth to pray, +Better, far better, than to kneel with them, +And pay the impious rite thy laws condemn. + +Thou, Lord, dost hold the thunder; the firm land +Tosses in billows when it feels thy hand; +Thou dashest nation against nation, then +Stillest the angry world to peace again. +Oh, touch their stony hearts who hunt thy sons-- +The murderers of our wives and little ones. + +Yet, mighty God, yet shall thy frown look forth +Unveiled, and terribly shall shake the earth. +Then the foul power of priestly sin and all +Its long-upheld idolatries shall fall. +Thou shalt raise up the trampled and oppressed, +And thy delivered saints shall dwell in rest. + + + + +MONUMENT MOUNTAIN. deg. + + + Thou who wouldst see the lovely and the wild +Mingled in harmony on Nature's face, +Ascend our rocky mountains. Let thy foot +Fail not with weariness, for on their tops +The beauty and the majesty of earth, +Spread wide beneath, shall make thee to forget +The steep and toilsome way. There, as thou stand'st, +The haunts of men below thee, and around +The mountain summits, thy expanding heart +Shall feel a kindred with that loftier world +To which thou art translated, and partake +The enlargement of thy vision. Thou shalt look +Upon the green and rolling forest tops, +And down into the secrets of the glens, +And streams, that with their bordering thickets strive +To hide their windings. Thou shalt gaze, at once, +Here on white villages, and tilth, and herds, +And swarming roads, and there on solitudes +That only hear the torrent, and the wind, +And eagle's shriek. There is a precipice +That seems a fragment of some mighty wall, +Built by the hand that fashioned the old world, +To separate its nations, and thrown down +When the flood drowned them. To the north, a path +Conducts you up the narrow battlement. +Steep is the western side, shaggy and wild +With mossy trees, and pinnacles of flint, +And many a hanging crag. But, to the east, +Sheer to the vale go down the bare old cliffs,-- +Huge pillars, that in middle heaven upbear +Their weather-beaten capitals, here dark +With the thick moss of centuries, and there +Of chalky whiteness where the thunderbolt +Has splintered them. It is a fearful thing +To stand upon the beetling verge, and see +Where storm and lightning, from that huge gray wall, +Have tumbled down vast blocks, and at the base +Dashed them in fragments, and to lay thine ear +Over the dizzy depth, and hear the sound +Of winds, that struggle with the woods below, +Come up like ocean murmurs. But the scene +Is lovely round; a beautiful river there +Wanders amid the fresh and fertile meads, +The paradise he made unto himself, +Mining the soil for ages. On each side +The fields swell upward to the hills; beyond, +Above the hills, in the blue distance, rise +The mighty columns with which earth props heaven. + + There is a tale about these reverend rocks, +A sad tradition of unhappy love, +And sorrows borne and ended, long ago, +When over these fair vales the savage sought +His game in the thick woods. There was a maid, +The fairest of the Indian maids, bright-eyed, +With wealth of raven tresses, a light form, +And a gay heart. About her cabin-door +The wide old woods resounded with her song +And fairy laughter all the summer day. +She loved her cousin; such a love was deemed, +By the morality of those stern tribes, +Incestuous, and she struggled hard and long +Against her love, and reasoned with her heart, +As simple Indian maiden might. In vain. +Then her eye lost its lustre, and her step +Its lightness, and the gray-haired men that passed +Her dwelling, wondered that they heard no more +The accustomed song and laugh of her, whose looks +Were like the cheerful smile of Spring, they said, +Upon the Winter of their age. She went +To weep where no eye saw, and was not found +When all the merry girls were met to dance, +And all the hunters of the tribe were out; +Nor when they gathered from the rustling husk +The shining ear; nor when, by the river's side, +Thay pulled the grape and startled the wild shades +With sounds of mirth. The keen-eyed Indian dames +Would whisper to each other, as they saw +Her wasting form, and say _the girl will die_. + + One day into the bosom of a friend, +A playmate of her young and innocent years, +She poured her griefs. "Thou know'st, and thou alone," +She said, "for I have told thee, all my love, +And guilt, and sorrow. I am sick of life. +All night I weep in darkness, and the morn +Glares on me, as upon a thing accursed, +That has no business on the earth. I hate +The pastimes and the pleasant toils that once +I loved; the cheerful voices of my friends +Have an unnatural horror in mine ear. +In dreams my mother, from the land of souls, +Calls me and chides me. All that look on me +Do seem to know my shame; I cannot bear +Their eyes; I cannot from my heart root out +The love that wrings it so, and I must die." + + It was a summer morning, and they went +To this old precipice. About the cliffs +Lay garlands, ears of maize, and shaggy skins +Of wolf and bear, the offerings of the tribe +Here made to the Great Spirit, for they deemed, +Like worshippers of the elder time, that God +Doth walk on the high places and affect +The earth-o'erlooking mountains. She had on +The ornaments with which her father loved +To deck the beauty of his bright-eyed girl, +And bade her wear when stranger warriors came +To be his guests. Here the friends sat them down, +And sang, all day, old songs of love and death, +And decked the poor wan victim's hair with flowers, +And prayed that safe and swift might be her way +To the calm world of sunshine, where no grief +Makes the heart heavy and the eyelids red. +Beautiful lay the region of her tribe +Below her--waters resting in the embrace +Of the wide forest, and maize-planted glades +Opening amid the leafy wilderness. +She gazed upon it long, and at the sight +Of her own village peeping through the trees, +And her own dwelling, and the cabin roof +Of him she loved with an unlawful love, +And came to die for, a warm gush of tears +Ran from her eyes. But when the sun grew low +And the hill shadows long, she threw herself +From the steep rock and perished. There was scooped +Upon the mountain's southern slope, a grave; +And there they laid her, in the very garb +With which the maiden decked herself for death, +With the same withering wild flowers in her hair. +And o'er the mould that covered her, the tribe +Built up a simple monument, a cone +Of small loose stones. Thenceforward all who passed, +Hunter, and dame, and virgin, laid a stone +In silence on the pile. It stands there yet. +And Indians from the distant West, who come +To visit where their fathers' bones are laid, +Yet tell the sorrowful tale, and to this day +The mountain where the hapless maiden died +Is called the Mountain of the Monument. + + + + +AFTER A TEMPEST. + + + The day had been a day of wind and storm;-- + The wind was laid, the storm was overpast,-- + And stooping from the zenith bright and warm + Shone the great sun on the wide earth at last. + I stood upon the upland slope, and cast + My eye upon a broad and beauteous scene, + Where the vast plain lay girt by mountains vast, + And hills o'er hills lifted their heads of green, +With pleasant vales scooped out and villages between. + + The rain-drops glistened on the trees around, + Whose shadows on the tall grass were not stirred, + Save when a shower of diamonds, to the ground, + Was shaken by the flight of startled bird; + For birds were warbling round, and bees were heard + About the flowers; the cheerful rivulet sung + And gossiped, as he hastened ocean-ward; + To the gray oak the squirrel, chiding, clung, +And chirping from the ground the grasshopper upsprung. + + And from beneath the leaves that kept them dry + Flew many a glittering insect here and there, + And darted up and down the butterfly, + That seemed a living blossom of the air. + The flocks came scattering from the thicket, where + The violent rain had pent them; in the way + Strolled groups of damsels frolicksome and fair; + The farmer swung the scythe or turned the hay, +And 'twixt the heavy swaths his children were at play. + + It was a scene of peace--and, like a spell, + Did that serene and golden sunlight fall + Upon the motionless wood that clothed the fell, + And precipice upspringing like a wall, + And glassy river and white waterfall, + And happy living things that trod the bright + And beauteous scene; while far beyond them all, + On many a lovely valley, out of sight, +Was poured from the blue heavens the same soft golden light. + + I looked, and thought the quiet of the scene + An emblem of the peace that yet shall be, + When o'er earth's continents, and isles between, + The noise of war shall cease from sea to sea, + And married nations dwell in harmony; + When millions, crouching in the dust to one, + No more shall beg their lives on bended knee, + Nor the black stake be dressed, nor in the sun +The o'erlaboured captive toil, and wish his life were done. + + Too long, at clash of arms amid her bowers + And pools of blood, the earth has stood aghast, + The fair earth, that should only blush with flowers + And ruddy fruits; but not for aye can last + The storm, and sweet the sunshine when 'tis past. + Lo, the clouds roll away--they break--they fly, + And, like the glorious light of summer, cast + O'er the wide landscape from the embracing sky, +On all the peaceful world the smile of heaven shall lie. + + + + +AUTUMN WOODS. + + + Ere, in the northern gale, +The summer tresses of the trees are gone, +The woods of Autumn, all around our vale, + Have put their glory on. + + The mountains that infold, +In their wide sweep, the coloured landscape round, +Seem groups of giant kings, in purple and gold, + That guard the enchanted ground. + + I roam the woods that crown +The upland, where the mingled splendours glow, +Where the gay company of trees look down + On the green fields below. + + My steps are not alone +In these bright walks; the sweet south-west, at play, +Flies, rustling, where the painted leaves are strown + Along the winding way. + + And far in heaven, the while, +The sun, that sends that gale to wander here, +Pours out on the fair earth his quiet smile,-- + The sweetest of the year. + + Where now the solemn shade, +Verdure and gloom where many branches meet; +So grateful, when the noon of summer made + The valleys sick with heat? + + Let in through all the trees +Come the strange rays; the forest depths are bright? +Their sunny-coloured foliage, in the breeze, + Twinkles, like beams of light. + + The rivulet, late unseen, +Where bickering through the shrubs its waters run, +Shines with the image of its golden screen, + And glimmerings of the sun. + + But 'neath yon crimson tree, +Lover to listening maid might breathe his flame, +Nor mark, within its roseate canopy, + Her blush of maiden shame. + + Oh, Autumn! why so soon +Depart the hues that make thy forests glad; +Thy gentle wind and thy fair sunny noon, + And leave thee wild and sad! + + Ah! 'twere a lot too blessed +For ever in thy coloured shades to stray; +Amid the kisses of the soft south-west + To rove and dream for aye; + + And leave the vain low strife +That makes men mad--the tug for wealth and power, +The passions and the cares that wither life, + And waste its little hour. + + + + +MUTATION. + +A SONNET. + + +They talk of short-lived pleasure--be it so-- + Pain dies as quickly: stern, hard-featured pain +Expires, and lets her weary prisoner go. + The fiercest agonies have shortest reign; + And after dreams of horror, comes again +The welcome morning with its rays of peace; + Oblivion, softly wiping out the stain, +Makes the strong secret pangs of shame to cease: +Remorse is virtue's root; its fair increase + Are fruits of innocence and blessedness: +Thus joy, o'erborne and bound, doth still release + His young limbs from the chains that round him press. +Weep not that the world changes--did it keep +A stable, changeless state, 'twere cause indeed to weep. + + + + +NOVEMBER. + +A SONNET. + + +Yet one smile more, departing, distant sun! + One mellow smile through the soft vapoury air, +Ere, o'er the frozen earth, the loud winds run, + Or snows are sifted o'er the meadows bare. +One smile on the brown hills and naked trees, + And the dark rocks whose summer wreaths are cast, +And the blue gentian flower, that, in the breeze, + Nods lonely, of her beauteous race the last. +Yet a few sunny days, in which the bee + Shall murmur by the hedge that skirts the way, +The cricket chirp upon the russet lea, + And man delight to linger in thy ray. +Yet one rich smile, and we will try to bear +The piercing winter frost, and winds, and darkened air. + + + + +SONG OF THE GREEK AMAZON. + + +I buckle to my slender side + The pistol and the scimitar, +And in my maiden flower and pride + Am come to share the tasks of war. +And yonder stands my fiery steed, + That paws the ground and neighs to go, +My charger of the Arab breed,-- + I took him from the routed foe. + +My mirror is the mountain spring, + At which I dress my ruffled hair; +My dimmed and dusty arms I bring, + And wash away the blood-stain there. +Why should I guard from wind and sun + This cheek, whose virgin rose is fled? +It was for one--oh, only one-- + I kept its bloom, and he is dead. + +But they who slew him--unaware + Of coward murderers lurking nigh-- +And left him to the fowls of air, + Are yet alive--and they must die. +They slew him--and my virgin years + Are vowed to Greece and vengeance now, +And many an Othman dame, in tears, + Shall rue the Grecian maiden's vow. + +I touched the lute in better days, + I led in dance the joyous band; +Ah! they may move to mirthful lays + Whose hands can touch a lover's hand. +The march of hosts that haste to meet + Seems gayer than the dance to me; +The lute's sweet tones are not so sweet + As the fierce shout of victory. + + + + +TO A CLOUD. + + +Beautiful cloud! with folds so soft and fair, + Swimming in the pure quiet air! +Thy fleeces bathed in sunlight, while below + Thy shadow o'er the vale moves slow; +Where, midst their labour, pause the reaper train + As cool it comes along the grain. +Beautiful cloud! I would I were with thee + In thy calm way o'er land and sea: +To rest on thy unrolling skirts, and look + On Earth as on an open book; +On streams that tie her realms with silver bands, + And the long ways that seem her lands; +And hear her humming cities, and the sound + Of the great ocean breaking round. +Ay--I would sail upon thy air-borne car + To blooming regions distant far, +To where the sun of Andalusia shines + On his own olive-groves and vines, +Or the soft lights of Italy's bright sky + In smiles upon her ruins lie. +But I would woo the winds to let us rest + O'er Greece long fettered and oppressed, +Whose sons at length have heard the call that comes + From the old battle-fields and tombs, +And risen, and drawn the sword, and on the foe + Have dealt the swift and desperate blow, +And the Othman power is cloven, and the stroke + Has touched its chains, and they are broke. +Ay, we would linger till the sunset there + Should come, to purple all the air, +And thou reflect upon the sacred ground + The ruddy radiance streaming round. + +Bright meteor! for the summer noontide made! + Thy peerless beauty yet shall fade. +The sun, that fills with light each glistening fold, + Shall set, and leave thee dark and cold: +The blast shall rend thy skirts, or thou mayst frown + In the dark heaven when storms come down; +And weep in rain, till man's inquiring eye + Miss thee, for ever, from the sky. + + + + +THE MURDERED TRAVELLER. deg. + + +When spring, to woods and wastes around, + Brought bloom and joy again, +The murdered traveller's bones were found, + Far down a narrow glen. + +The fragrant birch, above him, hung + Her tassels in the sky; +And many a vernal blossom sprung, + And nodded careless by. + +The red-bird warbled, as he wrought + His hanging nest o'erhead, +And fearless, near the fatal spot, + Her young the partridge led. + +But there was weeping far away, + And gentle eyes, for him, +With watching many an anxious day, + Were sorrowful and dim. + +They little knew, who loved him so, + The fearful death he met, +When shouting o'er the desert snow, + Unarmed, and hard beset;-- + +Nor how, when round the frosty pole + The northern dawn was red, +The mountain wolf and wild-cat stole + To banquet on the dead;-- + +Nor how, when strangers found his bones, + They dressed the hasty bier, +And marked his grave with nameless stones, + Unmoistened by a tear. + +But long they looked, and feared, and wept, + Within his distant home; +And dreamed, and started as they slept, + For joy that he was come. + +Long, long they looked--but never spied + His welcome step again, +Nor knew the fearful death he died + Far down that narrow glen. + + + + +HYMN TO THE NORTH STAR. + + + The sad and solemn night + Hath yet her multitude of cheerful fires; + The glorious host of light + Walk the dark hemisphere till she retires; + All through her silent watches, gliding slow, +Her constellations come, and climb the heavens, and go. + + Day, too, hath many a star + To grace his gorgeous reign, as bright as they: + Through the blue fields afar, + Unseen, they follow in his flaming way: + Many a bright lingerer, as the eve grows dim, +Tells what a radiant troop arose and set with him. + + And thou dost see them rise, + Star of the Pole! and thou dost see them set. + Alone, in thy cold skies, + Thou keep'st thy old unmoving station yet, + Nor join'st the dances of that glittering train, +Nor dipp'st thy virgin orb in the blue western main. + + There, at morn's rosy birth, + Thou lookest meekly through the kindling air, + And eve, that round the earth + Chases the day, beholds thee watching there; + There noontide finds thee, and the hour that calls +The shapes of polar flame to scale heaven's azure walls. + + Alike, beneath thine eye, + The deeds of darkness and of light are done; + High towards the star-lit sky + Towns blaze--the smoke of battle blots the sun-- + The night-storm on a thousand hills is loud-- +And the strong wind of day doth mingle sea and cloud. + + On thy unaltering blaze + The half-wrecked mariner, his compass lost, + Fixes his steady gaze, + And steers, undoubting, to the friendly coast; + And they who stray in perilous wastes, by night, +Are glad when thou dost shine to guide their footsteps right. + + And, therefore, bards of old, + Sages, and hermits of the solemn wood, + Did in thy beams behold + A beauteous type of that unchanging good, + That bright eternal beacon, by whose ray +The voyager of time should shape his heedful way. + + + + +THE LAPSE OF TIME. + + +Lament who will, in fruitless tears, + The speed with which our moments fly; +I sigh not over vanished years, + But watch the years that hasten by. + +Look, how they come,--a mingled crowd + Of bright and dark, but rapid days; +Beneath them, like a summer cloud, + The wide world changes as I gaze. + +What! grieve that time has brought so soon + The sober age of manhood on! +As idly might I weep, at noon, + To see the blush of morning gone. + +Could I give up the hopes that glow + In prospect like Elysian isles; +And let the cheerful future go, + With all her promises and smiles? + +The future!--cruel were the power + Whose doom would tear thee from my heart. +Thou sweetener of the present hour! + We cannot--no--we will not part. + +Oh, leave me, still, the rapid flight + That makes the changing seasons gay, +The grateful speed that brings the night, + The swift and glad return of day; + +The months that touch, with added grace, + This little prattler at my knee, +In whose arch eye and speaking face + New meaning every hour I see; + +The years, that o'er each sister land + Shall lift the country of my birth, +And nurse her strength, till she shall stand + The pride and pattern of the earth: + +Till younger commonwealths, for aid, + Shall cling about her ample robe, +And from her frown shall shrink afraid + The crowned oppressors of the globe. + +True--time will seam and blanch my brow-- + Well--I shall sit with aged men, +And my good glass will tell me how + A grizzly beard becomes me then. + +And then should no dishonour lie + Upon my head, when I am gray, +Love yet shall watch my fading eye, + And smooth the path of my decay. + +Then haste thee, Time--'tis kindness all + That speeds thy winged feet so fast: +Thy pleasures stay not till they pall, + And all thy pains are quickly past. + +Thou fliest and bear'st away our woes, + And as thy shadowy train depart, +The memory of sorrow grows + A lighter burden on the heart. + + + + +SONG OF THE STARS. + + +When the radiant morn of creation broke, +And the world in the smile of God awoke, +And the empty realms of darkness and death +Were moved through their depths by his mighty breath, +And orbs of beauty and spheres of flame +From the void abyss by myriads came,-- +In the joy of youth as they darted away, +Through the widening wastes of space to play, +Their silver voices in chorus rang, +And this was the song the bright ones sang: + +"Away, away, through the wide, wide sky, +The fair blue fields that before us lie,-- +Each sun with the worlds that round him roll, +Each planet, poised on her turning pole; +With her isles of green, and her clouds of white, +And her waters that lie like fluid light. + +"For the source of glory uncovers his face, +And the brightness o'erflows unbounded space; +And we drink as we go the luminous tides +In our ruddy air and our blooming sides: +Lo, yonder the living splendours play; +Away, on our joyous path, away! + +"Look, look, through our glittering ranks afar, +In the infinite azure, star after star, +How they brighten and bloom as they swiftly pass! +How the verdure runs o'er each rolling mass! +And the path of the gentle winds is seen, +Where the small waves dance, and the young woods lean. + +"And see where the brighter day-beams pour, +How the rainbows hang in the sunny shower; +And the morn and eve, with their pomp of hues, +Shift o'er the bright planets and shed their dews; +And 'twixt them both, o'er the teeming ground, +With her shadowy cone the night goes round! + +"Away, away! in our blossoming bowers, +In the soft air wrapping these spheres of ours, +In the seas and fountains that shine with morn, +See, Love is brooding, and Life is born, +And breathing myriads are breaking from night, +To rejoice, like us, in motion and light. + +"Glide on in your beauty, ye youthful spheres, +To weave the dance that measures the years; +Glide on, in the glory and gladness sent, +To the farthest wall of the firmament,-- +The boundless visible smile of Him, +To the veil of whose brow your lamps are dim." + + + + +A FOREST HYMN. + + + The groves were God's first temples. Ere man learned +To hew the shaft, and lay the architrave, +And spread the roof above them,--ere he framed +The lofty vault, to gather and roll back +The sound of anthems; in the darkling wood, +Amidst the cool and silence, he knelt down, +And offered to the Mightiest solemn thanks +And supplication. For his simple heart +Might not resist the sacred influences +Which, from the stilly twilight of the place, +And from the gray old trunks that high in heaven +Mingled their mossy boughs, and from the sound +Of the invisible breath that swayed at once +All their green tops, stole over him, and bowed +His spirit with the thought of boundless power +And inaccessible majesty. Ah, why +Should we, in the world's riper years, neglect +God's ancient sanctuaries, and adore +Only among the crowd, and under roofs +That our frail hands have raised? Let me, at least, +Here, in the shadow of this aged wood, +Offer one hymn--thrice happy, if it find +Acceptance in His ear. + + Father, thy hand +Hath reared these venerable columns, thou +Didst weave this verdant roof. Thou didst look down +Upon the naked earth, and, forthwith, rose +All these fair ranks of trees. They, in thy sun, +Budded, and shook their green leaves in thy breeze, +And shot towards heaven. The century-living crow, +Whose birth was in their tops, grew old and died +Among their branches, till, at last, they stood, +As now they stand, massy, and tall, and dark, +Fit shrine for humble worshipper to hold +Communion with his Maker. These dim vaults, +These winding aisles, of human pomp or pride +Report not. No fantasting carvings show +The boast of our vain race to change the form +Of thy fair works. But thou art here--thou fill'st +The solitude. Thou art in the soft winds +That run along the summit of these trees +In music;--thou art in the cooler breath +That from the inmost darkness of the place +Comes, scarcely felt; the barky trunks, the ground, +The fresh moist ground, are all instinct with thee. +Here is continual worship;--nature, here, +In the tranquillity that thou dost love, +Enjoys thy presence. Noiselessly, around, +From perch to perch, the solitary bird +Passes: and yon clear spring, that, midst its herbs, +Wells softly forth and visits the strong roots +Of half the mighty forest, tells no tale +Of all the good it does. Thou hast not left +Thyself without a witness, in these shades, +Of thy perfections. Grandeur, strength, and grace +Are here to speak of thee. This mighty oak-- +By whose immovable stem I stand and seem +Almost annihilated--not a prince, +In all that proud old world beyond the deep, +Ere wore his crown as loftily as he +Wears the green coronal of leaves with which +Thy hand has graced him. Nestled at his root +Is beauty, such as blooms not in the glare +Of the broad sun. That delicate forest flower +With scented breath, and look so like a smile, +Seems, as it issues from the shapeless mould, +An emanation of the indwelling Life, +A visible token of the upholding Love, +That are the soul of this wide universe. + + My heart is awed within me when I think +Of the great miracle that still goes on, +In silence, round me--the perpetual work +Of thy creation, finished, yet renewed +For ever. Written on thy works I read +The lesson of thy own eternity. +Lo! all grow old and die--but see again, +How on the faltering footsteps of decay +Youth presses--ever gay and beautiful youth +In all its beautiful forms. These lofty trees +Wave not less proudly that their ancestors +Moulder beneath them. Oh, there is not lost +One of earth's charms: upon her bosom yet, +After the flight of untold centuries, +The freshness of her far beginning lies +And yet shall lie. Life mocks the idle hate +Of his arch enemy Death--yea, seats himself +Upon the tyrant's throne--the sepulchre, +And of the triumphs of his ghastly foe +Makes his own nourishment. For he came forth +From thine own bosom, and shall have no end. + + There have been holy men who hid themselves +Deep in the woody wilderness, and gave +Their lives to thought and prayer, till they outlived +The generation born with them, nor seemed +Less aged than the hoary trees and rocks +Around them;--and there have been holy men +Who deemed it were not well to pass life thus. +But let me often to these solitudes +Retire, and in thy presence reassure +My feeble virtue. Here its enemies, +The passions, at thy plainer footsteps shrink +And tremble and are still. Oh, God! when thou +Dost scare the world with tempests, set on fire +The heavens with falling thunderbolts, or fill, +With all the waters of the firmament, +The swift dark whirlwind that uproots the woods +And drowns the villages; when, at thy call, +Uprises the great deep and throws himself +Upon the continent, and overwhelms +Its cities--who forgets not, at the sight +Of these tremendous tokens of thy power, +His pride, and lays his strifes and follies by? +Oh, from these sterner aspects of thy face +Spare me and mine, nor let us need the wrath +Of the mad unchained elements to teach +Who rules them. Be it ours to meditate +In these calm shades thy milder majesty, +And to the beautiful order of thy works +Learn to conform the order of our lives. + + + + +"OH FAIREST OF THE RURAL MAIDS." + + +Oh fairest of the rural maids! +Thy birth was in the forest shades; +Green boughs, and glimpses of the sky, +Were all that met thy infant eye. + +Thy sports, thy wanderings, when a child, +Were ever in the sylvan wild; +And all the beauty of the place +Is in thy heart and on thy face. + +The twilight of the trees and rocks +Is in the light shade of thy locks; +Thy step is as the wind, that weaves +Its playful way among the leaves. + +Thine eyes are springs, in whose serene +And silent waters heaven is seen; +Their lashes are the herbs that look +On their young figures in the brook. + +The forest depths, by foot unpressed, +Are not more sinless than thy breast; +The holy peace, that fills the air +Of those calm solitudes, is there. + + + + +"I BROKE THE SPELL THAT HELD ME LONG." + + +I broke the spell that held me long, +The dear, dear witchery of song. +I said, the poet's idle lore +Shall waste my prime of years no more, +For Poetry, though heavenly born, +Consorts with poverty and scorn. + +I broke the spell--nor deemed its power +Could fetter me another hour. +Ah, thoughtless! how could I forget +Its causes were around me yet? +For wheresoe'er I looked, the while, +Was nature's everlasting smile. + +Still came and lingered on my sight +Of flowers and streams the bloom and light, +And glory of the stars and sun;-- +And these and poetry are one. +They, ere the world had held me long, +Recalled me to the love of song. + + + + +JUNE. + + +I gazed upon the glorious sky + And the green mountains round, +And thought that when I came to lie + Within the silent ground, +'Twere pleasant, that in flowery June, +When brooks send up a cheerful tune, + And groves a joyous sound, +The sexton's hand, my grave to make, +The rich, green mountain turf should break. + +A cell within the frozen mould, + A coffin borne through sleet, +And icy clods above it rolled, + While fierce the tempests beat-- +Away!--I will not think of these-- +Blue be the sky and soft the breeze, + Earth green beneath the feet, +And be the damp mould gently pressed +Into my narrow place of rest. + +There through the long, long summer hours, + The golden light should lie, +And thick young herbs and groups of flowers + Stand in their beauty by. +The oriole should build and tell +His love-tale close beside my cell; + The idle butterfly +Should rest him there, and there be heard +The housewife bee and humming-bird. + +And what if cheerful shouts at noon + Come, from the village sent, +Or songs of maids, beneath the moon + With fairy laughter blent? +And what if, in the evening light, +Betrothed lovers walk in sight + Of my low monument? +I would the lovely scene around +Might know no sadder sight nor sound. + +I know, I know I should not see + The season's glorious show, +Nor would its brightness shine for me, + Nor its wild music flow; +But if, around my place of sleep, +The friends I love should come to weep, + They might not haste to go. +Soft airs, and song, and light, and bloom, +Should keep them lingering by my tomb. + +These to their softened hearts should bear + The thought of what has been, +And speak of one who cannot share + The gladness of the scene; +Whose part, in all the pomp that fills +The circuit of the summer hills, + Is--that his grave is green; +And deeply would their hearts rejoice +To hear again his living voice. + + + + +A SONG OF PITCAIRN'S ISLAND. + + +Come take our boy, and we will go + Before our cabin door; +The winds shall bring us, as they blow, + The murmurs of the shore; +And we will kiss his young blue eyes, +And I will sing him, as he lies, + Songs that were made of yore: +I'll sing, in his delighted ear, +The island lays thou lov'st to hear. + +And thou, while stammering I repeat, + Thy country's tongue shalt teach; +'Tis not so soft, but far more sweet + Than my own native speech: +For thou no other tongue didst know, +When, scarcely twenty moons ago, + Upon Tahete's beach, +Thou cam'st to woo me to be thine, +With many a speaking look and sign. + +I knew thy meaning--thou didst praise + My eyes, my locks of jet; +Ah! well for me they won thy gaze,-- + But thine were fairer yet! +I'm glad to see my infant wear +Thy soft blue eyes and sunny hair, + And when my sight is met +By his white brow and blooming cheek, +I feel a joy I cannot speak. + +Come talk of Europe's maids with me, + Whose necks and cheeks, they tell, +Outshine the beauty of the sea, + White foam and crimson shell. +I'll shape like theirs my simple dress, +And bind like them each jetty tress, + A sight to please thee well: +And for my dusky brow will braid +A bonnet like an English maid. + +Come, for the low sunlight calls, + We lose the pleasant hours; +'Tis lovelier than these cottage walls,-- + That seat among the flowers. +And I will learn of thee a prayer, +To Him who gave a home so fair, + A lot so blest as ours-- +The God who made, for thee and me, +This sweet lone isle amid the sea. + + + + +THE SKIES. + + +Ay! gloriously thou standest there, + Beautiful, boundles firmament! +That, swelling wide o'er earth and air, + And round the horizon bent, +With thy bright vault, and sapphire wall, +Dost overhang and circle all. + +Far, far below thee, tall old trees + Arise, and piles built up of old, +And hills, whose ancient summits freeze + In the fierce light and cold. +The eagle soars his utmost height, +Yet far thou stretchest o'er his flight. + +Thou hast thy frowns--with thee on high + The storm has made his airy seat, +Beyond that soft blue curtain lie + His stores of hail and sleet. +Thence the consuming lightnings break, +There the strong hurricanes awake. + +Yet art thou prodigal of smiles-- + Smiles, sweeter than thy frowns are stern: +Earth sends, from all her thousand isles, + A shout at thy return. +The glory that comes down from thee, +Bathes, in deep joy, the land and sea. + +The sun, the gorgeous sun is thine, + The pomp that brings and shuts the day, +The clouds that round him change and shine, + The airs that fan his way. +Thence look the thoughtful stars, and there +The meek moon walks the silent air. + +The sunny Italy may boast + The beauteous tints that flush her skies, +And lovely, round the Grecian coast, + May thy blue pillars rise. +I only know how fair they stand +Around my own beloved land. + +And they are fair--a charm is theirs, + That earth, the proud green earth, has not-- +With all the forms, and hues, and airs, + That haunt her sweetest spot. +We gaze upon thy calm pure sphere, +And read of Heaven's eternal year. + +Oh, when, amid the throng of men, + The heart grows sick of hollow mirth, +How willingly we turn us then + Away from this cold earth, +And look into thy azure breast, +For seats of innocence and rest! + + + + +"I CANNOT FORGET WITH WHAT FERVID DEVOTION." + + +I cannot forget with what fervid devotion + I worshipped the vision of verse and of fame. +Each gaze at the glories of earth, sky, and ocean, + To my kindled emotions, was wind over flame. + +And deep were my musings in life's early blossom, + Mid the twilight of mountain groves wandering long; +How thrilled my young veins, and how throbbed my full bosom, + When o'er me descended the spirit of song. + +'Mong the deep-cloven fells that for ages had listened + To the rush of the pebble-paved river between, +Where the kingfisher screamed and gray precipice glistened, + All breathless with awe have I gazed on the scene; + +Till I felt the dark power o'er my reveries stealing, + From his throne in the depth of that stern solitude, +And he breathed through my lips, in that tempest of feeling, + Strains lofty or tender, though artless and rude. + +Bright visions! I mixed with the world, and ye faded; + No longer your pure rural worshipper now; +In the haunts your continual presence pervaded, + Ye shrink from the signet of care on my brow. + +In the old mossy groves on the breast of the mountain, + In deep lonely glens where the waters complain, +By the shade of the rock, by the gush of the fountain, + I seek your loved footsteps, but seek them in vain. + +Oh, leave not, forlorn and for ever forsaken, + Your pupil and victim to life and its tears! +But sometimes return, and in mercy awaken + The glories ye showed to his earlier years. + + + + +TO A MUSQUITO. + + +Fair insect! that, with threadlike legs spread out, + And blood-extracting bill and filmy wing, +Does murmur, as thou slowly sail'st about, + In pitiless ears full many a plaintive thing, +And tell how little our large veins should bleed, +Would we but yield them to thy bitter need. + +Unwillingly, I own, and, what is worse, + Full angrily men hearken to thy plaint; +Thou gettest many a brush, and many a curse, + For saying thou art gaunt, and starved, and faint: +Even the old beggar, while he asks for food, +Would kill thee, hapless stranger, if he could. + +I call thee stranger, for the town, I ween, + Has not the honour of so proud a birth,-- +Thou com'st from Jersey meadows, fresh and green, + The offspring of the gods, though born on earth; +For Titan was thy sire, and fair was she, +The ocean nymph that nursed thy infancy. + +Beneath the rushes was thy cradle swung, + And when, at length, thy gauzy wings grew strong, +Abroad to gentle airs their folds were flung, + Rose in the sky and bore thee soft along; +The south wind breathed to waft thee on thy way, +And danced and shone beneath the billowy bay. + +Calm rose afar the city spires, and thence + Came the deep murmur of its throng of men, +And as its grateful odours met thy sense, + They seemed the perfumes of thy native fen. +Fair lay its crowded streets, and at the sight +Thy tiny song grew shriller with delight. + +At length thy pinions fluttered in Broadway-- + Ah, there were fairy steps, and white necks kissed +By wanton airs, and eyes whose killing ray + Shone through the snowy veils like stars through mist; +And fresh as morn, on many a cheek and chin, +Bloomed the bright blood through the transparent skin. + +Sure these were sights to touch an anchorite! + What! do I hear thy slender voice complain? +Thou wailest, when I talk of beauty's light, + As if it brought the memory of pain: +Thou art a wayward being--well--come near, +And pour thy tale of sorrow in my ear. + +What sayst thou--slanderer!--rouge makes thee sick? + And China bloom at best is sorry food? +And Rowland's Kalydor, if laid on thick, + Poisons the thirsty wretch that bores for blood? +Go! 'twas a just reward that met thy crime-- +But shun the sacrilege another time. + +That bloom was made to look at, not to touch; + To worship, not approach, that radiant white; +And well might sudden vengeance light on such + As dared, like thee, most impiously to bite. +Thou shouldst have gazed at distance and admired, +Murmured thy adoration and retired. + +Thou'rt welcome to the town--but why come here + To bleed a brother poet, gaunt like thee? +Alas! the little blood I have is dear, + And thin will be the banquet drawn from me. +Look round--the pale-eyed sisters in my cell, +Thy old acquaintance, Song and Famine, dwell. + +Try some plump alderman, and suck the blood + Enriched by generous wine and costly meat; +On well-filled skins, sleek as thy native mud, + Fix thy light pump and press thy freckled feet: +Go to the men for whom, in ocean's hall, +The oyster breeds, and the green turtle sprawls. + +There corks are drawn, and the red vintage flows + To fill the swelling veins for thee, and now +The ruddy cheek and now the ruddier nose + Shall tempt thee, as thou flittest round the brow; +And when the hour of sleep its quiet brings, +No angry hand shall rise to brush thy wings. + + + + +LINES ON REVISITING THE COUNTRY. + + +I stand upon my native hills again, + Broad, round, and green, that in the summer sky +With garniture of waving grass and grain, + Orchards, and beechen forests, basking lie, +While deep the sunless glens are scooped between, +Where brawl o'er shallow beds the streams unseen. + +A lisping voice and glancing eyes are near, + And ever restless feet of one, who, now, +Gathers the blossoms of her fourth bright year; + There plays a gladness o'er her fair young brow, +As breaks the varied scene upon her sight, +Upheaved and spread in verdure and in light. + +For I have taught her, with delighted eye, + To gaze upon the mountains,--to behold, +With deep affection, the pure ample sky, + And clouds along its blue abysses rolled,-- +To love the song of waters, and to hear +The melody of winds with charmed ear. + +Here, I have 'scaped the city's stifling heat, + Its horrid sounds, and its polluted air; +And, where the season's milder fervours beat, + And gales, that sweep the forest borders, bear +The song of bird, and sound of running stream, +Am come awhile to wander and to dream. + +Ay, flame thy fiercest, sun! thou canst not wake, + In this pure air, the plague that walks unseen. +The maize leaf and the maple bough but take, + From thy strong heats, a deeper, glossier green. +The mountain wind, that faints not in thy ray, +Sweeps the blue steams of pestilence away. + +The mountain wind! most spiritual thing of all + The wide earth knows; when, in the sultry time, +He stoops him from his vast cerulean hall, + He seems the breath of a celestial clime! +As if from heaven's wide-open gates did flow +Health and refreshment on the world below. + + + + +THE DEATH OF THE FLOWERS. + + +The melancholy days are come, the saddest of the year, +Of wailing winds, and naked woods, and meadows brown and sear. +Heaped in the hollows of the grove, the autumn leaves lie dead; +They rustle to the eddying gust, and to the rabbit's tread. +The robin and the wren are flown, and from the shrubs the jay, +And from the wood-top calls the crow through all the gloomy day. + +Where are the flowers, the fair young flowers, that lately sprang and stood +In brighter light, and softer airs, a beauteous sisterhood? +Alas! they all are in their graves, the gentle race, of flowers +Are lying in their lowly beds, with the fair and good of ours. +The rain is falling where they lie, but the cold November rain +Calls not from out the gloomy earth the lovely ones again. + +The wind-flower and the violet, they perished long ago, +And the brier-rose and the orchis died amid the summer glow; +But on the hill the golden-rod, and the aster in the wood, +And the yellow sun-flower by the brook in autumn beauty stood, +Till fell the frost from the clear cold heaven, as falls the plague on men, +And the brightness of their smile was gone, from upland, glade, and glen. + +And now, when comes the calm mild day, as still such days will come, +To call the squirrel and the bee from out their winter home; +When the sound of dropping nuts is heard, though all the trees are still, +And twinkle in the smoky light the waters of the rill, +The south wind searches for the flowers whose fragrance late he bore, +And sighs to find them in the wood and by the stream no more. + +And then I think of one who in her youthful beauty died, +The fair meek blossom that grew up and faded by my side: +In the cold moist earth we laid her, when the forest cast the leaf, +And we wept that one so lovely should have a life so brief: +Yet not unmeet it was that one, like that young friend of ours, +So gentle and so beautiful, should perish with the flowers. + + + + +ROMERO. + + +When freedom, from the land of Spain, + By Spain's degenerate sons was driven, +Who gave their willing limbs again + To wear the chain so lately riven; +Romero broke the sword he wore-- + "Go, faithful brand," the warrior said, +"Go, undishonoured, never more + The blood of man shall make thee red: + I grieve for that already shed; +And I am sick at heart to know, +That faithful friend and noble foe +Have only bled to make more strong +The yoke that Spain has worn so long. +Wear it who will, in abject fear-- + I wear it not who have been free; +The perjured Ferdinand shall hear + No oath of loyalty from me." +Then, hunted by the hounds of power, + Romero chose a safe retreat, +Where bleak Nevada's summits tower + Above the beauty at their feet. +There once, when on his cabin lay +The crimson light of setting day, +When even on the mountain's breast +The chainless winds were all at rest, +And he could hear the river's flow +From the calm paradise below; +Warmed with his former fires again, +He framed this rude but solemn strain: + + +I. + + "Here will I make my home--for here at least I see, +Upon this wild Sierra's side, the steps of Liberty; +Where the locust chirps unscared beneath the unpruned lime, +And the merry bee doth hide from man the spoil of the mountain thyme; +Where the pure winds come and go, and the wild vine gads at will, +An outcast from the haunts of men, she dwells with Nature still. + + +II. + + "I see the valleys, Spain! where thy mighty rivers run, +And the hills that lift thy harvests and vineyards to the sun, +And the flocks that drink thy brooks and sprinkle all the green, +Where lie thy plains, with sheep-walks seamed, and olive-shades between: +I see thy fig-trees bask, with the fair pomegranate near, +And the fragrance of thy lemon-groves can almost reach me here. + + +III. + + "Fair--fair--but fallen Spain! 'tis with a swelling heart, +That I think on all thou mightst have been, and look at what thou art; +But the strife is over now, and all the good and brave, +That would have raised thee up, are gone, to exile or the grave. +Thy fleeces are for monks, thy grapes for the convent feast, +And the wealth of all thy harvest-fields for the pampered lord and priest. + + +IV. + + "But I shall see the day--it will come before I die-- +I shall see it in my silver hairs, and with an age-dimmed eye;-- +When the spirit of the land to liberty shall bound, +As yonder fountain leaps away from the darkness of the ground: +And to my mountain cell, the voices of the free +Shall rise, as from the beaten shore the thunders of the sea." + + + + +A MEDITATION ON RHODE-ISLAND COAL. + + Decolor, obscuris, vilis, non ille repexam + Cesariem regum, non candida virginis ornat + Colla, nec insigni splendet per cingula morsu. + Sed nova si nigri videas miracula saxi, + Tunc superat pulchros cultus et quicquid Eois + Indus litoribus rubra scrutatur in alga. + CLAUDIAN. + + +I sat beside the glowing grate, fresh heaped + With Newport coal, and as the flame grew bright +--The many-coloured flame--and played and leaped, + I thought of rainbows and the northern light, +Moore's Lalla Rookh, the Treasury Report, +And other brilliant matters of the sort. + +And last I thought of that fair isle which sent + The mineral fuel; on a summer day +I saw it once, with heat and travel spent, + And scratched by dwarf-oaks in the hollow way; +Now dragged through sand, now jolted over stone-- +A rugged road through rugged Tiverton. + +And hotter grew the air, and hollower grew + The deep-worn path, and horror-struck, I thought, +Where will this dreary passage lead me to? + This long dull road, so narrow, deep, and hot? +I looked to see it dive in earth outright; +I looked--but saw a far more welcome sight. + +Like a soft mist upon the evening shore, + At once a lovely isle before me lay, +Smooth and with tender verdure covered o'er, + As if just risen from its calm inland bay; +Sloped each way gently to the grassy edge, +And the small waves that dallied with the sedge. + +The barley was just reaped--its heavy sheaves + Lay on the stubble field--the tall maize stood +Dark in its summer growth, and shook its leaves-- + And bright the sunlight played on the young wood-- +For fifty years ago, the old men say, +The Briton hewed their ancient groves away. + +I saw where fountains freshened the green land, + And where the pleasant road, from door to door, +With rows of cherry-trees on either hand, + Went wandering all that fertile region o'er-- +Rogue's Island once--but when the rogues were dead, +Rhode Island was the name it took instead. + +Beautiful island! then it only seemed + A lovely stranger--it has grown a friend. +I gazed on its smooth slopes, but never dreamed + How soon that bright magnificent isle would send +The treasures of its womb across the sea, +To warm a poet's room and boil his tea. + +Dark anthracite! that reddenest on my hearth, + Thou in those island mines didst slumber long; +But now thou art come forth to move the earth, + And put to shame the men that mean thee wrong. +Thou shalt be coals of fire to those that hate thee, +And warm the shins of all that underrate thee. + +Yea, they did wrong thee foully--they who mocked + Thy honest face, and said thou wouldst not burn; +Of hewing thee to chimney-pieces talked, + And grew profane--and swore, in bitter scorn, +That men might to thy inner caves retire, +And there, unsinged, abide the day of fire. + +Yet is thy greatness nigh. I pause to state, + That I too have seen greatness--even I-- +Shook hands with Adams--stared at La Fayette, + When, barehead, in the hot noon of July, +He would not let the umbrella be held o'er him, +For which three cheers burst from the mob before him. + +And I have seen--not many months ago-- + An eastern Governor in chapeau bras +And military coat, a glorious show! + Ride forth to visit the reviews, and ah! +How oft he smiled and bowed to Jonathan! +How many hands were shook and votes were won! + +'Twas a great Governor--thou too shalt be + Great in thy turn--and wide shall spread thy fame, +And swiftly; farthest Maine shall hear of thee, + And cold New Brunswick gladden at thy name, +And, faintly through its sleets, the weeping isle +That sends the Boston folks their cod shall smile. + +For thou shalt forge vast railways, and shalt heat + The hissing rivers into steam, and drive +Huge masses from thy mines, on iron feet, + Walking their steady way, as if alive, +Northward, till everlasting ice besets thee, +And south as far as the grim Spaniard lets thee. + +Thou shalt make mighty engines swim the sea, + Like its own monsters--boats that for a guinea +Will take a man to Havre--and shalt be + The moving soul of many a spinning-jenny, +And ply thy shuttles, till a bard can wear +As good a suit of broadcloth as the mayor. + +Then we will laugh at winter when we hear + The grim old churl about our dwellings rave: +Thou, from that "ruler of the inverted year," + Shalt pluck the knotty sceptre Cowper gave, +And pull him from his sledge, and drag him in, +And melt the icicles from off his chin. + + + + +THE NEW MOON. + + +When, as the garish day is done, +Heaven burns with the descended sun, + 'Tis passing sweet to mark, +Amid that flush of crimson light, +The new moon's modest bow grow bright, + As earth and sky grow dark. + +Few are the hearts too cold to feel +A thrill of gladness o'er them steal, + When first the wandering eye +Sees faintly, in the evening blaze, +That glimmering curve of tender rays + Just planted in the sky. + +The sight of that young crescent brings +Thoughts of all fair and youthful things + The hopes of early years; +And childhood's purity and grace, +And joys that like a rainbow chase + The passing shower of tears. + +The captive yields him to the dream +Of freedom, when that virgin beam + Comes out upon the air: +And painfully the sick man tries +To fix his dim and burning eyes + On the soft promise there. + +Most welcome to the lover's sight, +Glitters that pure, emerging light; + For prattling poets say, +That sweetest is the lovers' walk, +And tenderest is their murmured talk, + Beneath its gentle ray. + +And there do graver men behold +A type of errors, loved of old, + Forsaken and forgiven; +And thoughts and wishes not of earth, +Just opening in their early birth, + Like that new light in heaven. + + + + +OCTOBER. + +A SONNET. + + +Ay, thou art welcome, heaven's delicious breath, + When woods begin to wear the crimson leaf, + And suns grow meek, and the meek suns grow brief, +And the year smiles as it draws near its death. +Wind of the sunny south! oh still delay + In the gay woods and in the golden air, + Like to a good old age released from care, +Journeying, in long serenity, away. +In such a bright, late quiet, would that I + Might wear out life like thee, mid bowers and brooks, + And, dearer yet, the sunshine of kind looks, +And music of kind voices ever nigh; +And when my last sand twinkled in the glass, +Pass silently from men, as thou dost pass. + + + + +THE DAMSEL OF PERU. + + +Where olive leaves were twinkling in every wind that blew, +There sat beneath the pleasant shade a damsel of Peru. +Betwixt the slender boughs, as they opened to the air, +Came glimpses of her ivory neck and of her glossy hair; +And sweetly rang her silver voice, within that shady nook, +As from the shrubby glen is heard the sound of hidden brook. + +'Tis a song of love and valour, in the noble Spanish tongue, +That once upon the sunny plains of old Castile was sung; +When, from their mountain holds, on the Moorish rout below, +Had rushed the Christians like a flood, and swept away the foe. +A while that melody is still, and then breaks forth anew +A wilder rhyme, a livelier note, of freedom and Peru. + + For she has bound the sword to a youthful lover's side, +And sent him to the war the day she should have been his bride, +And bade him bear a faithful heart to battle for the right, +And held the fountains of her eyes till he was out of sight. +Since the parting kiss was given, six weary months are fled, +And yet the foe is in the land, and blood must yet be shed. + +A white hand parts the branches, a lovely face looks forth, +And bright dark eyes gaze steadfastly and sadly toward the north +Thou look'st in vain, sweet maiden, the sharpest sight would fail. +To spy a sign of human life abroad in all the vale; +For the noon is coming on, and the sunbeams fiercely beat, +And the silent hills and forest-tops seem reeling in the heat. + +That white hand is withdrawn, that fair sad face is gone, +But the music of that silver voice is flowing sweetly on, +Not as of late, in cheerful tones, but mournfully and low,-- +A ballad of a tender maid heart-broken long ago, +Of him who died in battle, the youthful and the brave, +And her who died of sorrow, upon his early grave. + +But see, along that mountain's slope, a fiery horseman ride; +Mark his torn plume, his tarnished belt, the sabre at his side. +His spurs are buried rowel-deep, he rides with loosened rein, +There's blood upon his charger's flank and foam upon the mane; +He speeds him toward the olive-grove, along that shaded hill: +God shield the helpless maiden there, if he should mean her ill! + +And suddenly that song has ceased, and suddenly I hear +A shriek sent up amid the shade, a shriek--but not of fear. +For tender accents follow, and tenderer pauses speak +The overflow of gladness, when words are all too weak: +"I lay my good sword at thy feet, for now Peru is free, +And I am come to dwell beside the olive-grove with thee." + + + + +THE AFRICAN CHIEF. deg. + + +Chained in the market-place he stood, + A man of giant frame, +Amid the gathering multitude + That shrunk to hear his name-- +All stern of look and strong of limb, + His dark eye on the ground:-- +And silently they gazed on him, + As on a lion bound. + +Vainly, but well, that chief had fought, + He was a captive now, +Yet pride, that fortune humbles not, + Was written on his brow. +The scars his dark broad bosom wore, + Showed warrior true and brave; +A prince among his tribe before, + He could not be a slave. + +Then to his conqueror he spake-- + "My brother is a king; +Undo this necklace from my neck, + And take this bracelet ring, +And send me where my brother reigns, + And I will fill thy hands +With store of ivory from the plains, + And gold-dust from the sands." + +"Not for thy ivory nor thy gold + Will I unbind thy chain; +That bloody hand shall never hold + The battle-spear again. +A price thy nation never gave + Shall yet be paid for thee; +For thou shalt be the Christian's slave, + In lands beyond the sea." + +Then wept the warrior chief, and bade + To shred his locks away; +And one by one, each heavy braid + Before the victor lay. +Thick were the platted locks, and long, + And closely hidden there +Shone many a wedge of gold among + The dark and crisped hair. + +"Look, feast thy greedy eye with gold + Long kept for sorest need: +Take it--thou askest sums untold, + And say that I am freed. +Take it--my wife, the long, long day, + Weeps by the cocoa-tree, +And my young children leave their play, + And ask in vain for me." + +"I take thy gold--but I have made + Thy fetters fast and strong, +And ween that by the cocoa shade + Thy wife will wait thee long." +Strong was the agony that shook + The captive's frame to hear, +And the proud meaning of his look + Was changed to mortal fear. + +His heart was broken--crazed his brain: + At once his eye grew wild; +He struggled fiercely with his chain, + Whispered, and wept, and smiled; +Yet wore not long those fatal bands, + And once, at shut of day, +They drew him forth upon the sands, + The foul hyena's prey. + + + + +SPRING IN TOWN. + + +The country ever has a lagging Spring, + Waiting for May to call its violets forth, +And June its roses--showers and sunshine bring, + Slowly, the deepening verdure o'er the earth; +To put their foliage out, the woods are slack, +And one by one the singing-birds come back. + +Within the city's bounds the time of flowers + Comes earlier. Let a mild and sunny day, +Such as full often, for a few bright hours, + Breathes through the sky of March the airs of May, +Shine on our roofs and chase the wintry gloom-- +And lo! our borders glow with sudden bloom. + +For the wide sidewalks of Broadway are then + Gorgeous as are a rivulet's banks in June, +That overhung with blossoms, through its glen, + Slides soft away beneath the sunny noon, +And they who search the untrodden wood for flowers +Meet in its depths no lovelier ones than ours. + +For here are eyes that shame the violet, + Or the dark drop that on the pansy lies, +And foreheads, white, as when in clusters set, + The anemones by forest fountains rise; +And the spring-beauty boasts no tenderer streak +Than the soft red on many a youthful cheek. + +And thick about those lovely temples lie + Locks that the lucky Vignardonne has curled, +Thrice happy man! whose trade it is to buy, + And bake, and braid those love-knots of the world; +Who curls of every glossy colour keepest, +And sellest, it is said, the blackest cheapest. + +And well thou mayst--for Italy's brown maids + Send the dark locks with which their brows are dressed, +And Gascon lasses, from their jetty braids, + Crop half, to buy a riband for the rest; +But the fresh Norman girls their tresses spare, +And the Dutch damsel keeps her flaxen hair. + +Then, henceforth, let no maid nor matron grieve, + To see her locks of an unlovely hue, +Frouzy or thin, for liberal art shall give + Such piles of curls as nature never knew. +Eve, with her veil of tresses, at the sight +Had blushed, outdone, and owned herself a fright. + +Soft voices and light laughter wake the street, + Like notes of woodbirds, and where'er the eye +Threads the long way, plumes wave, and twinkling feet + Fall light, as hastes that crowd of beauty by. +The ostrich, hurrying o'er the desert space, +Scarce bore those tossing plumes with fleeter pace. + +No swimming Juno gait, of languor born, + Is theirs, but a light step of freest grace, +Light as Camilla's o'er the unbent corn,-- + A step that speaks the spirit of the place, +Since Quiet, meek old dame, was driven away +To Sing Sing and the shores of Tappan bay. + +Ye that dash by in chariots! who will care + For steeds or footmen now? ye cannot show +Fair face, and dazzling dress, and graceful air, + And last edition of the shape! Ah no, +These sights are for the earth and open sky, +And your loud wheels unheeded rattle by. + + + + +THE GLADNESS OF NATURE. + + +Is this a time to be cloudy and sad, + When our mother Nature laughs around; +When even the deep blue heavens look glad, + And gladness breathes from the blossoming ground? + +There are notes of joy from the hang-bird and wren, + And the gossip of swallows through all the sky; +The ground-squirrel gayly chirps by his den, + And the wilding bee hums merrily by. + +The clouds are at play in the azure space, + And their shadows at play on the bright green vale, +And here they stretch to the frolic chase, + And there they roll on the easy gale. + +There's a dance of leaves in that aspen bower, + There's a titter of winds in that beechen tree, +There's a smile on the fruit, and a smile on the flower, + And a laugh from the brook that runs to the sea. + +And look at the broad-faced sun, how he smiles + On the dewy earth that smiles in his ray, +On the leaping waters and gay young isles; + Ay, look, and he'll smile thy gloom away. + + + + +THE DISINTERRED WARRIOR. + + +Gather him to his grave again, + And solemnly and softly lay, +Beneath the verdure of the plain, + The warrior's scattered bones away. +Pay the deep reverence, taught of old, + The homage of man's heart to death; +Nor dare to trifle with the mould + Once hallowed by the Almighty's breath. + +The soul hath quickened every part-- + That remnant of a martial brow, +Those ribs that held the mighty heart, + That strong arm--strong no longer now. +Spare them, each mouldering relic spare, + Of God's own image; let them rest, +Till not a trace shall speak of where + The awful likeness was impressed. + +For he was fresher from the hand + That formed of earth the human face, +And to the elements did stand + In nearer kindred, than our race. +In many a flood to madness tossed, + In many a storm has been his path; +He hid him not from heat or frost, + But met them, and defied their wrath. + +Then they were kind--the forests here, + Rivers, and stiller waters, paid +A tribute to the net and spear + Of the red ruler of the shade. +Fruits on the woodland branches lay, + Roots in the shaded soil below, +The stars looked forth to teach his way, + The still earth warned him of the foe. + +A noble race! but they are gone, + With their old forests wide and deep, +And we have built our homes upon + Fields where their generations sleep. +Their fountains slake our thirst at noon, + Upon their fields our harvest waves, +Our lovers woo beneath their moon-- + Then let us spare, at least, their graves! + + + + +MIDSUMMER. + +A SONNET. + + +A power is on the earth and in the air, + From which the vital spirit shrinks afraid, + And shelters him, in nooks of deepest shade, +From the hot steam and from the fiery glare. +Look forth upon the earth--her thousand plants + Are smitten; even the dark sun-loving maize + Faints in the field beneath the torrid blaze; +The herd beside the shaded fountain pants; +For life is driven from all the landscape brown; + The bird has sought his tree, the snake his den, + The trout floats dead in the hot stream, and men +Drop by the sun-stroke in the populous town: + As if the Day of Fire had dawned, and sent + Its deadly breath into the firmament. + + + + +THE GREEK PARTISAN. + + +Our free flag is dancing + In the free mountain air, +And burnished arms are glancing, + And warriors gathering there; +And fearless is the little train + Whose gallant bosoms shield it; +The blood that warms their hearts shall stain + That banner, ere they yield it. +--Each dark eye is fixed on earth, + And brief each solemn greeting; +There is no look nor sound of mirth, + Where those stern men are meeting. + +They go to the slaughter, + To strike the sudden blow, +And pour on earth, like water, + The best blood of the foe; +To rush on them from rock and height, + And clear the narrow valley, +Or fire their camp at dead of night, + And fly before they rally. +--Chains are round our country pressed, + And cowards have betrayed her, +And we must make her bleeding breast + The grave of the invader. + +Not till from her fetters + We raise up Greece again, +And write, in bloody letters, + That tyranny is slain,-- +Oh, not till then the smile shall steal + Across those darkened faces, +Nor one of all those warriors feel + His children's dear embraces, +--Reap we not the ripened wheat, + Till yonder hosts are flying, +And all their bravest, at our feet, + Like autumn sheaves are lying. + + + + +THE TWO GRAVES. + + + 'Tis a bleak wild hill,--but green and bright +In the summer warmth and the mid-day light; +There's the hum of the bee and the chirp of the wren, +And the dash of the brook from the alder glen; +There's the sound of a bell from the scattered flock, +And the shade of the beech lies cool on the rock, +And fresh from the west is the free wind's breath,-- +There is nothing here that speaks of death. + + Far yonder, where orchards and gardens lie, +And dwellings cluster, 'tis there men die. +They are born, they die, and are buried near, +Where the populous grave-yard lightens the bier; +For strict and close are the ties that bind +In death the children of human-kind; +Yea, stricter and closer than those of life,-- +'Tis a neighbourhood that knows no strife. +They are noiselessly gathered--friend and foe-- +To the still and dark assemblies below: +Without a frown or a smile they meet, +Each pale and calm in his winding-sheet; +In that sullen home of peace and gloom, +Crowded, like guests in a banquet-room. + + Yet there are graves in this lonely spot, +Two humble graves,--but I meet them not. +I have seen them,--eighteen years are past, +Since I found their place in the brambles last,-- +The place where, fifty winters ago, +An aged man in his locks of snow, +And an aged matron, withered with years, +Were solemnly laid!--but not with tears. +For none, who sat by the light of their hearth, +Beheld their coffins covered with earth; +Their kindred were far, and their children dead, +When the funeral prayer was coldly said. + + Two low green hillocks, two small gray stones, +Rose over the place that held their bones; +But the grassy hillocks are levelled again, +And the keenest eye might search in vain, +'Mong briers, and ferns, and paths of sheep, +For the spot where the aged couple sleep. + + Yet well might they lay, beneath the soil +Of this lonely spot, that man of toil, +And trench the strong hard mould with the spade, +Where never before a grave was made; +For he hewed the dark old woods away, +And gave the virgin fields to the day; +And the gourd and the bean, beside his door, +Bloomed where their flowers ne'er opened before; +And the maize stood up; and the bearded rye +Bent low in the breath of an unknown sky. + + 'Tis said that when life is ended here, +The spirit is borne to a distant sphere; +That it visits its earthly home no more, +Nor looks on the haunts it loved before. +But why should the bodiless soul be sent +Far off, to a long, long banishment? +Talk not of the light and the living green! +It will pine for the dear familiar scene; +It will yearn, in that strange bright world, to behold +The rock and the stream it knew of old. + + 'Tis a cruel creed, believe it not! +Death to the good is a milder lot. +They are here,--they are here,--that harmless pair, +In the yellow sunshine and flowing air, +In the light cloud-shadows that slowly pass, +In the sounds that rise from the murmuring grass. +They sit where their humble cottage stood, +They walk by the waving edge of the wood, +And list to the long-accustomed flow +Of the brook that wets the rocks below. +Patient, and peaceful, and passionless, +As seasons on seasons swiftly press, +They watch, and wait, and linger around, +Till the day when their bodies shall leave the ground. + + + + +THE CONJUNCTION OF JUPITER AND VENUS. deg. + + + I would not always reason. The straight path +Wearies us with its never-varying lines, +And we grow melancholy. I would make +Reason my guide, but she should sometimes sit +Patiently by the way-side, while I traced +The mazes of the pleasant wilderness +Around me. She should be my counsellor, +But not my tyrant. For the spirit needs +Impulses from a deeper source than hers, +And there are motions, in the mind of man, +That she must look upon with awe. I bow +Reverently to her dictates, but not less +Hold to the fair illusions of old time-- +Illusions that shed brightness over life, +And glory over nature. Look, even now, +Where two bright planets in the twilight meet, +Upon the saffron heaven,--the imperial star +Of Jove, and she that from her radiant urn +Pours forth the light of love. Let me believe, +Awhile, that they are met for ends of good, +Amid the evening glory, to confer +Of men and their affairs, and to shed down +Kind influence. Lo! they brighten as we gaze, +And shake out softer fires! The great earth feels +The gladness and the quiet of the time. +Meekly the mighty river, that infolds +This mighty city, smooths his front, and far +Glitters and burns even to the rocky base +Of the dark heights that bound him to the west; +And a deep murmur, from the many streets, +Rises like a thanksgiving. Put we hence +Dark and sad thoughts awhile--there's time for them +Hereafter--on the morrow we will meet, +With melancholy looks, to tell our griefs, +And make each other wretched; this calm hour, +This balmy, blessed evening, we will give +To cheerful hopes and dreams of happy days, +Born of the meeting of those glorious stars. + + Enough of drought has parched the year, and scared +The land with dread of famine. Autumn, yet, +Shall make men glad with unexpected fruits. +The dog-star shall shine harmless: genial days +Shall softly glide away into the keen +And wholesome cold of winter; he that fears +The pestilence, shall gaze on those pure beams, +And breathe, with confidence, the quiet air. + + Emblems of power and beauty! well may they +Shine brightest on our borders, and withdraw +Towards the great Pacific, marking out +The path of empire. Thus, in our own land, +Ere long, the better Genius of our race, +Having encompassed earth, and tamed its tribes, +Shall sit him down beneath the farthest west, +By the shore of that calm ocean, and look back +On realms made happy. + + Light the nuptial torch, +And say the glad, yet solemn rite, that knits +The youth and maiden. Happy days to them +That wed this evening!--a long life of love, +And blooming sons and daughters! Happy they +Born at this hour,--for they shall see an age +Whiter and holier than the past, and go +Late to their graves. Men shall wear softer hearts, +And shudder at the butcheries of war, +As now at other murders. + + Hapless Greece! +Enough of blood has wet thy rocks, and stained +Thy rivers; deep enough thy chains have worn +Their links into thy flesh; the sacrifice +Of thy pure maidens, and thy innocent babes, +And reverend priests, has expiated all +Thy crimes of old. In yonder mingling lights +There is an omen of good days for thee. +Thou shalt arise from midst the dust and sit +Again among the nations. Thine own arm +Shall yet redeem thee. Not in wars like thine +The world takes part. Be it a strife of kings,-- +Despot with despot battling for a throne,-- +And Europe shall be stirred throughout her realms, +Nations shall put on harness, and shall fall +Upon each other, and in all their bounds +The wailing of the childless shall not cease. +Thine is a war for liberty, and thou +Must fight it single-handed. The old world +Looks coldly on the murderers of thy race, +And leaves thee to the struggle; and the new,-- +I fear me thou couldst tell a shameful tale +Of fraud and lust of gain;--thy treasury drained, +And Missolonghi fallen. Yet thy wrongs +Shall put new strength into thy heart and hand, +And God and thy good sword shall yet work out, +For thee, a terrible deliverance. + + + + +A SUMMER RAMBLE. + + +The quiet August noon has come, + A slumberous silence fills the sky, +The fields are still, the woods are dumb, + In glassy sleep the waters lie. + +And mark yon soft white clouds that rest + Above our vale, a moveless throng; +The cattle on the mountain's breast + Enjoy the grateful shadow long. + +Oh, how unlike those merry hours + In early June when Earth laughs out, +When the fresh winds make love to flowers, + And woodlands sing and waters shout. + +When in the grass sweet voices talk, + And strains of tiny music swell +From every moss-cup of the rock, + From every nameless blossom's bell. + +But now a joy too deep for sound, + A peace no other season knows, +Hushes the heavens and wraps the ground, + The blessing of supreme repose. + +Away! I will not be, to-day, + The only slave of toil and care. +Away from desk and dust! away! + I'll be as idle as the air. + +Beneath the open sky abroad, + Among the plants and breathing things, +The sinless, peaceful works of God, + I'll share the calm the season brings. + +Come, thou, in whose soft eyes I see + The gentle meanings of thy heart, +One day amid the woods with me, + From men and all their cares apart. + +And where, upon the meadow's breast, + The shadow of the thicket lies, +The blue wild flowers thou gatherest + Shall glow yet deeper near thine eyes. + +Come, and when mid the calm profound, + I turn, those gentle eyes to seek, +They, like the lovely landscape round, + Of innocence and peace shall speak. + +Rest here, beneath the unmoving shade, + And on the silent valleys gaze, +Winding and widening, till they fade + In yon soft ring of summer haze. + +The village trees their summits rear + Still as its spire, and yonder flock +At rest in those calm fields appear + As chiselled from the lifeless rock. + +One tranquil mount the scene o'erlooks-- + There the hushed winds their sabbath keep +While a near hum from bees and brooks + Comes faintly like the breath of sleep. + +Well may the gazer deem that when, + Worn with the struggle and the strife, +And heart-sick at the wrongs of men, + The good forsakes the scene of life; + +Like this deep quiet that, awhile, + Lingers the lovely landscape o'er, +Shall be the peace whose holy smile + Welcomes him to a happier shore. + + + + +A SCENE ON THE BANKS OF THE HUDSON. + + +Cool shades and dews are round my way, +And silence of the early day; +Mid the dark rocks that watch his bed, +Glitters the mighty Hudson spread, +Unrippled, save by drops that fall +From shrubs that fringe his mountain wall; +And o'er the clear still water swells +The music of the Sabbath bells. + +All, save this little nook of land +Circled with trees, on which I stand; +All, save that line of hills which lie +Suspended in the mimic sky-- +Seems a blue void, above, below, +Through which the white clouds come and go, +And from the green world's farthest steep +I gaze into the airy deep. + +Loveliest of lovely things are they, +On earth, that soonest pass away. +The rose that lives its little hour +Is prized beyond the sculptured flower. +Even love, long tried and cherished long, +Becomes more tender and more strong, +At thought of that insatiate grave +From which its yearnings cannot save. + +River! in this still hour thou hast +Too much of heaven on earth to last; +Nor long may thy still waters lie, +An image of the glorious sky. +Thy fate and mine are not repose, +And ere another evening close, +Thou to thy tides shalt turn again, +And I to seek the crowd of men. + + + + +THE HURRICANE. deg. + + + Lord of the winds! I feel thee nigh, +I know thy breath in the burning sky! +And I wait, with a thrill in every vein, +For the coming of the hurricane! + + And lo! on the wing of the heavy gales, +Through the boundless arch of heaven he sails; +Silent and slow, and terribly strong, +The mighty shadow is borne along, +Like the dark eternity to come; +While the world below, dismayed and dumb, +Through the calm of the thick hot atmosphere +Looks up at its gloomy folds with fear. + + They darken fast; and the golden blaze +Of the sun is quenched in the lurid haze, +And he sends through the shade a funeral ray-- +A glare that is neither night nor day, +A beam that touches, with hues of death, +The clouds above and the earth beneath. +To its covert glides the silent bird, +While the hurricane's distant voice is heard, +Uplifted among the mountains round, +And the forests hear and answer the sound. + + He is come! he is come! do ye not behold +His ample robes on the wind unrolled? +Giant of air! we bid thee hail!-- +How his gray skirts toss in the whirling gale; +How his huge and writhing arms are bent, +To clasp the zone of the firmament, +And fold at length, in their dark embrace, +From mountain to mountain the visible space. + + Darker--still darker! the whirlwinds bear +The dust of the plains to the middle air: +And hark to the crashing, long and loud, +Of the chariot of God in the thunder-cloud! +You may trace its path by the flashes that start +From the rapid wheels where'er they dart, +As the fire-bolts leap to the world below, +And flood the skies with a lurid glow. + + What roar is that?--'tis the rain that breaks +In torrents away from the airy lakes, +Heavily poured on the shuddering ground, +And shedding a nameless horror round. +Ah! well known woods, and mountains, and skies, +With the very clouds!--ye are lost to my eyes. +I seek ye vainly, and see in your place +The shadowy tempest that sweeps through space, +A whirling ocean that fills the wall +Of the crystal heaven, and buries all. +And I, cut off from the world, remain +Alone with the terrible hurricane. + + + + +WILLIAM TELL.º + +A SONNET. + + +Chains may subdue the feeble spirit, but thee, + Tell, of the iron heart! they could not tame! + For thou wert of the mountains; they proclaim +The everlasting creed of liberty. +That creed is written on the untrampled snow, + Thundered by torrents which no power can hold, + Save that of God, when he sends forth his cold, +And breathed by winds that through the free heaven blow. +Thou, while thy prison walls were dark around, + Didst meditate the lesson Nature taught, + And to thy brief captivity was brought +A vision of thy Switzerland unbound. + The bitter cup they mingled, strengthened thee + For the great work to set thy country free. + + + + +THE HUNTER'S SERENADE. deg. + + +Thy bower is finished, fairest! + Fit bower for hunter's bride-- +Where old woods overshadow + The green savanna's side. +I've wandered long, and wandered far, + And never have I met, +In all this lovely western land, + A spot so lovely yet. +But I shall think it fairer, + When thou art come to bless, +With thy sweet smile and silver voice, + Its silent loveliness. + +For thee the wild grape glistens, + On sunny knoll and tree, +The slim papaya ripens + Its yellow fruit for thee. +For thee the duck, on glassy stream, + The prairie-fowl shall die, +My rifle for thy feast shall bring + The wild swan from the sky. +The forest's leaping panther, + Fierce, beautiful, and fleet, +Shall yield his spotted hide to be + A carpet for thy feet. + +I know, for thou hast told me, + Thy maiden love of flowers; +Ah, those that deck thy gardens + Are pale compared with ours. +When our wide woods and mighty lawns + Bloom to the April skies, +The earth has no more gorgeous sight + To show to human eyes. +In meadows red with blossoms, + All summer long, the bee +Murmurs, and loads his yellow thighs, + For thee, my love, and me. + +Or wouldst thou gaze at tokens + Of ages long ago-- +Our old oaks stream with mosses, + And sprout with mistletoe; +And mighty vines, like serpents, climb + The giant sycamore; +And trunks, o'erthrown for centuries, + Cumber the forest floor; +And in the great savanna, + The solitary mound, +Built by the elder world, o'erlooks + The loneliness around. + +Come, thou hast not forgotten + Thy pledge and promise quite, +With many blushes murmured, + Beneath the evening light. +Come, the young violets crowd my door, + Thy earliest look to win, +And at my silent window-sill + The jessamine peeps in. +All day the red-bird warbles, + Upon the mulberry near, +And the night-sparrow trills her song, + All night, with none to hear. + + + + +THE GREEK BOY. + + +Gone are the glorious Greeks of old, + Glorious in mien and mind; +Their bones are mingled with the mould, + Their dust is on the wind; +The forms they hewed from living stone +Survive the waste of years, alone, +And, scattered with their ashes, show +What greatness perished long ago. + +Yet fresh the myrtles there--the springs + Gush brightly as of yore; +Flowers blossom from the dust of kings, + As many an age before. +There nature moulds as nobly now, +As e'er of old, the human brow; +And copies still the martial form +That braved Plataea's battle storm. + +Boy! thy first looks were taught to seek + Their heaven in Hellas' skies: +Her airs have tinged thy dusky cheek, + Her sunshine lit thine eyes; +Thine ears have drunk the woodland strains +Heard by old poets, and thy veins +Swell with the blood of demigods, +That slumber in thy country's sods. + +Now is thy nation free--though late-- + Thy elder brethren broke-- +Broke, ere thy spirit felt its weight, + The intolerable yoke. +And Greece, decayed, dethroned, doth see +Her youth renewed in such as thee: +A shoot of that old vine that made +The nations silent in its shade. + + + + +THE PAST. + + + Thou unrelenting Past! +Strong are the barriers round thy dark domain, + And fetters, sure and fast, +Hold all that enter thy unbreathing reign. + + Far in thy realm withdrawn +Old empires sit in sullenness and gloom, + And glorious ages gone +Lie deep within the shadow of thy womb. + + Childhood, with all its mirth, +Youth, Manhood, Age, that draws us to the ground, + And last, Man's Life on earth, +Glide to thy dim dominions, and are bound. + + Thou hast my better years, +Thou hast my earlier friends--the good--the kind, + Yielded to thee with tears-- +The venerable form--the exalted mind. + + My spirit yearns to bring +The lost ones back--yearns with desire intense, + And struggles hard to wring +Thy bolts apart, and pluck thy captives thence. + + In vain--thy gates deny +All passage save to those who hence depart; + Nor to the streaming eye +Thou giv'st them back--nor to the broken heart. + + In thy abysses hide +Beauty and excellence unknown--to thee + Earth's wonder and her pride +Are gathered, as the waters to the sea; + + Labours of good to man, +Unpublished charity, unbroken faith,-- + Love, that midst grief began, +And grew with years, and faltered not in death. + + Full many a mighty name +Lurks in thy depths, unuttered, unrevered; + With thee are silent fame, +Forgotten arts, and wisdom disappeared. + + Thine for a space are they-- +Yet shalt thou yield thy treasures up at last; + Thy gates shall yet give way, +Thy bolts shall fall, inexorable Past! + + All that of good and fair +Has gone into thy womb from earliest time, + Shall then come forth to wear +The glory and the beauty of its prime. + + They have not perished--no! +Kind words, remembered voices once so sweet, + Smiles, radiant long ago, +And features, the great soul's apparent seat. + + All shall come back, each tie +Of pure affection shall be knit again; + Alone shall Evil die, +And Sorrow dwell a prisoner in thy reign. + + And then shall I behold +Him, by whose kind paternal side I sprung, + And her, who, still and cold, +Fills the next grave--the beautiful and young. + + + + +"UPON THE MOUNTAIN'S DISTANT HEAD." + + +Upon the mountain's distant head, + With trackless snows for ever white, +Where all is still, and cold, and dead, + Late shines the day's departing light. + +But far below those icy rocks, + The vales, in summer bloom arrayed, +Woods full of birds, and fields of flocks, + Are dim with mist and dark with shade. + +'Tis thus, from warm and kindly hearts, + And eyes where generous meanings burn, +Earliest the light of life departs, + But lingers with the cold and stern. + + + + +THE EVENING WIND. + + +Spirit that breathest through my lattice, thou + That cool'st the twilight of the sultry day, +Gratefully flows thy freshness round my brow: + Thou hast been out upon the deep at play, +Riding all day the wild blue waves till now, + Roughening their crests, and scattering high their spray +And swelling the white sail. I welcome thee +To the scorched land, thou wanderer of the sea! + +Nor I alone--a thousand bosoms round + Inhale thee in the fulness of delight; +And languid forms rise up, and pulses bound + Livelier, at coming of the wind of night; +And, languishing to hear thy grateful sound, + Lies the vast inland stretched beyond the sight. +Go forth into the gathering shade; go forth, +God's blessing breathed upon the fainting earth! + +Go, rock the little wood-bird in his nest, + Curl the still waters, bright with stars, and rouse +The wide old wood from his majestic rest, + Summoning from the innumerable boughs +The strange, deep harmonies that haunt his breast: + Pleasant shall be thy way where meekly bows +The shutting flower, and darkling waters pass, +And where the o'ershadowing branches sweep the grass. + +The faint old man shall lean his silver head + To feel thee; thou shalt kiss the child asleep, +And dry the moistened curls that overspread + His temples, while his breathing grows more deep: +And they who stand about the sick man's bed, + Shall joy to listen to thy distant sweep, +And softly part his curtains to allow +Thy visit, grateful to his burning brow. + +Go--but the circle of eternal change, + Which is the life of nature, shall restore, +With sounds and scents from all thy mighty range + Thee to thy birthplace of the deep once more; +Sweet odours in the sea-air, sweet and strange, + Shall tell the home-sick mariner of the shore; +And, listening to thy murmur, he shall deem +He hears the rustling leaf and running stream. + + + + +"WHEN THE FIRMAMENT QUIVERS WITH DAYLIGHT'S YOUNG BEAM." + + +When the firmament quivers with daylight's young beam, + And the woodlands awaking burst into a hymn, +And the glow of the sky blazes back from the stream, + How the bright ones of heaven in the brightness grow dim. + +Oh! 'tis sad, in that moment of glory and song, + To see, while the hill-tops are waiting the sun, +The glittering band that kept watch all night long + O'er Love and o'er Slumber, go out one by one: + +Till the circle of ether, deep, ruddy, and vast, + Scarce glimmers with one of the train that were there; +And their leader the day-star, the brightest and last, + Twinkles faintly and fades in that desert of air. + +Thus, Oblivion, from midst of whose shadow we came, + Steals o'er us again when life's twilight is gone; +And the crowd of bright names, in the heaven of fame, + Grow pale and are quenched as the years hasten on. + +Let them fade--but we'll pray that the age, in whose flight, + Of ourselves and our friends the remembrance shall die +May rise o'er the world, with the gladness and light + Of the morning that withers the stars from the sky. + + + + +"INNOCENT CHILD AND SNOW-WHITE FLOWER." + + +Innocent child and snow-white flower! +Well are ye paired in your opening hour. +Thus should the pure and the lovely meet, +Stainless with stainless, and sweet with sweet. + +White as those leaves, just blown apart, +Are the folds of thy own young heart; +Guilty passion and cankering care +Never have left their traces there. + +Artless one! though thou gazest now +O'er the white blossom with earnest brow, +Soon will it tire thy childish eye; +Fair as it is, thou wilt throw it by. + +Throw it aside in thy weary hour, +Throw to the ground the fair white flower; +Yet, as thy tender years depart, +Keep that white and innocent heart. + + + + +TO THE RIVER ARVE. + +SUPPOSED TO BE WRITTEN AT A HAMLET NEAR THE FOOT OF MONT BLANC. + + +Not from the sands or cloven rocks, + Thou rapid Arve! thy waters flow; +Nor earth, within her bosom, locks + Thy dark unfathomed wells below. +Thy springs are in the cloud, thy stream + Begins to move and murmur first +Where ice-peaks feel the noonday beam, + Or rain-storms on the glacier burst. + +Born where the thunder and the blast, + And morning's earliest light are born, +Thou rushest swoln, and loud, and fast, + By these low homes, as if in scorn: +Yet humbler springs yield purer waves; + And brighter, glassier streams than thine, +Sent up from earth's unlighted caves, + With heaven's own beam and image shine. + +Yet stay; for here are flowers and trees; + Warm rays on cottage roofs are here, +And laugh of girls, and hum of bees-- + Here linger till thy waves are clear. +Thou heedest not--thou hastest on; + From steep to steep thy torrent falls, +Till, mingling with the mighty Rhone, + It rests beneath Geneva's walls. + +Rush on--but were there one with me + That loved me, I would light my hearth +Here, where with God's own majesty + Are touched the features of the earth. +By these old peaks, white, high, and vast, + Still rising as the tempests beat, +Here would I dwell, and sleep, at last, + Among the blossoms at their feet. + + + + +TO COLE, THE PAINTER, DEPARTING FOR EUROPE. + +A SONNET. + + +Thine eyes shall see the light of distant skies: + Yet, COLE! thy heart shall bear to Europe's strand + A living image of thy native land, +Such as on thine own glorious canvas lies; +Lone lakes--savannas where the bison roves-- + Rocks rich with summer garlands--solemn streams-- + Skies, where the desert eagle wheels and screams-- +Spring bloom and autumn blaze of boundless groves. +Fair scenes shall greet thee where thou goest--fair, + But different--everywhere the trace of men, + Paths, homes, graves, ruins, from the lowest glen +To where life shrinks from the fierce Alpine air, + Gaze on them, till the tears shall dim thy sight, + But keep that earlier, wilder image bright. + + + + +TO THE FRINGED GENTIAN. + + +Thou blossom bright with autumn dew, +And coloured with the heaven's own blue, +That openest when the quiet light +Succeeds the keen and frosty night. + +Thou comest not when violets lean +O'er wandering brooks and springs unseen, +Or columbines, in purple dressed, +Nod o'er the ground-bird's hidden nest. + +Thou waitest late and com'st alone, +When woods are bare and birds are flown, +And frosts and shortening days portend +The aged year is near his end. + +Then doth thy sweet and quiet eye +Look through its fringes to the sky, +Blue--blue--as if that sky let fall +A flower from its cerulean wall. + +I would that thus, when I shall see +The hour of death draw near to me, +Hope, blossoming within my heart, +May look to heaven as I depart. + + + + +THE TWENTY-SECOND OF DECEMBER. + + +Wild was the day; the wintry sea + Moaned sadly on New-England's strand, +When first the thoughtful and the free, + Our fathers, trod the desert land. + +They little thought how pure a light, + With years, should gather round that day; +How love should keep their memories bright, + How wide a realm their sons should sway. + +Green are their bays; but greener still + Shall round their spreading fame be wreathed, +And regions, now untrod, shall thrill + With reverence when their names are breathed. + +Till where the sun, with softer fires, + Looks on the vast Pacific's sleep, +The children of the pilgrim sires + This hallowed day like us shall keep. + + + + +HYMN OF THE CITY. + + + Not in the solitude +Alone may man commune with Heaven, or see + Only in savage wood +And sunny vale, the present Deity; + Or only hear his voice +Where the winds whisper and the waves rejoice. + + Even here do I behold +Thy steps, Almighty!--here, amidst the crowd, + Through the great city rolled, +With everlasting murmur deep and loud-- + Choking the ways that wind +'Mongst the proud piles, the work of human kind. + + Thy golden sunshine comes +From the round heaven, and on their dwellings lies, + And lights their inner homes; +For them thou fill'st with air the unbounded skies, + And givest them the stores +Of ocean, and the harvests of its shores. + + Thy Spirit is around, +Quickening the restless mass that sweeps along; + And this eternal sound-- +Voices and footfalls of the numberless throng-- + Like the resounding sea, +Or like the rainy tempest, speaks of thee. + + And when the hours of rest +Come, like a calm upon the mid-sea brine, + Hushing its billowy breast-- +The quiet of that moment too is thine, + It breathes of Him who keeps +The vast and helpless city while it sleeps. + + + + +THE PRAIRIES. deg. + + + These are the gardens of the Desert, these +The unshorn fields, boundless and beautiful, +For which the speech of England has no name-- +The Prairies. I behold them for the first, +And my heart swells, while the dilated sight +Takes in the encircling vastness. Lo! they stretch +In airy undulations, far away, +As if the ocean, in his gentlest swell, +Stood still, with all his rounded billows fixed, +And motionless for ever.--Motionless?-- +No--they are all unchained again. The clouds +Sweep over with their shadows, and, beneath, +The surface rolls and fluctuates to the eye; +Dark hollows seem to glide along and chase +The sunny ridges. Breezes of the South! +Who toss the golden and the flame-like flowers, +And pass the prairie-hawk that, poised on high, +Flaps his broad wings, yet moves not--ye have played +Among the palms of Mexico and vines +Of Texas, and have crisped the limpid brooks +That from the fountains of Sonora glide +Into the calm Pacific--have ye fanned +A nobler or a lovelier scene than this? +Man hath no part in all this glorious work: +The hand that built the firmament hath heaved +And smoothed these verdant swells, and sown their slopes +With herbage, planted them with island groves, +And hedged them round with forests. Fitting floor +For this magnificent temple of the sky-- +With flowers whose glory and whose multitude +Rival the constellations! The great heavens +Seem to stoop down upon the scene in love,-- +A nearer vault, and of a tenderer blue, +Than that which bends above the eastern hills. + + As o'er the verdant waste I guide my steed, +Among the high rank grass that sweeps his sides +The hollow beating of his footstep seems +A sacrilegious sound. I think of those +Upon whose rest he tramples. Are they here-- +The dead of other days?--and did the dust +Of these fair solitudes once stir with life +And burn with passion? Let the mighty mounds +That overlook the rivers, or that rise +In the dim forest crowded with old oaks, +Answer. A race, that long has passed away, +Built them;--a disciplined and populous race +Heaped, with long toil, the earth, while yet the Greek +Was hewing the Pentelicus to forms +Of symmetry, and rearing on its rock +The glittering Parthenon. These ample fields +Nourished their harvests, here their herds were fed, +When haply by their stalls the bison lowed, +And bowed his maned shoulder to the yoke. +All day this desert murmured with their toils, +Till twilight blushed, and lovers walked, and wooed +In a forgotten language, and old tunes, +From instruments of unremembered form, +Gave the soft winds a voice. The red man came-- +The roaming hunter tribes, warlike and fierce, +And the mound-builders vanished from the earth. +The solitude of centuries untold +Has settled where they dwelt. The prairie-wolf +Hunts in their meadows, and his fresh-dug den +Yawns by my path. The gopher mines the ground +Where stood their swarming cities. All is gone-- +All--save the piles of earth that hold their bones-- +The platforms where they worshipped unknown gods-- +The barriers which they builded from the soil +To keep the foe at bay--till o'er the walls +The wild beleaguerers broke, and, one by one, +The strongholds of the plain were forced, and heaped +With corpses. The brown vultures of the wood +Flocked to those vast uncovered sepulchres, +And sat, unscared and silent, at their feast. +Haply some solitary fugitive, +Lurking in marsh and forest, till the sense +Of desolation and of fear became +Bitterer than death, yielded himself to die. +Man's better nature triumphed then. Kind words +Welcomed and soothed him; the rude conquerors +Seated the captive with their chiefs; he chose +A bride among their maidens, and at length +Seemed to forget,--yet ne'er forgot,--the wife +Of his first love, and her sweet little ones, +Butchered, amid their shrieks, with all his race. + + Thus change the forms of being. Thus arise +Races of living things, glorious in strength, +And perish, as the quickening breath of God +Fills them, or is withdrawn. The red man, too, +Has left the blooming wilds he ranged so long, +And, nearer to the Rocky Mountains, sought +A wilder hunting-ground. The beaver builds +No longer by these streams, but far away, +On waters whose blue surface ne'er gave back +The white man's face--among Missouri's springs, +And pools whose issues swell the Oregan, +He rears his little Venice. In these plains +The bison feeds no more. Twice twenty leagues +Beyond remotest smoke of hunter's camp, +Roams the majestic brute, in herds that shake +The earth with thundering steps--yet here I meet +His ancient footprints stamped beside the pool. + + Still this great solitude is quick with life. +Myriads of insects, gaudy as the flowers +They flutter over, gentle quadrupeds, +And birds, that scarce have learned the fear of man, +Are here, and sliding reptiles of the ground, +Startlingly beautiful. The graceful deer +Bounds to the wood at my approach. The bee, +A more adventurous colonist than man, +With whom he came across the eastern deep, +Fills the savannas with his murmurings, +And hides his sweets, as in the golden age, +Within the hollow oak. I listen long +To his domestic hum, and think I hear +The sound of that advancing multitude +Which soon shall fill these deserts. From the ground +Comes up the laugh of children, the soft voice +Of maidens, and the sweet and solemn hymn +Of Sabbath worshippers. The low of herds +Blends with the rustling of the heavy grain +Over the dark-brown furrows. All at once +A fresher wind sweeps by, and breaks my dream, +And I am in the wilderness alone. + + + + +SONG OF MARION'S MEN. deg. + + +Our band is few, but true and tried, + Our leader frank and bold; +The British soldier trembles + When Marion's name is told. +Our fortress is the good greenwood, + Our tent the cypress-tree; +We know the forest round us, + As seamen know the sea. +We know its walls of thorny vines, + Its glades of reedy grass, +Its safe and silent islands + Within the dark morass. + +Wo to the English soldiery + That little dread us near! +On them shall light at midnight + A strange and sudden fear: +When waking to their tents on fire + They grasp their arms in vain, +And they who stand to face us + Are beat to earth again; +And they who fly in terror deem + A mighty host behind, +And hear the tramp of thousands + Upon the hollow wind. + +Then sweet the hour that brings release + From danger and from toil: +We talk the battle over, + And share the battle's spoil. +The woodland rings with laugh and shout, + As if a hunt were up, +And woodland flowers are gathered + To crown the soldier's cup. +With merry songs we mock the wind + That in the pine-top grieves, +And slumber long and sweetly + On beds of oaken leaves. + +Well knows the fair and friendly moon + The band that Marion leads-- +The glitter of their rifles, + The scampering of their steeds. +'Tis life to guide the fiery barb + Across the moonlight plain; +'Tis life to feel the night-wind + That lifts his tossing mane. +A moment in the British camp-- + A moment--and away +Back to the pathless forest, + Before the peep of day. + +Grave men there are by broad Santee, + Grave men with hoary hairs, +Their hearts are all with Marion, + For Marion are their prayers. +And lovely ladies greet our band + With kindliest welcoming, +With smiles like those of summer, + And tears like those of spring. +For them we wear these trusty arms, + And lay them down no more +Till we have driven the Briton, + For ever, from our shore. + + + + +THE ARCTIC LOVER. + + +Gone is the long, long winter night; + Look, my beloved one! +How glorious, through his depths of light, + Rolls the majestic sun! +The willows, waked from winter's death, +Give out a fragrance like thy breath-- + The summer is begun! + +Ay, 'tis the long bright summer day: + Hark, to that mighty crash! +The loosened ice-ridge breaks away-- + The smitten waters flash. +Seaward the glittering mountain rides, +While, down its green translucent sides, + The foamy torrents dash. + +See, love, my boat is moored for thee, + By ocean's weedy floor-- +The petrel does not skim the sea + More swiftly than my oar. +We'll go, where, on the rocky isles, +Her eggs the screaming sea-fowl piles + Beside the pebbly shore. + +Or, bide thou where the poppy blows, + With wind-flowers frail and fair, +While I, upon his isle of snows, + Seek and defy the bear. +Fierce though he be, and huge of frame, +This arm his savage strength shall tame, + And drag him from his lair. + +When crimson sky and flamy cloud + Bespeak the summer o'er, +And the dead valleys wear a shroud + Of snows that melt no more, +I'll build of ice thy winter home, +With glistening walls and glassy dome, + And spread with skins the floor. + +The white fox by thy couch shall play; + And, from the frozen skies, +The meteors of a mimic day + Shall flash upon thine eyes. +And I--for such thy vow--meanwhile +Shall hear thy voice and see thy smile, + Till that long midnight flies. + + + + +THE JOURNEY OF LIFE. + + +Beneath the waning moon I walk at night, + And muse on human life--for all around +Are dim uncertain shapes that cheat the sight, + And pitfalls lurk in shade along the ground, +And broken gleams of brightness, here and there, +Glance through, and leave unwarmed the death-like air. + +The trampled earth returns a sound of fear-- + A hollow sound, as if I walked on tombs! +And lights, that tell of cheerful homes, appear + Far off, and die like hope amid the glooms. +A mournful wind across the landscape flies, +And the wide atmosphere is full of sighs. + +And I, with faltering footsteps, journey on, + Watching the stars that roll the hours away, +Till the faint light that guides me now is gone, + And, like another life, the glorious day +Shall open o'er me from the empyreal height, +With warmth, and certainty, and boundless light. + + + + + * * * * * + + + + TRANSLATIONS. + + + + * * * * * + + + +TRANSLATIONS. + + + + +VERSION OF A FRAGMENT OF SIMONIDES. + + +The night winds howled--the billows dashed + Against the tossing chest; +And Danae to her broken heart + Her slumbering infant pressed. + +"My little child"--in tears she said-- + "To wake and weep is mine, +But thou canst sleep--thou dost not know + Thy mother's lot, and thine. + +"The moon is up, the moonbeams smile-- + They tremble on the main; +But dark, within my floating cell, + To me they smile in vain. + +"Thy folded mantle wraps thee warm, + Thy clustering locks are dry, +Thou dost not hear the shrieking gust, + Nor breakers booming high. + +"As o'er thy sweet unconscious face + A mournful watch I keep, +I think, didst thou but know thy fate, + How thou wouldst also weep. + +"Yet, dear one, sleep, and sleep, ye winds + That vex the restless brine-- +When shall these eyes, my babe, be sealed + As peacefully as thine!" + + + + +FROM THE SPANISH OF VILLEGAS. + + + 'Tis sweet, in the green Spring, +To gaze upon the wakening fields around; + Birds in the thicket sing, +Winds whisper, waters prattle from the ground; + A thousand odours rise, +Breathed up from blossoms of a thousand dyes. + + Shadowy, and close, and cool, +The pine and poplar keep their quiet nook; + For ever fresh and full, +Shines, at their feet, the thirst-inviting brook; + And the soft herbage seems +Spread for a place of banquets and of dreams. + + Thou, who alone art fair, +And whom alone I love, art far away. + Unless thy smile be there, +It makes me sad to see the earth so gay; + I care not if the train +Of leaves, and flowers, and zephyrs go again. + + + + +MARY MAGDALEN. deg. + +FROM THE SPANISH OF BARTOLOME LEONARDO DE ARGENSOLA. + + +Blessed, yet sinful one, and broken-hearted! + The crowd are pointing at the thing forlorn, + In wonder and in scorn! +Thou weepest days of innocence departed; + Thou weepest, and thy tears have power to move + The Lord to pity and love. + +The greatest of thy follies is forgiven, + Even for the least of all the tears that shine + On that pale cheek of thine. +Thou didst kneel down, to Him who came from heaven, + Evil and ignorant, and thou shalt rise + Holy, and pure, and wise. + +It is not much that to the fragrant blossom + The ragged brier should change; the bitter fir + Distil Arabian myrrh! +Nor that, upon the wintry desert's bosom, + The harvest should rise plenteous, and the swain + Bear home the abundant grain. + +But come and see the bleak and barren mountains + Thick to their tops with roses: come and see + Leaves on the dry dead tree: +The perished plant, set out by living fountains, + Grows fruitful, and its beauteous branches rise, + For ever, towards the skies. + + + + +THE LIFE OF THE BLESSED. + +FROM THE SPANISH OF LUIS PONCE DE LEON. + + + Region of life and light! +Land of the good whose earthly toils are o'er! + Nor frost nor heat may blight + Thy vernal beauty, fertile shore, +Yielding thy blessed fruits for evermore! + + There without crook or sling, +Walks the good shepherd; blossoms white and red + Round his meek temples cling; + And to sweet pastures led, +His own loved flock beneath his eye is fed. + + He guides, and near him they +Follow delighted, for he makes them go + Where dwells eternal May, + And heavenly roses blow, +Deathless, and gathered but again to grow. + + He leads them to the height +Named of the infinite and long-sought Good, + And fountains of delight; + And where his feet have stood +Springs up, along the way, their tender food. + + And when, in the mid skies, +The climbing sun has reached his highest bound, + Reposing as he lies, + With all his flock around, +He witches the still air with numerous sound. + + From his sweet lute flow forth +Immortal harmonies, of power to still + All passions born of earth, + And draw the ardent will +Its destiny of goodness to fulfil. + + Might but a little part, +A wandering breath of that high melody, + Descend into my heart, + And change it till it be +Transformed and swallowed up, oh love! in thee. + + Ah! then my soul should know, +Beloved! where thou liest at noon of day, + And from this place of woe + Released, should take its way +To mingle with thy flock and never stray. + + + +FATIMA AND RADUAN. deg. + +FROM THE SPANISH. + + + Diamante falso y fingido, + Engastado en pedernal, &c. + + +"False diamond set in flint! the caverns of the mine +Are warmer than the breast that holds that faithless heart of thine; +Thou art fickle as the sea, thou art wandering as the wind, +And the restless ever-mounting flame is not more hard to bind. +If the tears I shed were tongues, yet all too few would be +To tell of all the treachery that thou hast shown to me. +Oh! I could chide thee sharply--but every maiden knows +That she who chides her lover, forgives him ere he goes. + +"Thou hast called me oft the flower of all Grenada's maids, +Thou hast said that by the side of me the first and fairest fades; +And they thought thy heart was mine, and it seemed to every one +That what thou didst to win my love, from love of me was done. +Alas! if they but knew thee, as mine it is to know, +They well might see another mark to which thine arrows go; +But thou giv'st me little heed--for I speak to one who knows +That she who chides her lover, forgives him ere he goes. + +"It wearies me, mine enemy, that I must weep and bear +What fills thy heart with triumph, and fills my own with care. +Thou art leagued with those that hate me, and ah! thou know'st I feel +That cruel words as surely kill as sharpest blades of steel. +'Twas the doubt that thou wert false that wrung my heart with pain; +But, now I know thy perfidy, I shall be well again. +I would proclaim thee as thou art--but every maiden knows +That she who chides her lover, forgives him ere he goes." + +Thus Fatima complained to the valiant Raduan, +Where underneath the myrtles Alhambra's fountains ran: +The Moor was inly moved, and blameless as he was, +He took her white hand in his own, and pleaded thus his cause. +"Oh, lady, dry those star-like eyes--their dimness does me wrong; +If my heart be made of flint, at least 'twill keep thy image long; +Thou hast uttered cruel words--but I grieve the less for those, +Since she who chides her lover, forgives him ere he goes." + + + + +LOVE AND FOLLY. deg. + +FROM LA FONTAINE. + + +Love's worshippers alone can know + The thousand mysteries that are his; +His blazing torch, his twanging bow, + His blooming age are mysteries. +A charming science--but the day + Were all too short to con it o'er; +So take of me this little lay, + A sample of its boundless lore. + +As once, beneath the fragrant shade + Of myrtles breathing heaven's own air, +The children, Love and Folly, played-- + A quarrel rose betwixt the pair. +Love said the gods should do him right-- + But Folly vowed to do it then, +And struck him, o'er the orbs of sight, + So hard he never saw again. + +His lovely mother's grief was deep, + She called for vengeance on the deed; +A beauty does not vainly weep, + Nor coldly does a mother plead. +A shade came o'er the eternal bliss + That fills the dwellers of the skies; +Even stony-hearted Nemesis, + And Rhadamanthus, wiped their eyes. + +"Behold," she said, "this lovely boy," + While streamed afresh her graceful tears, +"Immortal, yet shut out from joy + And sunshine, all his future years. +The child can never take, you see, + A single step without a staff-- +The harshest punishment would be + Too lenient for the crime by half." + +All said that Love had suffered wrong, + And well that wrong should be repaid; +Then weighed the public interest long, + And long the party's interest weighed. +And thus decreed the court above-- + "Since Love is blind from Folly's blow, +Let Folly be the guide of Love, + Where'er the boy may choose to go." + + + + +THE SIESTA. + +FROM THE SPANISH. + + + Vientecico murmurador, + Que lo gozas y andas todo, &c. + + +Airs, that wander and murmur round, + Bearing delight where'er ye blow! +Make in the elms a lulling sound, + While my lady sleeps in the shade below. + +Lighten and lengthen her noonday rest, + Till the heat of the noonday sun is o'er. +Sweet be her slumbers! though in my breast + The pain she has waked may slumber no more. +Breathing soft from the blue profound, + Bearing delight where'er ye blow, +Make in the elms a lulling sound, + While my lady sleeps in the shade below. + +Airs! that over the bending boughs, + And under the shade of pendent leaves, +Murmur soft, like my timid vows + Or the secret sighs my bosom heaves,-- +Gently sweeping the grassy ground, + Bearing delight where'er ye blow, +Make in the elms a lulling sound, + While my lady sleeps in the shade below. + + + + +THE ALCAYDE OF MOLINA. deg. + +FROM THE SPANISH. + + +To the town of Atienza, Molina's brave Alcayde, +The courteous and the valorous, led forth his bold brigade. +The Moor came back in triumph, he came without a wound, +With many a Christian standard, and Christian captive bound. +He passed the city portals, with swelling heart and vein, +And towards his lady's dwelling he rode with slackened rein; +Two circuits on his charger he took, and at the third, +From the door of her balcony Zelinda's voice was heard. +"Now if thou wert not shameless," said the lady to the Moor, +"Thou wouldst neither pass my dwelling, nor stop before my door. +Alas for poor Zelinda, and for her wayward mood, +That one in love with peace should have loved a man of blood! +Since not that thou wert noble I chose thee for my knight, +But that thy sword was dreaded in tournay and in fight. +Ah, thoughtless and unhappy! that I should fail to see +How ill the stubborn flint and the yielding wax agree. +Boast not thy love for me, while the shrieking of the fife +Can change thy mood of mildness to fury and to strife. +Say not my voice is magic--thy pleasure is to hear +The bursting of the carbine, and shivering of the spear. +Well, follow thou thy choice--to the battle-field away, +To thy triumphs and thy trophies, since I am less than they. +Thrust thy arm into thy buckler, gird on thy crooked brand, +And call upon thy trusty squire to bring thy spears in hand. +Lead forth thy band to skirmish, by mountain and by mead, +On thy dappled Moorish barb, or thy fleeter border steed. +Go, waste the Christian hamlets, and sweep away their flocks, +From Almazan's broad meadows to Siguenza's rocks. +Leave Zelinda altogether, whom thou leavest oft and long, +And in the life thou lovest forget whom thou dost wrong. +These eyes shall not recall thee, though they meet no more thine own, +Though they weep that thou art absent, and that I am all alone." +She ceased, and turning from him her flushed and angry cheek, +Shut the door of her balcony before the Moor could speak. + + + + +THE DEATH OF ALIATAR. deg. + +FROM THE SPANISH. + + +'Tis not with gilded sabres + That gleam in baldricks blue, +Nor nodding plumes in caps of Fez, + Of gay and gaudy hue-- +But, habited in mourning weeds, + Come marching from afar, +By four and four, the valiant men + Who fought with Aliatar. +All mournfully and slowly + The afflicted warriors come, +To the deep wail of the trumpet, + And beat of muffled drum. + +The banner of the Phenix, + The flag that loved the sky, +That scarce the wind dared wanton with, + It flew so proud and high-- +Now leaves its place in battle-field, + And sweeps the ground in grief, +The bearer drags its glorious folds + Behind the fallen chief, +As mournfully and slowly + The afflicted warriors come, +To the deep wail of the trumpet, + And beat of muffled drum. + +Brave Aliatar led forward + A hundred Moors to go +To where his brother held Motril + Against the leaguering foe. +On horseback went the gallant Moor, + That gallant band to lead; +And now his bier is at the gate, + From whence he pricked his steed. +While mournfully and slowly + The afflicted warriors come, +To the deep wail of the trumpet, + And beat of muffled drum. + +The knights of the Grand Master + In crowded ambush lay; +They rushed upon him where the reeds + Were thick beside the way; +They smote the valiant Aliatar, + They smote the warrior dead, +And broken, but not beaten, were + The gallant ranks he led. +Now mournfully and slowly + The afflicted warriors come, +To the deep wail of the trumpet, + And beat of muffled drum. + +Oh! what was Zayda's sorrow, + How passionate her cries! +Her lover's wounds streamed not more free + Than that poor maiden's eyes. +Say, Love--for didst thou see her tears: + Oh, no! he drew more tight +The blinding fillet o'er his lids + To spare his eyes the sight. +While mournfully and slowly + The afflicted warriors come, +To the deep wail of the trumpet, + And beat of muffled drum. + +Nor Zayda weeps him only, + But all that dwell between +The great Alhambra's palace walls + And springs of Albaicin. +The ladies weep the flower of knights, + The brave the bravest here; +The people weep a champion, + The Alcaydes a noble peer. +While mournfully and slowly + The afflicted warriors come, +To the deep wail of the trumpet, + And beat of muffled drum. + + + + +LOVE IN THE AGE OF CHIVALRY. deg. + +FROM PEYRE VIDAL, THE TROUBADOUR. + + +The earth was sown with early flowers, + The heavens were blue and bright-- +I met a youthful cavalier + As lovely as the light. +I knew him not--but in my heart + His graceful image lies, +And well I marked his open brow, + His sweet and tender eyes, +His ruddy lips that ever smiled, + His glittering teeth betwixt, +And flowing robe embroidered o'er, + With leaves and blossoms mixed. +He wore a chaplet of the rose; + His palfrey, white and sleek, +Was marked with many an ebon spot, + And many a purple streak; +Of jasper was his saddle-bow, + His housings sapphire stone, +And brightly in his stirrup glanced + The purple calcedon. +Fast rode the gallant cavalier, + As youthful horsemen ride; +"Peyre Vidal! know that I am Love," + The blooming stranger cried; +"And this is Mercy by my side, + A dame of high degree; +This maid is Chastity," he said, + "This squire is Loyalty." + + + + +THE LOVE OF GOD. deg. + +FROM THE PROVENCAL OF BERNARI RASCAS. + + + All things that are on earth shall wholly pass away, +Except the love of God, which shall live and last for aye. +The forms of men shall be as they had never been; +The blasted groves shall lose their fresh and tender green; +The birds of the thicket shall end their pleasant song, +And the nigthingale* shall cease to chant the evening long. +The kine of the pasture shall feel the dart that kills, +And all the fair white flocks shall perish from the hills. +The goat and antlered stag, the wolf and the fox, +The wild boar of the wood, and the chamois of the rocks, +And the strong and fearless bear, in the trodden dust shall lie, +And the dolphin of the sea, and the mighty whale, shall die. +And realms shall be dissolved, and empires be no more, +And they shall bow to death, who ruled from shore to shore; +And the great globe itself, (so the holy writings tell,) +With the rolling firmament, where the starry armies dwell, +Shall melt with fervent heat--they shall all pass away, +Except the love of God, which shall live and last for aye. + +(* sic) + + + + +FROM THE SPANISH OF PEDRO DE CASTRO Y ANAYA. deg. + + +Stay, rivulet, nor haste to leave + The lovely vale that lies around thee. +Why wouldst thou be a sea at eve, + When but a fount the morning found thee? + +Born when the skies began to glow, + Humblest of all the rock's cold daughters, +No blossom bowed its stalk to show + Where stole thy still and scanty waters. + +Now on thy stream the noonbeams look, + Usurping, as thou downward driftest, +Its crystal from the clearest brook, + Its rushing current from the swiftest. + +Ah! what wild haste!--and all to be + A river and expire in ocean. +Each fountain's tribute hurries thee + To that vast grave with quicker motion. + +Far better 'twere to linger still + In this green vale, these flowers to cherish, +And die in peace, an aged rill, + Than thus, a youthful Danube, perish. + + + + +SONNET. + +FROM THE PORTUGUESE OF SEMEDO. + + +It is a fearful night; a feeble glare + Streams from the sick moon in the o'erclouded sky; + The ridgy billows, with a mighty cry, +Rush on the foamy beaches wild and bare; +No bark the madness of the waves will dare; + The sailors sleep; the winds are loud and high; + Ah, peerless Laura! for whose love I die, +Who gazes on thy smiles while I despair? + As thus, in bitterness of heart, I cried, +I turned, and saw my Laura, kind and bright, + A messenger of gladness, at my side: +To my poor bark she sprang with footstep light, + And as we furrowed Tago's heaving tide, +I never saw so beautiful a night. + + + + +SONG. + +FROM THE SPANISH OF IGLESIAS. + + +Alexis calls me cruel; + The rifted crags that hold +The gathered ice of winter, + He says, are not more cold. + +When even the very blossoms + Around the fountain's brim, +And forest walks, can witness + The love I bear to him. + +I would that I could utter + My feelings without shame; +And tell him how I love him, + Nor wrong my virgin fame. + +Alas! to seize the moment + When heart inclines to heart, +And press a suit with passion, + Is not a woman's part. + +If man comes not to gather + The roses where they stand, +They fade among their foliage; + They cannot seek his hand. + + + + +THE COUNT OF GREIERS. + +FROM THE GERMAN OF UHLAND. + + +At morn the Count of Greiers before his castle stands; +He sees afar the glory that lights the mountain lands; +The horned crags are shining, and in the shade between +A pleasant Alpine valley lies beautifully green. + +"Oh, greenest of the valleys, how shall I come to thee! +Thy herdsmen and thy maidens, how happy must they be! +I have gazed upon thee coldly, all lovely as thou art, +But the wish to walk thy pastures now stirs my inmost heart." + +He hears a sound of timbrels, and suddenly appear +A troop of ruddy damsels and herdsmen drawing near; +They reach the castle greensward, and gayly dance across; +The white sleeves flit and glimmer, the wreaths and ribands toss. + +The youngest of the maidens, slim as a spray of spring, +She takes the young count's fingers, and draws him to the ring, +They fling upon his forehead a crown of mountain flowers, +"And ho, young Count of Greiers! this morning thou art ours!" + +Then hand in hand departing, with dance and roundelay, +Through hamlet after hamlet, they lead the Count away. +They dance through wood and meadow, they dance across the linn, +Till the mighty Alpine summits have shut the music in. + +The second morn is risen, and now the third is come; +Where stays the Count of Greiers? has he forgot his home? +Again the evening closes, in thick and sultry air; +There's thunder on the mountains, the storm is gathering there. + +The cloud has shed its waters, the brook comes swollen down; +You see it by the lightning--a river wide and brown. +Around a struggling swimmer the eddies dash and roar, +Till, seizing on a willow, he leaps upon the shore. + +"Here am I cast by tempests far from your mountain dell. +Amid our evening dances the bursting deluge fell. +Ye all, in cots and caverns, have 'scaped the water-spout, +While me alone the tempest o'erwhelmed and hurried out. + +"Farewell, with thy glad dwellers, green vale among the rocks! +Farewell the swift sweet moments, in which I watched thy flocks! +Why rocked they not my cradle in that delicious spot, +That garden of the happy, where Heaven endures me not? + +"Rose of the Alpine valley! I feel, in every vein, +Thy soft touch on my fingers; oh, press them not again! +Bewitch me not, ye garlands, to tread that upward track, +And thou, my cheerless mansion, receive thy master back." + + + + +THE SERENADE. + +FROM THE SPANISH. + + +If slumber, sweet Lisena! + Have stolen o'er thine eyes, +As night steals o'er the glory + Of spring's transparent skies; + +Wake, in thy scorn and beauty, + And listen to the strain +That murmurs my devotion, + That mourns for thy disdain. + +Here by thy door at midnight, + I pass the dreary hour, +With plaintive sounds profaning + The silence of thy bower; + +A tale of sorrow cherished + Too fondly to depart, +Of wrong from love the flatterer, + And my own wayward heart. + +Twice, o'er this vale, the seasons + Have brought and borne away +The January tempest, + The genial wind of May; + +Yet still my plaint is uttered, + My tears and sighs are given +To earth's unconscious waters, + And wandering winds of heaven. + +I saw from this fair region, + The smile of summer pass, +And myriad frost-stars glitter + Among the russet grass. + +While winter seized the streamlets + That fled along the ground, +And fast in chains of crystal + The truant murmurers bound. + +I saw that to the forest + The nightingales had flown, +And every sweet-voiced fountain + Had hushed its silver tone. + +The maniac winds, divorcing + The turtle from his mate, +Raved through the leafy beeches, + And left them desolate. + +Now May, with life and music, + The blooming valley fills, +And rears her flowery arches + For all the little rills. + +The minstrel bird of evening + Comes back on joyous wings, +And, like the harp's soft murmur, + Is heard the gush of springs. + +And deep within the forest + Are wedded turtles seen, +Their nuptial chambers seeking, + Their chambers close and green. + +The rugged trees are mingling + Their flowery sprays in love; +The ivy climbs the laurel, + To clasp the boughs above. + +They change--but thou, Lisena, + Art cold while I complain: +Why to thy lover only + Should spring return in vain? + + + + +A NORTHERN LEGEND. + +FROM THE GERMAN OF UHLAND. + + +There sits a lovely maiden, + The ocean murmuring nigh; +She throws the hook, and watches; + The fishes pass it by. + +A ring, with a red jewel, + Is sparkling on her hand; +Upon the hook she binds it, + And flings it from the land. + +Uprises from the water + A hand like ivory fair. +What gleams upon its finger? + The golden ring is there. + +Uprises from the bottom + A young and handsome knight; +In golden scales he rises, + That glitter in the light. + +The maid is pale with terror-- + "Nay, Knight of Ocean, nay, +It was not thee I wanted; + Let go the ring, I pray." + +"Ah, maiden, not to fishes + The bait of gold is thrown; +The ring shall never leave me, + And thou must be my own." + + + + + * * * * * + + + + LATER POEMS. + + + + * * * * * + + + + +LATER POEMS + + + + +TO THE APENNINES. + + +Your peaks are beautiful, ye Apennines! + In the soft light of these serenest skies; +From the broad highland region, black with pines, + Fair as the hills of Paradise they rise, +Bathed in the tint Peruvian slaves behold +In rosy flushes on the virgin gold. + +There, rooted to the aerial shelves that wear + The glory of a brighter world, might spring +Sweet flowers of heaven to scent the unbreathed air, + And heaven's fleet messengers might rest the wing, +To view the fair earth in its summer sleep, +Silent, and cradled by the glimmering deep. + +Below you lie men's sepulchres, the old + Etrurian tombs, the graves of yesterday; +The herd's white bones lie mixed with human mould-- + Yet up the radiant steeps that I survey +Death never climbed, nor life's soft breath, with pain, +Was yielded to the elements again. + +Ages of war have filled these plains with fear; + How oft the hind has started at the clash +Of spears, and yell of meeting, armies here, + Or seen the lightning of the battle flash +From clouds, that rising with the thunder's sound, +Hung like an earth-born tempest o'er the ground! + +Ah me! what armed nations--Asian horde, + And Libyan host--the Scythian and the Gaul, +Have swept your base and through your passes poured, + Like ocean-tides uprising at the call +Of tyrant winds--against your rocky side +The bloody billows dashed, and howled, and died. + +How crashed the towers before beleaguering foes, + Sacked cities smoked and realms were rent in twain; +And commonwealths against their rivals rose, + Trode out their lives and earned the curse of Cain! +While in the noiseless air and light that flowed +Round your far brows, eternal Peace abode. + +Here pealed the impious hymn, and altar flames + Rose to false gods, a dream-begotten throng, +Jove, Bacchus, Pan, and earlier, fouler names; + While, as the unheeding ages passed along, +Ye, from your station in the middle skies, +Proclaimed the essential Goodness, strong and wise. + +In you the heart that sighs for freedom seeks + Her image; there the winds no barrier know, +Clouds come and rest and leave your fairy peaks; + While even the immaterial Mind, below, +And thought, her winged offspring, chained by power, +Pine silently for the redeeming hour. + + + + +EARTH. + + + A midnight black with clouds is in the sky; +I seem to feel, upon my limbs, the weight +Of its vast brooding shadow. All in vain +Turns the tired eye in search of form; no star +Pierces the pitchy veil; no ruddy blaze, +From dwellings lighted by the cheerful hearth, +Tinges the flowering summits of the grass. +No sound of life is heard, no village hum, +Nor measured tramp of footstep in the path, +Nor rush of wing, while, on the breast of Earth, +I lie and listen to her mighty voice: +A voice of many tones--sent up from streams +That wander through the gloom, from woods unseen, +Swayed by the sweeping of the tides of air, +From rocky chasms where darkness dwells all day, +And hollows of the great invisible hills, +And sands that edge the ocean, stretching far +Into the night--a melancholy sound! + + O Earth! dost thou too sorrow for the past +Like man thy offspring? Do I hear thee mourn +Thy childhood's unreturning hours, thy springs +Gone with their genial airs and melodies, +The gentle generations of thy flowers, +And thy majestic groves of olden time, +Perished with all their dwellers? Dost thou wail +For that fair age of which the poets tell, +Ere the rude winds grew keen with frost, or fire +Fell with the rains, or spouted from the hills, +To blast thy greenness, while the virgin night +Was guiltless and salubrious as the day? +Or haply dost thou grieve for those that die-- +For living things that trod thy paths awhile, +The love of thee and heaven--and now they sleep +Mixed with the shapeless dust on which thy herds +Trample and graze? I too must grieve with thee, +O'er loved ones lost. Their graves are far away +Upon thy mountains; yet, while I recline +Alone, in darkness, on thy naked soil, +The mighty nourisher and burial-place +Of man, I feel that I embrace their dust. + + Ha! how the murmur deepens! I perceive +And tremble at its dreadful import. Earth +Uplifts a general cry for guilt and wrong, +And heaven is listening. The forgotten graves +Of the heart-broken utter forth their plaint. +The dust of her who loved and was betrayed, +And him who died neglected in his age; +The sepulchres of those who for mankind +Laboured, and earned the recompense of scorn; +Ashes of martyrs for the truth, and bones +Of those who, in the strife for liberty, +Were beaten down, their corses given to dogs, +Their names to infamy, all find a voice. +The nook in which the captive, overtoiled, +Lay down to rest at last, and that which holds +Childhood's sweet blossoms, crushed by cruel hands, +Send up a plaintive sound. From battle-fields, +Where heroes madly drave and dashed their hosts +Against each other, rises up a noise, +As if the armed multitudes of dead +Stirred in their heavy slumber. Mournful tones +Come from the green abysses of the sea-- +story of the crimes the guilty sought +To hide beneath its waves. The glens, the groves, +Paths in the thicket, pools of running brook, +And banks and depths of lake, and streets and lanes +Of cities, now that living sounds are hushed, +Murmur of guilty force and treachery. + + Here, where I rest, the vales of Italy +Are round me, populous from early time, +And field of the tremendous warfare waged +'Twixt good and evil. Who, alas, shall dare +Interpret to man's ear the mingled voice +That comes from her old dungeons yawning now +To the black air, her amphitheatres, +Where the dew gathers on the mouldering stones, +And fanes of banished gods, and open tombs, +And roofless palaces, and streets and hearths +Of cities dug from their volcanic graves? +I hear a sound of many languages, +The utterance of nations now no more, +Driven out by mightier, as the days of heaven +Chase one another from the sky. The blood +Of freemen shed by freemen, till strange lords +Came in the hour of weakness, and made fast +The yoke that yet is worn, cries out to Heaven. + + What then shall cleanse thy bosom, gentle Earth +From all its painful memories of guilt? +The whelming flood, or the renewing fire, +Or the slow change of time? that so, at last, +The horrid tale of perjury and strife, +Murder and spoil, which men call history, +May seem a fable, like the inventions told +By poets of the gods of Greece. O thou, +Who sittest far beyond the Atlantic deep, +Among the sources of thy glorious streams, +My native Land of Groves! a newer page +In the great record of the world is thine; +Shall it be fairer? Fear, and friendly hope, +And envy, watch the issue, while the lines, +By which thou shalt be judged, are written down. + + + + +THE KNIGHT'S EPITAPH. + + + This is the church which Pisa, great and free, +Reared to St. Catharine. How the time-stained walls, +That earthquakes shook not from their poise, appear +To shiver in the deep and voluble tones +Rolled from the organ! Underneath my feet +There lies the lid of a sepulchral vault. +The image of an armed knight is graven +Upon it, clad in perfect panoply-- +Cuishes, and greaves, and cuirass, with barred helm, +Gauntleted hand, and sword, and blazoned shield. +Around, in Gothic characters, worn dim +By feet of worshippers, are traced his name, +And birth, and death, and words of eulogy. +Why should I pore upon them? This old tomb, +This effigy, the strange disused form +Of this inscription, eloquently show +His history. Let me clothe in fitting words +The thoughts they breathe, and frame his epitaph. + + "He whose forgotten dust for centuries +Has lain beneath this stone, was one in whom +Adventure, and endurance, and emprise +Exalted the mind's faculties and strung +The body's sinews. Brave he was in fight, +Courteous in banquet, scornful of repose, +And bountiful, and cruel, and devout, +And quick to draw the sword in private feud. +He pushed his quarrels to the death, yet prayed +The saints as fervently on bended knees +As ever shaven cenobite. He loved +As fiercely as he fought. He would have borne +The maid that pleased him from her bower by night, +To his hill-castle, as the eagle bears +His victim from the fold, and rolled the rocks +On his pursuers. He aspired to see +His native Pisa queen and arbitress +Of cities: earnestly for her he raised +His voice in council, and affronted death +In battle-field, and climbed the galley's deck, +And brought the captured flag of Genoa back, +Or piled upon the Arno's crowded quay +The glittering spoils of the tamed Saracen. +He was not born to brook the stranger's yoke, +But would have joined the exiles that withdrew +For ever, when the Florentine broke in +The gates of Pisa, and bore off the bolts +For trophies--but he died before that day. + + "He lived, the impersonation of an age +That never shall return. His soul of fire +Was kindled by the breath of the rude time +He lived in. Now a gentler race succeeds, +Shuddering at blood; the effeminate cavalier, +Turning his eyes from the reproachful past, +And from the hopeless future, gives to ease, +And love, and music, his inglorious life." + + + + +THE HUNTER OF THE PRAIRIES. + + +Ay, this is freedom!--these pure skies + Were never stained with village smoke: +The fragrant wind, that through them flies, + Is breathed from wastes by plough unbroke. +Here, with my rifle and my steed, + And her who left the world for me, +I plant me, where the red deer feed + In the green desert--and am free. + +For here the fair savannas know + No barriers in the bloomy grass; +Wherever breeze of heaven may blow, + Or beam of heaven may glance, I pass. +In pastures, measureless as air, + The bison is my noble game; +The bounding elk, whose antlers tear + The branches, falls before my aim. + +Mine are the river-fowl that scream + From the long stripe of waving sedge; +The bear that marks my weapon's gleam, + Hides vainly in the forest's edge; +In vain the she-wolf stands at bay; + The brinded catamount, that lies +High in the boughs to watch his prey, + Even in the act of springing, dies. + +With what free growth the elm and plane + Fling their huge arms across my way, +Gray, old, and cumbered with a train + Of vines, as huge, and old, and gray! +Free stray the lucid streams, and find + No taint in these fresh lawns and shades; +Free spring the flowers that scent the wind + Where never scythe has swept the glades. + +Alone the Fire, when frost-winds sere + The heavy herbage of the ground, +Gathers his annual harvest here, + With roaring like the battle's sound, +And hurrying flames that sweep the plain, + And smoke-streams gushing up the sky: +I meet the flames with flames again, + And at my door they cower and die. + +Here, from dim woods, the aged past + Speaks solemnly; and I behold +The boundless future in the vast + And lonely river, seaward rolled. +Who feeds its founts with rain and dew; + Who moves, I ask, its gliding mass, +And trains the bordering vines, whose blue + Bright clusters tempt me as I pass? + +Broad are these streams--my steed obeys, + Plunges, and bears me through the tide. +Wide are these woods--I thread the maze + Of giant stems, nor ask a guide. +I hunt till day's last glimmer dies + O'er woody vale and grassy height; +And kind the voice and glad the eyes + That welcome my return at night. + + + + +SEVENTY-SIX. + + +What heroes from the woodland sprung, + When, through the fresh awakened land, +The thrilling cry of freedom rung, +And to the work of warfare strung + The yeoman's iron hand! + +Hills flung the cry to hills around, + And ocean-mart replied to mart, +And streams whose springs were yet unfound, +Pealed far away the startling sound + Into the forest's heart. + +Then marched the brave from rocky steep, + From mountain river swift and cold; +The borders of the stormy deep, +The vales where gathered waters sleep, +Sent up the strong and bold,-- + +As if the very earth again + Grew quick with God's creating breath, +And, from the sods of grove and glen, +Rose ranks of lion-hearted men + To battle to the death. + +The wife, whose babe first smiled that day, + The fair fond bride of yestereve, +And aged sire and matron gray, +Saw the loved warriors haste away, + And deemed it sin to grieve. + +Already had the strife begun; + Already blood on Concord's plain +Along the springing grass had run, +And blood had flowed at Lexington, + Like brooks of April rain. + +That death-stain on the vernal sward + Hallowed to freedom all the shore; +In fragments fell the yoke abhorred-- +The footstep of a foreign lord + Profaned the soil no more. + + + + +THE LIVING LOST. + + +Matron! the children of whose love, + Each to his grave, in youth hath passed, +And now the mould is heaped above + The dearest and the last! +Bride! who dost wear the widow's veil +Before the wedding flowers are pale! +Ye deem the human heart endures +No deeper, bitterer grief than yours. + +Yet there are pangs of keener wo, + Of which the sufferers never speak, +Nor to the world's cold pity show + The tears that scald the cheek, +Wrung from their eyelids by the shame +And guilt of those they shrink to name, +Whom once they loved with cheerful will, +And love, though fallen and branded, still. + +Weep, ye who sorrow for the dead, + Thus breaking hearts their pain relieve; +And reverenced are the tears ye shed, + And honoured ye who grieve. +The praise of those who sleep in earth, +The pleasant memory of their worth, +The hope to meet when life is past, +Shall heal the tortured mind at last. + +But ye, who for the living lost + That agony in secret bear, +Who shall with soothing words accost + The strength of your despair? +Grief for your sake is scorn for them +Whom ye lament and all condemn; +And o'er the world of spirits lies +A gloom from which ye turn your eyes. + + + + +CATTERSKILL FALLS. + + +Midst greens and shades the Catterskill leaps, + From cliffs where the wood-flower clings; +All summer he moistens his verdant steeps + With the sweet light spray of the mountain springs; +And he shakes the woods on the mountain side, +When they drip with the rains of autumn-tide. + +But when, in the forest bare and old, + The blast of December calls, +He builds, in the starlight clear and cold, + A palace of ice where his torrent falls, +With turret, and arch, and fretwork fair, +And pillars blue as the summer air. + +For whom are those glorious chambers wrought, + In the cold and cloudless night? +Is there neither spirit nor motion of thought + In forms so lovely, and hues so bright? +Hear what the gray-haired woodmen tell +Of this wild stream and its rocky dell. + +'Twas hither a youth of dreamy mood, + A hundred winters ago, +Had wandered over the mighty wood, + When the panther's track was fresh on the snow, +And keen were the winds that came to stir +The long dark boughs of the hemlock fir. + +Too gentle of mien he seemed and fair, + For a child of those rugged steeps; +His home lay low in the valley where + The kingly Hudson rolls to the deeps; +But he wore the hunter's frock that day, +And a slender gun on his shoulder lay. + +And here he paused, and against the trunk + Of a tall gray linden leant, +When the broad clear orb of the sun had sunk + From his path in the frosty firmament, +And over the round dark edge of the hill +A cold green light was quivering still. + +And the crescent moon, high over the green, + From a sky of crimson shone, +On that icy palace, whose towers were seen + To sparkle as if with stars of their own; +While the water fell with a hollow sound, +'Twixt the glistening pillars ranged around. + +Is that a being of life, that moves + Where the crystal battlements rise? +A maiden watching the moon she loves, + At the twilight hour, with pensive eyes? +Was that a garment which seemed to gleam +Betwixt the eye and the falling stream? + +'Tis only the torrent tumbling o'er, + In the midst of those glassy walls, +Gushing, and plunging, and beating the floor + Of the rocky basin in which it falls. +'Tis only the torrent--but why that start? +Why gazes the youth with a throbbing heart? + +He thinks no more of his home afar, + Where his sire and sister wait. +He heeds no longer how star after star + Looks forth on the night as the hour grows late. +He heeds not the snow-wreaths, lifted and cast +From a thousand boughs, by the rising blast. + +His thoughts are alone of those who dwell + In the halls of frost and snow, +Who pass where the crystal domes upswell + From the alabaster floors below, +Where the frost-trees shoot with leaf and spray, +And frost-gems scatter a silvery day. + +"And oh that those glorious haunts were mine!" + He speaks, and throughout the glen +Thin shadows swim in the faint moonshine, + And take a ghastly likeness of men, +As if the slain by the wintry storms +Came forth to the air in their earthly forms. + +There pass the chasers of seal and whale, + With their weapons quaint and grim, +And bands of warriors in glittering mail, + And herdsmen and hunters huge of limb. +There are naked arms, with bow and spear, +And furry gauntlets the carbine rear. + +There are mothers--and oh how sadly their eyes + On their children's white brows rest! +There are youthful lovers--the maiden lies, + In a seeming sleep, on the chosen breast; +There are fair wan women with moonstruck air, +The snow stars flecking their long loose hair. + +They eye him not as they pass along, + But his hair stands up with dread, +When he feels that he moves with that phantom throng, + Till those icy turrets are over his head, +And the torrent's roar as they enter seems +Like a drowsy murmur heard in dreams. + +The glittering threshold is scarcely passed, + When there gathers and wraps him round +A thick white twilight, sullen and vast, + In which there is neither form nor sound; +The phantoms, the glory, vanish all, +With the dying voice of the waterfall. + +Slow passes the darkness of that trance, + And the youth now faintly sees +Huge shadows and gushes of light that dance + On a rugged ceiling of unhewn trees, +And walls where the skins of beasts are hung, +And rifles glitter on antlers strung. + +On a couch of shaggy skins he lies; + As he strives to raise his head, +Hard-featured woodmen, with kindly eyes, + Come round him and smooth his furry bed +And bid him rest, for the evening star +Is scarcely set and the day is far. + +They had found at eve the dreaming one + By the base of that icy steep, +When over his stiffening limbs begun + The deadly slumber of frost to creep, +And they cherished the pale and breathless form, +Till the stagnant blood ran free and warm. + + + + +THE STRANGE LADY. + + +The summer morn is bright and fresh, the birds are darting by, +As if they loved to breast the breeze that sweeps the cool clear sky; +Young Albert, in the forest's edge, has heard a rustling sound, +An arrow slightly strikes his hand and falls upon the ground. + +A dark-haired woman from the wood comes suddenly in sight; +Her merry eye is full and black, her cheek is brown and bright; +Her gown is of the mid-sea blue, her belt with beads is strung, +And yet she speaks in gentle tones, and in the English tongue. + +"It was an idle bolt I sent, against the villain crow; +Fair sir, I fear it harmed thy hand; beshrew my erring bow!" +"Ah! would that bolt had not been spent! then, lady, might I wear +A lasting token on my hand of one so passing fair!" + +"Thou art a flatterer like the rest, but wouldst thou take with me +A day of hunting in the wilds, beneath the greenwood tree, +I know where most the pheasants feed, and where the red-deer herd, +And thou shouldst chase the nobler game, and I bring down the bird." + +Now Albert in her quiver lays the arrow in its place, +And wonders as he gazes on the beauty of her face: +"Those hunting-grounds are far away, and, lady, 'twere not meet +That night, amid the wilderness, should overtake thy feet." + +"Heed not the night; a summer lodge amid the wild is mine,-- +'Tis shadowed by the tulip-tree, 'tis mantled by the vine; +The wild plum sheds its yellow fruit from fragrant thickets nigh, +And flowery prairies from the door stretch till they meet the sky. + +"There in the boughs that hide the roof the mock-bird sits and sings, +And there the hang-bird's brood within its little hammock swings; +A pebbly brook, where rustling winds among the hopples sweep, +Shall lull thee till the morning sun looks in upon thy sleep." + +Away, into the forest depths by pleasant paths they go, +He with his rifle on his arm, the lady with her bow, +Where cornels arch their cool dark boughs o'er beds of winter-green, +And never at his father's door again was Albert seen. + +That night upon the woods came down a furious hurricane, +With howl of winds and roar of streams, and beating of the rain; +The mighty thunder broke and drowned the noises in its crash; +The old trees seemed to fight like fiends beneath the lightning-flash. + +Next day, within a mossy glen, 'mid mouldering trunks were found +The fragments of a human form upon the bloody ground; +White bones from which the flesh was torn, and locks of glossy hair; +They laid them in the place of graves, yet wist not whose they were. + +And whether famished evening wolves had mangled Albert so, +Or that strange dame so gay and fair were some mysterious foe, +Or whether to that forest lodge, beyond the mountains blue, +He went to dwell with her, the friends who mourned him never knew. + + + + +LIFE. deg. + + +Oh Life! I breathe thee in the breeze, + I feel thee bounding in my veins, +I see thee in these stretching trees, + These flowers, this still rock's mossy stains. + +This stream of odours flowing by + From clover-field and clumps of pine, +This music, thrilling all the sky, + From all the morning birds, are thine. + +Thou fill'st with joy this little one, + That leaps and shouts beside me here, +Where Isar's clay-white rivulets run + Through the dark woods like frighted deer. + +Ah! must thy mighty breath, that wakes + Insect and bird, and flower and tree, +From the low trodden dust, and makes + Their daily gladness, pass from me-- + +Pass, pulse by pulse, till o'er the ground + These limbs, now strong, shall creep with pain, +And this fair world of sight and sound + Seem fading into night again? + +The things, oh LIFE! thou quickenest, all + Strive upwards toward the broad bright sky, +Upward and outward, and they fall + Back to earth's bosom when they die. + +All that have borne the touch of death, + All that shall live, lie mingled there, +Beneath that veil of bloom and breath, + That living zone 'twixt earth and air. + +There lies my chamber dark and still, + The atoms trampled by my feet, +There wait, to take the place I fill + In the sweet air and sunshine sweet. + +Well, I have had my turn, have been + Raised from the darkness of the clod, +And for a glorious moment seen + The brightness of the skirts of God; + +And knew the light within my breast, + Though wavering oftentimes and dim, +The power, the will, that never rest, + And cannot die, were all from him. + +Dear child! I know that thou wilt grieve + To see me taken from thy love, +Wilt seek my grave at Sabbath eve, + And weep, and scatter flowers above. + +Thy little heart will soon be healed, + And being shall be bliss, till thou +To younger forms of life must yield + The place thou fill'st with beauty now. + +When we descend to dust again, + Where will the final dwelling be +Of Thought and all its memories then, + My love for thee, and thine for me? + + + + +"EARTH'S CHILDREN CLEAVE TO EARTH." + + +Earth's children cleave to Earth--her frail + Decaying children dread decay. +Yon wreath of mist that leaves the vale, + And lessens in the morning ray: +Look, how, by mountain rivulet, + It lingers as it upward creeps, +And clings to fern and copsewood set + Along the green and dewy steeps: +Clings to the fragrant kalmia, clings + To precipices fringed with grass, +Dark maples where the wood-thrush sings, + And bowers of fragrant sassafras. +Yet all in vain--it passes still + From hold to hold, it cannot stay, +And in the very beams that fill + The world with glory, wastes away, +Till, parting from the mountain's brow, + It vanishes from human eye, +And that which sprung of earth is now + A portion of the glorious sky. + + + + +THE HUNTER'S VISION. + + +Upon a rock that, high and sheer, + Rose from the mountain's breast, +A weary hunter of the deer + Had sat him down to rest, +And bared to the soft summer air +His hot red brow and sweaty hair. + +All dim in haze the mountains lay, + With dimmer vales between; +And rivers glimmered on their way, + By forests faintly seen; +While ever rose a murmuring sound, +From brooks below and bees around. + +He listened, till he seemed to hear + A strain, so soft and low, +That whether in the mind or ear + The listener scarce might know. +With such a tone, so sweet and mild, +The watching mother lulls her child. + +"Thou weary huntsman," thus it said, + "Thou faint with toil and heat, +The pleasant land of rest is spread + Before thy very feet, +And those whom thou wouldst gladly see +Are waiting there to welcome thee." + +He looked, and 'twixt the earth and sky + Amid the noontide haze, +A shadowy region met his eye, + And grew beneath his gaze, +As if the vapours of the air +Had gathered into shapes so fair. + +Groves freshened as he looked, and flowers + Showed bright on rocky bank, +And fountains welled beneath the bowers, + Where deer and pheasant drank. +He saw the glittering streams, he heard +The rustling bough and twittering bird. + +And friends--the dead--in boyhood dear, + There lived and walked again, +And there was one who many a year + Within her grave had lain, +A fair young girl, the hamlet's pride-- +His heart was breaking when she died: + +Bounding, as was her wont, she came + Right towards his resting-place, +And stretched her hand and called his name + With that sweet smiling face. +Forward with fixed and eager eyes, +The hunter leaned in act to rise: + +Forward he leaned, and headlong down + Plunged from that craggy wall; +He saw the rocks, steep, stern, and brown, + An instant, in his fall; +A frightful instant--and no more, +The dream and life at once were o'er. + + + + +THE GREEN MOUNTAIN BOYS. deg. + + +I. + +Here we halt our march, and pitch our tent + On the rugged forest ground, +And light our fire with the branches rent + By winds from the beeches round. +Wild storms have torn this ancient wood, + But a wilder is at hand, +With hail of iron and rain of blood, + To sweep and waste the land. + +II. + +How the dark wood rings with voices shrill, + That startle the sleeping bird; +To-morrow eve must the voice be still, + And the step must fall unheard. +The Briton lies by the blue Champlain, + In Ticonderoga's towers, +And ere the sun rise twice again, + The towers and the lake are ours. + +III. + +Fill up the bowl from the brook that glides + Where the fireflies light the brake; +A ruddier juice the Briton hides + In his fortress by the lake. +Build high the fire, till the panther leap + From his lofty perch in flight, +And we'll strenghten our weary arms with sleep + For the deeds of to-morrow night. + + + + +A PRESENTIMENT. + + +"Oh father, let us hence--for hark, + A fearful murmur shakes the air. +The clouds are coming swift and dark:-- + What horrid shapes they wear! +A winged giant sails the sky; +Oh father, father, let us fly!" + +"Hush, child; it is a grateful sound, + That beating of the summer shower; +Here, where the boughs hang close around, + We'll pass a pleasant hour, +Till the fresh wind, that brings the rain, +Has swept the broad heaven clear again." + +"Nay, father, let us haste--for see, + That horrid thing with horned brow,-- +His wings o'erhang this very tree, + He scowls upon us now; +His huge black arm is lifted high; + Oh father, father, let us fly!" + +"Hush, child;" but, as the father spoke, + Downward the livid firebolt came, +Close to his ear the thunder broke, + And, blasted by the flame, +The child lay dead; while dark and still, +Swept the grim cloud along the hill. + + + + +THE CHILD'S FUNERAL. deg. + + +Fair is thy site, Sorrento, green thy shore, + Black crags behind thee pierce the clear blue skies; +The sea, whose borderers ruled the world of yore, + As clear and bluer still before thee lies. + +Vesuvius smokes in sight, whose fount of fire, + Outgushing, drowned the cities on his steeps; +And murmuring Naples, spire o'ertopping spire, + Sits on the slope beyond where Virgil sleeps. + +Here doth the earth, with flowers of every hue, + Heap her green breast when April suns are bright, +Flowers of the morning-red, or ocean-blue, + Or like the mountain frost of silvery white. + +Currents of fragrance, from the orange tree, + And sward of violets, breathing to and fro, +Mingle, and wandering out upon the sea, + Refresh the idle boatsman where they blow. + +Yet even here, as under harsher climes, + Tears for the loved and early lost are shed; +That soft air saddens with the funeral chimes, + Those shining flowers are gathered for the dead. + +Here once a child, a smiling playful one, + All the day long caressing and caressed, +Died when its little tongue had just begun + To lisp the names of those it loved the best. + +The father strove his struggling grief to quell, + The mother wept as mothers use to weep, +Two little sisters wearied them to tell + When their dear Carlo would awake from sleep. + +Within an inner room his couch they spread, + His funeral couch; with mingled grief and love, +They laid a crown of roses on his head, + And murmured, "Brighter is his crown above." + +They scattered round him, on the snowy sheet, + Laburnum's strings of sunny-coloured gems, +Sad hyacinths, and violets dim and sweet, + And orange blossoms on their dark green stems. + +And now the hour is come, the priest is there; + Torches are lit and bells are tolled; they go, +With solemn rites of blessing and of prayer, + To lay the little corpse in earth below. + +The door is opened; hark! that quick glad cry; + Carlo has waked, has waked, and is at play; +The little sisters laugh and leap, and try + To climb the bed on which the infant lay. + +And there he sits alone, and gayly shakes + In his full hands, the blossoms red and white, +And smiles with winking eyes, like one who wakes + From long deep slumbers at the morning light. + + + + +THE BATTLE-FIELD. + + +Once this soft turf, this rivulet's sands, + Were trampled by a hurrying crowd, +And fiery hearts and armed hands + Encountered in the battle cloud. + +Ah! I never shall the land forget + How gushed the life-blood of her brave-- +Gushed, warm with hope and courage yet, + Upon the soil they fought to save. + +Now all is calm, and fresh, and still, + Alone the chirp of flitting bird, +And talk of children on the hill, + And bell of wandering kine are heard. + +No solemn host goes trailing by + The black-mouthed gun and staggering wain; +Men start not at the battle-cry, + Oh, be it never heard again! + +Soon rested those who fought; but thou + Who minglest in the harder strife +For truths which men receive not now + Thy warfare only ends with life. + +A friendless warfare! lingering long + Through weary day and weary year. +A wild and many-weaponed throng + Hang on thy front, and flank, and rear. + +Yet nerve thy spirit to the proof, + And blench not at thy chosen lot. +The timid good may stand aloof, + The sage may frown--yet faint thou not. + +Nor heed the shaft too surely cast, + The foul and hissing bolt of scorn; +For with thy side shall dwell, at last, + The victory of endurance born. + +Truth, crushed to earth, shall rise again; + The eternal years of God are hers; +But Error, wounded, writhes with pain, + And dies among his worshippers. + +Yea, though thou lie upon the dust, + When they who helped thee flee in fear, +Die full of hope and manly trust, + Like those who fell in battle here. + +Another hand thy sword shall wield, + Another hand the standard wave, +Till from the trumpet's mouth is pealed + The blast of triumph o'er thy grave. + + + + +THE FUTURE LIFE. + + +How shall I know thee in the sphere which keeps + The disembodied spirits of the dead, +When all of thee that time could wither sleeps + And perishes among the dust we tread? + +For I shall feel the sting of ceaseless pain + If there I meet thy gentle presence not; +Nor hear the voice I love, nor read again + In thy serenest eyes the tender thought. + +Will not thy own meek heart demand me there? + That heart whose fondest throbs to me were given? +My name on earth was ever in thy prayer, + Shall it be banished from thy tongue in heaven? + +In meadows fanned by heaven's life-breathing wind, + In the resplendence of that glorious sphere, +And larger movements of the unfettered mind, + Wilt thou forget the love that joined us here? + +The love that lived through all the stormy past, + And meekly with my harsher nature bore, +And deeper grew, and tenderer to the last, + Shall it expire with life, and be no more? + +A happier lot than mine, and larger light, + Await thee there; for thou hast bowed thy will +In cheerful homage to the rule of right, + And lovest all, and renderest good for ill. + +For me, the sordid cares in which I dwell, + Shrink and consume my heart, as heat the scroll; +And wrath has left its scar--that fire of hell + Has left its frightful scar upon my soul. + +Yet though thou wear'st the glory of the sky, + Wilt thou not keep the same beloved name, +The same fair thoughtful brow, and gentle eye, + Lovelier in heaven's sweet climate, yet the same? + +Shalt thou not teach me, in that calmer home, + The wisdom that I learned so ill in this-- +The wisdom which is love--till I become + Thy fit companion in that land of bliss? + + + + +THE DEATH OF SCHILLER. deg. + +'Tis said, when Schiller's death drew nigh, +The wish possessed his mighty mind, +To wander forth wherever lie +The homes and haunts of human-kind. + +Then strayed the poet, in his dreams, +By Rome and Egypt's ancient graves; +Went up the New World's forest streams, +Stood in the Hindoo's temple-caves; + +Walked with the Pawnee, fierce and stark, +The sallow Tartar, midst his herds, +The peering Chinese, and the dark +False Malay uttering gentle words. + +How could he rest? even then he trod +The threshold of the world unknown; +Already, from the seat of God, +A ray upon his garments shone;-- + +Shone and awoke the strong desire +For love and knowledge reached not here, +Till, freed by death, his soul of fire +Sprang to a fairer, ampler sphere. + +Then--who shall tell how deep, how bright +The abyss of glory opened round? +How thought and feeling flowed like light, +Through ranks of being without bound? + + + + +THE FOUNTAIN. deg. + + + Fountain, that springest on this grassy slope, +Thy quick cool murmur mingles pleasantly, +With the cool sound of breezes in the beach, +Above me in the noontide. Thou dost wear +No stain of thy dark birthplace; gushing up +From the red mould and slimy roots of earth, +Thou flashest in the sun. The mountain air, +In winter, is not clearer, nor the dew +That shines on mountain blossom. Thus doth God +Bring, from the dark and foul, the pure and bright. + + This tangled thicket on the bank above +Thy basin, how thy waters keep it green! +For thou dost feed the roots of the wild vine +That trails all over it, and to the twigs +Ties fast her clusters. There the spice-bush lifts +Her leafy lances; the viburnum there, +Paler of foliage, to the sun holds up +Her circlet of green berries. In and out +The chipping sparrow, in her coat of brown, +Steals silently, lest I should mark her nest. + + Not such thou wert of yore, ere yet the axe +Had smitten the old woods. Then hoary trunks +Of oak, and plane, and hickory, o'er thee held +A mighty canopy. When April winds +Grew soft, the maple burst into a flush +Of scarlet flowers. The tulip-tree, high up, +Opened, in airs of June, her multitude +Of golden chalices to humming-birds +And silken-winged insects of the sky. + + Frail wood-plants clustered round thy edge in Spring. +The liverleaf put forth her sister blooms +Of faintest blue. Here the quick-footed wolf, +Passing to lap thy waters, crushed the flower +Of sanguinaria, from whose brittle stem +The red drops fell like blood. The deer, too, left +Her delicate foot-print in the soft moist mould, +And on the fallen leaves. The slow-paced bear, +In such a sultry summer noon as this, +Stopped at thy stream, and drank, and leaped across. + + But thou hast histories that stir the heart +With deeper feeling; while I look on thee +They rise before me. I behold the scene +Hoary again with forests; I behold +The Indian warrior, whom a hand unseen +Has smitten with his death-wound in the woods, +Creep slowly to thy well-known rivulet, +And slake his death-thirst. Hark, that quick fierce cry +That rends the utter silence; 'tis the whoop +Of battle, and a throng of savage men +With naked arms and faces stained like blood, +Fill the green wilderness; the long bare arms +Are heaved aloft, bows twang and arrows stream; +Each makes a tree his shield, and every tree +Sends forth its arrow. Fierce the fight and short, +As is the whirlwind. Soon the conquerors +And conquered vanish, and the dead remain +Mangled by tomahawks. The mighty woods +Are still again, the frighted bird comes back +And plumes her wings; but thy sweet waters run +Crimson with blood. Then, as the sun goes down, +Amid the deepening twilight I descry +Figures of men that crouch and creep unheard, +And bear away the dead. The next day's shower +Shall wash the tokens of the fight away. + + I look again--a hunter's lodge is built, +With poles and boughs, beside thy crystal well, +While the meek autumn stains the woods with gold, +And sheds his golden sunshine. To the door +The red man slowly drags the enormous bear +Slain in the chestnut thicket, or flings down +The deer from his strong shoulders. Shaggy fells +Of wolf and cougar hang upon the walls, +And loud the black-eyed Indian maidens laugh, +That gather, from the rustling heaps of leaves, +The hickory's white nuts, and the dark fruit +That falls from the gray butternut's long boughs. + + So centuries passed by, and still the woods +Blossomed in spring, and reddened when the year +Grew chill, and glistened in the frozen rains +Of winter, till the white man swung the axe +Beside thee--signal of a mighty change. +Then all around was heard the crash of trees, +Trembling awhile and rushing to the ground, +The low of ox, and shouts of men who fired +The brushwood, or who tore the earth with ploughs. +The grain sprang thick and tall, and hid in green +The blackened hill-side; ranks of spiky maize +Rose like a host embattled; the buckwheat +Whitened broad acres, sweetening with its flowers +The August wind. White cottages were seen +With rose-trees at the windows; barns from which +Came loud and shrill the crowing of the cock; +Pastures where rolled and neighed the lordly horse, +And white flocks browsed and bleated. A rich turf +Of grasses brought from far o'ercrept thy bank, +Spotted with the white clover. Blue-eyed girls +Brought pails, and dipped them in thy crystal pool; +And children, ruddy-cheeked and flaxen-haired, +Gathered the glistening cowslip from thy edge. + + Since then, what steps have trod thy border! Here +On thy green bank, the woodmann of the swamp +Has laid his axe, the reaper of the hill +His sickle, as they stooped to taste thy stream. +The sportsman, tired with wandering in the still +September noon, has bathed his heated brow +In thy cool current. Shouting boys, let loose +For a wild holiday, have quaintly shaped +Into a cup the folded linden leaf, +And dipped thy sliding crystal. From the wars +Returning, the plumed soldier by thy side +Has sat, and mused how pleasant 'twere to dwell +In such a spot, and be as free as thou, +And move for no man's bidding more. At eve, +When thou wert crimson with the crimson sky, +Lovers have gazed upon thee, and have thought +Their mingled lives should flow as peacefully +And brightly as thy waters. Here the sage, +Gazing into thy self-replenished depth, +Has seen eternal order circumscribe +And bind the motions of eternal change, +And from the gushing of thy simple fount +Has reasoned to the mighty universe. + + Is there no other change for thee, that lurks +Among the future ages? Will not man +Seek out strange arts to wither and deform +The pleasant landscape which thou makest green? +Or shall the veins that feed thy constant stream +Be choked in middle earth, and flow no more +For ever, that the water-plants along +Thy channel perish, and the bird in vain +Alight to drink? Haply shall these green hills +Sink, with the lapse of years, into the gulf +Of ocean waters, and thy source be lost +Amidst the bitter brine? Or shall they rise, +Upheaved in broken cliffs and airy peaks, +Haunts of the eagle and the snake, and thou +Gush midway from the bare and barren steep? + + + + +THE WINDS. + + +I. + +Ye winds, ye unseen currents of the air, + Softly ye played a few brief hours ago; +Ye bore the murmuring bee; ye tossed the hair + O'er maiden cheeks, that took a fresher glow; +Ye rolled the round white cloud through depths of blue; +Ye shook from shaded flowers the lingering dew; +Before you the catalpa's blossoms flew, + Light blossoms, dropping on the grass like snow. + + +II. + +How are ye changed! Ye take the cataract's sound; + Ye take the whirlpool's fury and its might; +The mountain shudders as ye sweep the ground; + The valley woods lie prone beneath your flight. +The clouds before you shoot like eagles past; +The homes of men are rocking in your blast; +Ye lift the roofs like autumn leaves, and cast, + Skyward, the whirling fragments out of sight. + + +III. + +The weary fowls of heaven make wing in vain, + To escape your wrath; ye seize and dash them dead. +Against the earth ye drive the roaring rain; + The harvest-field becomes a river's bed; +And torrents tumble from the hills around, +Plains turn to lakes, and villages are drowned, +And wailing voices, midst the tempest's sound, + Rise, as the rushing waters swell and spread. + + +IV. + +Ye dart upon the deep, and straight is heard + A wilder roar, and men grow pale, and pray; +Ye fling its floods around you, as a bird + Flings o'er his shivering plumes the fountain's spray. +See! to the breaking mast the sailor clings; +Ye scoop the ocean to its briny springs, +And take the mountain billow on your wings, + And pile the wreck of navies round the bay. + + +V. + +Why rage ye thus?--no strife for liberty + Has made you mad; no tyrant, strong through fear, +Has chained your pinions till ye wrenched them free, + And rushed into the unmeasured atmosphere; +For ye were born in freedom where ye blow; +Free o'er the mighty deep to come and go; +Earth's solemn woods were yours, her wastes of snow, + Her isles where summer blossoms all the year. + + +VI. + +O ye wild winds! a mightier Power than yours + In chains upon the shore of Europe lies; +The sceptred throng, whose fetters he endures, + Watch his mute throes with terror in their eyes: +And armed warriors all around him stand, +And, as he struggles, tighten every band, +And lift the heavy spear, with threatening hand, + To pierce the victim, should he strive to rise. + + +VII. + +Yet oh, when that wronged Spirit of our race + Shall break, as soon he must, his long-worn chains, +And leap in freedom from his prison-place, + Lord of his ancient hills and fruitful plains, +Let him not rise, like these mad winds of air, +To waste the loveliness that time could spare, +To fill the earth with wo, and blot her fair + Unconscious breast with blood from human veins. + + +VIII. + +But may he like the spring-time come abroad, + Who crumbles winter's gyves with gentle might, +When in the genial breeze, the breath of God, + Come spouting up the unsealed springs to light; +Flowers start from their dark prisons at his feet, +The woods, long dumb, awake to hymnings sweet, +And morn and eve, whose glimmerings almost meet, + Crowd back to narrow bounds the ancient night. + + + + +THE OLD MAN'S COUNSEL. deg. + + + Among our hills and valleys, I have known +Wise and grave men, who, while their diligent hands +Tended or gathered in the fruits of earth, +Were reverent learners in the solemn school +Of nature. Not in vain to them were sent +Seed-time and harvest, or the vernal shower +That darkened the brown tilth, or snow that beat +On the white winter hills. Each brought, in turn, +Some truth, some lesson on the life of man, +Or recognition of the Eternal mind +Who veils his glory with the elements. + + One such I knew long since, a white-haired man, +Pithy of speech, and merry when he would; +A genial optimist, who daily drew +From what he saw his quaint moralities. +Kindly he held communion, though so old, +With me a dreaming boy, and taught me much +That books tell not, and I shall ne'er forget. + + The sun of May was bright in middle heaven, +And steeped the sprouting forests, the green hills +And emerald wheat-fields, in his yellow light. +Upon the apple-tree, where rosy buds +Stood clustered, ready to burst forth in bloom, +The robin warbled forth his full clear note +For hours, and wearied not. Within the woods, +Whose young and half transparent leaves scarce cast +A shade, gay circles of anemones +Danced on their stalks; the shadbush, white with flowers, +Brightened the glens; the new-leaved butternut +And quivering poplar to the roving breeze +Gave a balsamic fragrance. In the fields +I saw the pulses of the gentle wind +On the young grass. My heart was touched with joy +At so much beauty, flushing every hour +Into a fuller beauty; but my friend, +The thoughtful ancient, standing at my side, +Gazed on it mildly sad. I asked him why. + + "Well mayst thou join in gladness," he replied, +"With the glad earth, her springing plants and flowers, +And this soft wind, the herald of the green +Luxuriant summer. Thou art young like them, +And well mayst thou rejoice. But while the flight +Of seasons fills and knits thy spreading frame, +It withers mine, and thins my hair, and dims +These eyes, whose fading light shall soon be quenched +In utter darkness. Hearest thou that bird?" + + I listened, and from midst the depth of woods +Heard the love-signal of the grouse, that wears +A sable ruff around his mottled neck; +Partridge they call him by our northern streams, +And pheasant by the Delaware. He beat +'Gainst his barred sides his speckled wings, and made +A sound like distant thunder; slow the strokes +At first, then fast and faster, till at length +They passed into a murmur and were still. + + "There hast thou," said my friend, "a fitting type +Of human life. 'Tis an old truth, I know, +But images like these revive the power +Of long familiar truths. Slow pass our days +In childhood, and the hours of light are long +Betwixt the morn and eve; with swifter lapse +They glide in manhood, and in age they fly; +Till days and seasons flit before the mind +As flit the snow-flakes in a winter storm, +Seen rather than distinguished. Ah! I seem +As if I sat within a helpless bark +By swiftly running waters hurried on +To shoot some mighty cliff. Along the banks +Grove after grove, rock after frowning rock, +Bare sands and pleasant homes, and flowery nooks, +And isles and whirlpools in the stream, appear +Each after each, but the devoted skiff +Darts by so swiftly that their images +Dwell not upon the mind, or only dwell +In dim confusion; faster yet I sweep +By other banks, and the great gulf is near. + + "Wisely, my son, while yet thy days are long, +And this fair change of seasons passes slow, +Gather and treasure up the good they yield-- +All that they teach of virtue, of pure thoughts +And kind affections, reverence for thy God +And for thy brethren; so when thou shalt come +Into these barren years, thou mayst not bring +A mind unfurnished and a withered heart." + + Long since that white-haired ancient slept--but still, +When the red flower-buds crowd the orchard bough, +And the ruffed grouse is drumming far within +The woods, his venerable form again +Is at my side, his voice is in my ear. + + + + +LINES IN MEMORY OF WILLIAM LEGGETT. + + +The earth may ring, from shore to shore, + With echoes of a glorious name, +But he, whose loss our tears deplore, + Has left behind him more than fame. + +For when the death-frost came to lie + On Leggett's warm and mighty heart, +And quenched his bold and friendly eye, + His spirit did not all depart. + +The words of fire that from his pen + Were flung upon the fervent page, +Still move, still shake the hearts of men, + Amid a cold and coward age. + +His love of truth, too warm, too strong + For Hope or Fear to chain or chill, +His hate of tyranny and wrong, + Burn in the breasts he kindled still. + + + + +AN EVENING REVERY. + +FROM AN UNFINISHED POEM. + + + The summer day is closed--the sun is set: +Well they have done their office, those bright hours, +The latest of whose train goes softly out +In the red West. The green blade of the ground +Has risen, and herds have cropped it; the young twig +Has spread its plaited tissues to the sun; +Flowers of the garden and the waste have blown +And withered; seeds have fallen upon the soil, +From bursting cells, and in their graves await +Their resurrection. Insects from the pools +Have filled the air awhile with humming wings, +That now are still for ever; painted moths +Have wandered the blue sky, and died again; +The mother-bird hath broken for her brood +Their prison shell, or shoved them from the nest, +Plumed for their earliest flight. In bright alcoves, +In woodland cottages with barky walls, +In noisome cells of the tumultuous town, +Mothers have clasped with joy the new-born babe. +Graves by the lonely forest, by the shore +Of rivers and of ocean, by the ways +Of the thronged city, have been hollowed out +And filled, and closed. This day hath parted friends +That ne'er before were parted; it hath knit +New friendships; it hath seen the maiden plight +Her faith, and trust her peace to him who long +Had wooed; and it hath heard, from lips which late +Were eloquent of love, the first harsh word, +That told the wedded one her peace was flown. +Farewell to the sweet sunshine! One glad day +Is added now to Childhood's merry days, +And one calm day to those of quiet Age. +Still the fleet hours run on; and as I lean, +Amid the thickening darkness, lamps are lit, +By those who watch the dead, and those who twine +Flowers for the bride. The mother from the eyes +Of her sick infant shades the painful light, +And sadly listens to his quick-drawn breath. + + Oh thou great Movement of the Universe, +Or Change, or Flight of Time--for ye are one! +That bearest, silently, this visible scene +Into night's shadow and the streaming rays +Of starlight, whither art thou bearing me? +I feel the mighty current sweep me on, +Yet know not whither. Man foretells afar +The courses of the stars; the very hour +He knows when they shall darken or grow bright; +Yet doth the eclipse of Sorrow and of Death +Come unforewarned. Who next, of those I love, +Shall pass from life, or, sadder yet, shall fall +From virtue? Strife with foes, or bitterer strife +With friends, or shame and general scorn of men-- +Which who can bear?--or the fierce rack of pain, +Lie they within my path? Or shall the years +Push me, with soft and inoffensive pace, +Into the stilly twilight of my age? +Or do the portals of another life +Even now, while I am glorying in my strength, +Impend around me? Oh! beyond that bourne, +In the vast cycle of being which begins +At that broad threshold, with what fairer forms +Shall the great law of change and progress clothe +Its workings? Gently--so have good men taught-- +Gently, and without grief, the old shall glide +Into the new; the eternal flow of things, +Like a bright river of the fields of heaven, +Shall journey onward in perpetual peace. + + + + +THE PAINTED CUP. deg. + + + The fresh savannas of the Sangamon +Here rise in gentle swells, and the long grass +Is mixed with rustling hazels. Scarlet tufts +Are glowing in the green, like flakes of fire; +The wanderers of the prairie know them well, +And call that brilliant flower the Painted Cup. + + Now, if thou art a poet, tell me not +That these bright chalices were tinted thus +To hold the dew for fairies, when they meet +On moonlight evenings in the hazel bowers, +And dance till they are thirsty. Call not up, +Amid this fresh and virgin solitude, +The faded fancies of an elder world; +But leave these scarlet cups to spotted moths +Of June, and glistening flies, and humming-birds, +To drink from, when on all these boundless lawns +The morning sun looks hot. Or let the wind +O'erturn in sport their ruddy brims, and pour +A sudden shower upon the strawberry plant, +To swell the reddening fruit that even now +Breathes a slight fragrance from the sunny slope. + + But thou art of a gayer fancy. Well-- +Let then the gentle Manitou of flowers, +Lingering amid the bloomy waste he loves, +Though all his swarthy worshippers are gone-- +Slender and small, his rounded cheek all brown +And ruddy with the sunshine; let him come +On summer mornings, when the blossoms wake, +And part with little hands the spiky grass; +And touching, with his cherry lips, the edge +Of these bright beakers, drain the gathered dew. + + + + +A DREAM. + + +I had a dream--a strange, wild dream-- + Said a dear voice at early light; +And even yet its shadows seem + To linger in my waking sight. + +Earth, green with spring, and fresh with dew, + And bright with morn, before me stood; +And airs just wakened softly blew + On the young blossoms of the wood. + +Birds sang within the sprouting shade, + Bees hummed amid the whispering grass, +And children prattled as they played + Beside the rivulet's dimpling glass + +Fast climbed the sun: the flowers were flown, + There played no children in the glen; +For some were gone, and some were grown + To blooming dames and bearded men. + +'Twas noon, 'twas summer: I beheld + Woods darkening in the flush of day, +And that bright rivulet spread and swelled, + A mighty stream, with creek and bay. + +And here was love, and there was strife, + And mirthful shouts, and wrathful cries, +And strong men, struggling as for life, + With knotted limbs and angry eyes. + +Now stooped the sun--the shades grew thin; + The rustling paths were piled with leaves; +And sunburnt groups were gathering in, + From the shorn field, its fruits and sheaves. + +The river heaved with sullen sounds; + The chilly wind was sad with moans; +Black hearses passed, and burial-grounds + Grew thick with monumental stones. + +Still waned the day; the wind that chased + The jagged clouds blew chillier yet; +The woods were stripped, the fields were waste, + The wintry sun was near its set. + +And of the young, and strong, and fair, + A lonely remnant, gray and weak, +Lingered, and shivered to the air + Of that bleak shore and water bleak. + +Ah! age is drear, and death is cold! + I turned to thee, for thou wert near, +And saw thee withered, bowed, and old, + And woke all faint with sudden fear. + +'Twas thus I heard the dreamer say, + And bade her clear her clouded brow; +"For thou and I, since childhood's day, + Have walked in such a dream till now. + +"Watch we in calmness, as they rise, + The changes of that rapid dream, +And note its lessons, till our eyes + Shall open in the morning beam." + + + + +THE ANTIQUITY OF FREEDOM. + + + Here are old trees, tall oaks and gnarled pines, +That stream with gray-green mosses; here the ground +Was never trenched by spade, and flowers spring up +Unsown, and die ungathered. It is sweet +To linger here, among the flitting birds +And leaping squirrels, wandering brooks, and winds +That shake the leaves, and scatter, as they pass, +A fragrance from the cedars, thickly set +With pale blue berries. In these peaceful shades-- +Peaceful, unpruned, immeasurably old-- +My thoughts go up the long dim path of years, +Back to the earliest days of liberty. + + Oh FREEDOM! thou art not, as poets dream, +A fair young girl, with light and delicate limbs, +And wavy tresses gushing from the cap +With which the Roman master crowned his slave +When he took off the gyves. A bearded man, +Armed to the teeth, art thou; one mailed hand +Grasps the broad shield, and one the sword; thy brow, +Glorious in beauty though it be, is scarred +With tokens of old wars; thy massive limbs +Are strong with struggling. Power at thee has launched +His bolts, and with his lightnings smitten thee; +They could not quench the life thou hast from heaven. +Merciless power has dug thy dungeon deep, +And his swart armorers, by a thousand fires, +Have forged thy chain; yet, while he deems thee bound, +The links are shivered, and the prison walls +Fall outward; terribly thou springest forth, +As springs the flame above a burning pile, +And shoutest to the nations, who return +Thy shoutings, while the pale oppressor flies. + + Thy birthright was not given by human hands: +Thou wert twin-born with man. In pleasant fields, +While yet our race was few, thou sat'st with him, +To tend the quiet flock and watch the stars, +And teach the reed to utter simple airs. +Thou by his side, amid the tangled wood, +Didst war upon the panther and the wolf, +His only foes; and thou with him didst draw +The earliest furrows on the mountain side, +Soft with the deluge. Tyranny himself, +Thy enemy, although of reverend look, +Hoary with many years, and far obeyed, +Is later born than thou; and as he meets +The grave defiance of thine elder eye, +The usurper trembles in his fastnesses. + + Thou shalt wax stronger with the lapse of years, +But he shall fade into a feebler age; +Feebler, yet subtler. He shall weave his snares, +And spring them on thy careless steps, and clap +His withered hands, and from their ambush call +His hordes to fall upon thee. He shall send +Quaint maskers, wearing fair and gallant forms, +To catch thy gaze, and uttering graceful words +To charm thy ear; while his sly imps, by stealth, +Twine round thee threads of steel, light thread on thread +That grow to fetters; or bind down thy arms +With chains concealed in chaplets. Oh! not yet +Mayst thou unbrace thy corslet, nor lay by +Thy sword; nor yet, O Freedom! close thy lids +In slumber; for thine enemy never sleeps, +And thou must watch and combat till the day +Of the new earth and heaven. But wouldst thou rest +Awhile from tumult and the frauds of men, +These old and friendly solitudes invite +Thy visit. They, while yet the forest trees +Were young upon the unviolated earth, +And yet the moss-stains on the rock were new, +Beheld thy glorious childhood, and rejoiced. + + + + +THE MAIDEN'S SORROW. + + +Seven long years has the desert rain + Dropped on the clods that hide thy face; +Seven long years of sorrow and pain + I have thought of thy burial-place. + +Thought of thy fate in the distant west, + Dying with none that loved thee near; +They who flung the earth on thy breast + Turned from the spot williout a tear. + +There, I think, on that lonely grave, + Violets spring in the soft May shower; +There, in the summer breezes, wave + Crimson phlox and moccasin flower. + +There the turtles alight, and there + Feeds with her fawn the timid doe; +There, when the winter woods are bare, + Walks the wolf on the crackling snow. + +Soon wilt thou wipe my tears away; + All my task upon earth is done; +My poor father, old and gray, + Slumbers beneath the churchyard stone. + +In the dreams of my lonely bed, + Ever thy form before me seems; +All night long I talk with the dead, + All day long I think of my dreams. + +This deep wound that bleeds and aches, + This long pain, a sleepless pain-- +When the Father my spirit takes, + I shall feel it no more again. + + + + +THE RETURN OF YOUTH. + + +My friend, thou sorrowest for thy golden prime, + For thy fair youthful years too swift of flight; +Thou musest, with wet eyes, upon the time + Of cheerful hopes that filled the world with light,-- +Years when thy heart was bold, thy hand was strong, + And quick the thought that moved thy tongue to speak, +And willing faith was thine, and scorn of wrong + Summoned the sudden crimson to thy cheek. + +Thou lookest forward on the coming days, + Shuddering to feel their shadow o'er thee creep; +A path, thick-set with changes and decays, + Slopes downward to the place of common sleep; +And they who walked with thee in life's first stage, + Leave one by one thy side, and, waiting near, +Thou seest the sad companions of thy age-- + Dull love of rest, and weariness and fear. + +Yet grieve thou not, nor think thy youth is gone, + Nor deem that glorious season e'er could die. +Thy pleasant youth, a little while withdrawn, + Waits on the horizon of a brighter sky; +Waits, like the morn, that folds her wing and hides, + Till the slow stars bring back her dawning hour; +Waits, like the vanished spring, that slumbering bides + Her own sweet time to waken bud and flower. + +There shall he welcome thee, when thou shalt stand + On his bright morning hills, with smiles more sweet +Than when at first he took thee by the hand, + Through the fair earth to lead thy tender feet. +He shall bring back, but brighter, broader still, + Life's early glory to thine eyes again, +Shall clothe thy spirit with new strength, and fill + Thy leaping heart with warmer love than then. + +Hast thou not glimpses, in the twilight here, + Of mountains where immortal morn prevails? +Comes there not, through the silence, to thine ear + A gentle rustling of the morning gales; +A murmur, wafted from that glorious shore, + Of streams that water banks for ever fair, +And voices of the loved ones gone before, + More musical in that celestial air? + + + + +A HYMN OF THE SEA. + + + The sea is mighty, but a mightier sways +His restless billows. Thou, whose hands have scooped +His boundless gulfs and built his shore, thy breath, +That moved in the beginning o'er his face, +Moves o'er it evermore. The obedient waves +To its strong motion roll, and rise and fall. +Still from that realm of rain thy cloud goes up, +As at the first, to water the great earth, +And keep her valleys green. A hundred realms +Watch its broad shadow warping on the wind, +And in the dropping shower, with gladness hear +Thy promise of the harvest. I look forth +Over the boundless blue, where joyously +The bright crests of innumerable waves +Glance to the sun at once, as when the hands +Of a great multitude are upward flung +In acclamation. I behold the ships +Gliding from cape to cape, from isle to isle, +Or stemming toward far lands, or hastening home +From the old world. It is thy friendly breeze +That bears them, with the riches of the land, +And treasure of dear lives, till, in the port, +The shouting seaman climbs and furls the sail. + + But who shall bide thy tempest, who shall face +The blast that wakes the fury of the sea? +Oh God! thy justice makes the world turn pale, +When on the armed fleet, that royally +Bears down the surges, carrying war, to smite +Some city, or invade some thoughtless realm, +Descends the fierce tornado. The vast hulks +Are whirled like chaff upon the waves; the sails +Fly, rent like webs of gossamer; the masts +Are snapped asunder; downward from the decks, +Downward are slung, into the fathomless gulf, +Their cruel engines; and their hosts, arrayed +In trappings of the battle-field, are whelmed +By whirlpools, or dashed dead upon the rocks. +Then stand the nations still with awe, and pause, +A moment, from the bloody work of war. + + These restless surges eat away the shores +Of earth's old continents; the fertile plain +Welters in shallows, headlands crumble down, +And the tide drifts the sea-sand in the streets +Of the drowned city. Thou, meanwhile, afar +In the green chambers of the middle sea, +Where broadest spread the waters and the line +Sinks deepest, while no eye beholds thy work, +Creator! thou dost teach the coral worm +To lay his mighty reefs. From age to age, +He builds beneath the waters, till, at last, +His bulwarks overtop the brine, and check +The long wave rolling from the southern pole +To break upon Japan. Thou bid'st the fires, +That smoulder under ocean, heave on high +The new-made mountains, and uplift their peaks, +A place of refuge for the storm-driven bird. +The birds and wafting billows plant the rifts +With herb and tree; sweet fountains gush; sweet airs +Ripple the living lakes that, fringed with flowers, +Are gathered in the hollows. Thou dost look +On thy creation and pronounce it good. +Its valleys, glorious with their summer green, +Praise thee in silent beauty, and its woods, +Swept by the murmuring winds of ocean, join +The murmuring shores in a perpetual hymn. + + + + +NOON. + +FROM AN UNFINISHED POEM. deg. + + + 'Tis noon. At noon the Hebrew bowed the knee +And worshipped, while the husbandmen withdrew +From the scorched field, and the wayfaring man +Grew faint, and turned aside by bubbling fount, +Or rested in the shadow of the palm. + + I, too, amid the overflow of day, +Behold the power which wields and cherishes +The frame of Nature. From this brow of rock +That overlooks the Hudson's western marge, +I gaze upon the long array of groves, +The piles and gulfs of verdure drinking in +The grateful heats. They love the fiery sun; +Their broadening leaves grow glossier, and their sprays +Climb as he looks upon them. In the midst, +The swelling river, into his green gulfs, +Unshadowed save by passing sails above, +Takes the redundant glory, and enjoys +The summer in his chilly bed. Coy flowers, +That would not open in the early light, +Push back their plaited sheaths. The rivulet's pool, +That darkly quivered all the morning long +In the cool shade, now glimmers in the sun; +And o'er its surface shoots, and shoots again, +The glittering dragon-fly, and deep within +Run the brown water-beetles to and fro. + + A silence, the brief sabbath of an hour, +Reigns o'er the fields; the laborer sits within +His dwelling; he has left his steers awhile, +Unyoked, to bite the herbage, and his dog +Sleeps stretched beside the door-stone in the shade. +Now the grey marmot, with uplifted paws, +No more sits listening by his den, but steals +Abroad, in safety, to the clover field, +And crops its juicy blossoms. All the while +A ceaseless murmur from the populous town +Swells o'er these solitudes: a mingled sound +Of jarring wheels, and iron hoofs that clash +Upon the stony ways, and hammer-clang, +And creak of engines lifting ponderous bulks, +And calls and cries, and tread of eager feet, +Innumerable, hurrying to and fro. +Noon, in that mighty mart of nations, brings +No pause to toil and care. With early day +Began the tumult, and shall only cease +When midnight, hushing one by one the sounds +Of bustle, gathers the tired brood to rest. + + Thus, in this feverish time, when love of gain +And luxury possess the hearts of men, +Thus is it with the noon of human life. +We, in our fervid manhood, in our strength +Of reason, we, with hurry, noise, and care, +Plan, toil, and strife, and pause not to refresh +Our spirits with the calm and beautiful +Of God's harmonious universe, that won +Our youthful wonder; pause not to inquire +Why we are here; and what the reverence +Man owes to man, and what the mystery +That links us to the greater world, beside +Whose borders we but hover for a space. + + + + +THE CROWDED STREET. + + +Let me move slowly through the street, + Filled with an ever-shifting train, +Amid the sound of steps that beat + The murmuring walks like autumn rain. + +How fast the flitting figures come! + The mild, the fierce, the stony face; +Some bright with thoughtless smiles, and some + Where secret tears have left their trace. + +They pass--to toil, to strife, to rest; + To halls in which the feast is spread; +To chambers where the funeral guest + In silence sits beside the dead. + +And some to happy homes repair, + Where children, pressing cheek to cheek, +With mute caresses shall declare + The tenderness they cannot speak. + +And some, who walk in calmness here, + Shall shudder as they reach the door +Where one who made their dwelling dear, + Its flower, its light, is seen no more. + +Youth, with pale cheek and slender frame, + And dreams of greatness in thine eye! +Goest thou to build an early name, + Or early in the task to die? + +Keen son of trade, with eager brow! + Who is now fluttering in thy snare? +Thy golden fortunes, tower they now, + Or melt the glittering spires in air? + +Who of this crowd to-night shall tread + The dance till daylight gleam again? +Who sorrow o'er the untimely dead? + Who writhe in throes of mortal pain? + +Some, famine-struck, shall think how long + The cold dark hours, how slow the light, +And some, who flaunt amid the throng, + Shall hide in dens of shame to-night. + +Each, where his tasks or pleasures call, + They pass, and heed each other not. +There is who heeds, who holds them all, + In his large love and boundless thought. + +These struggling tides of life that seem + In wayward, aimless course to tend, +Are eddies of the mighty stream + That rolls to its appointed end. + + + + +THE WHITE-FOOTED DEER. deg. + + +It was a hundred years ago, + When, by the woodland ways, +The traveller saw the wild deer drink, + Or crop the birchen sprays. + +Beneath a hill, whose rocky side + O'erbrowed a grassy mead, +And fenced a cottage from the wind, + A deer was wont to feed. + +She only came when on the cliffs + The evening moonlight lay, +And no man knew the secret haunts + In which she walked by day. + +White were her feet, her forehead showed + A spot of silvery white, +That seemed to glimmer like a star + In autumn's hazy night. + +And here, when sang the whippoorwill, + She cropped the sprouting leaves, +And here her rustling steps were heard + On still October eves. + +But when the broad midsummer moon + Rose o'er that grassy lawn, +Beside the silver-footed deer + There grazed a spotted fawn. + +The cottage dame forbade her son + To aim the rifle here; +"It were a sin," she said, "to harm + Or fright that friendly deer. + +"This spot has been my pleasant home + Ten peaceful years and more; +And ever, when the moonlight shines, + She feeds before our door. + +"The red men say that here she walked + A thousand moons ago; +They never raise the war-whoop here, + And never twang the bow. + +"I love to watch her as she feeds, + And think that all is well +While such a gentle creature haunts + The place in which we dwell." + +The youth obeyed, and sought for game + In forests far away, +Where, deep in silence and in moss, + The ancient woodland lay. + +But once, in autumn's golden time, + He ranged the wild in vain, +Nor roused the pheasant nor the deer, + And wandered home again. + +The crescent moon and crimson eve + Shone with a mingling light; +The deer, upon the grassy mead, + Was feeding full in sight. + +He raised the rifle to his eye, + And from the cliffs around +A sudden echo, shrill and sharp, + Gave back its deadly sound. + +Away into the neighbouring wood + The startled creature flew, +And crimson drops at morning lay + Amid the glimmering dew. + +Next evening shone the waxing moon + As sweetly as before; +The deer upon the grassy mead + Was seen again no more. + +But ere that crescent moon was old, + By night the red men came, +And burnt the cottage to the ground, + And slew the youth and dame. + +Now woods have overgrown the mead, + And hid the cliffs from sight; +There shrieks the hovering hawk at noon, + And prowls the fox at night. + + + + +THE WANING MOON. + + +I've watched too late; the morn is near; + One look at God's broad silent sky! +Oh, hopes and wishes vainly dear, + How in your very strength ye die! + +Even while your glow is on the cheek, + And scarce the high pursuit begun, +The heart grows faint, the hand grows weak, + The task of life is left undone. + +See where upon the horizon's brim, + Lies the still cloud in gloomy bars; +The waning moon, all pale and dim, + Goes up amid the eternal stars. + +Late, in a flood of tender light, + She floated through the ethereal blue, +A softer sun, that shone all night + Upon the gathering beads of dew. + +And still thou wanest, pallid moon! + The encroaching shadow grows apace; +Heaven's everlasting watchers soon + Shall see thee blotted from thy place. + +Oh, Night's dethroned and crownless queen! + Well may thy sad, expiring ray +Be shed on those whose eyes have seen + Hope's glorious visions fade away. + +Shine thou for forms that once were bright, + For sages in the mind's eclipse, +For those whose words were spells of might, + But falter now on stammering lips! + +In thy decaying beam there lies + Full many a grave on hill and plain, +Of those who closed their dying eyes + In grief that they had lived in vain. + +Another night, and thou among + The spheres of heaven shalt cease to shine, +All rayless in the glittering throng + Whose lustre late was quenched in thine. + +Yet soon a new and tender light + From out thy darkened orb shall beam, +And broaden till it shines all night + On glistening dew and glimmering stream. + + + + +THE STREAM OF LIFE. + + +Oh silvery streamlet of the fields, + That flowest full and free! +For thee the rains of spring return, + The summer dews for thee; +And when thy latest blossoms die + In autumn's chilly showers, +The winter fountains gush for thee, + Till May brings back the flowers. + +Oh Stream of Life! the violet springs + But once beside thy bed; +But one brief summer, on thy path, + The dews of heaven are shed. +Thy parent fountains shrink away, + And close their crystal veins, +And where thy glittering current flowed + The dust alone remains. + + + + * * * * * + + + + NOTES. + + + + * * * * * + + + +NOTES. + + + +POEM OF THE AGES. + +In this poem, written and first printed in the year 1821, the author +has endeavoured, from a survey of the past ages of the world, and +of the successive advances of mankind in knowledge, virtue, and +happiness, to justify and confirm the hopes of the philanthropist for +the future destinies of the human race. + + + +THE BURIAL-PLACE. (A Fragment) + +The first half of this fragment may seem to the reader borrowed from +the essay on Rural Funerals in the fourth number of the Sketch-Book. +The lines were, however, written more than a year before that number +appeared. The poem, unfinished as it is, would not have been admitted +into this collection, had not the author been unwilling to lose what +had the honour of resembling so beautiful a composition. + + + +THE MASSACRE AT SCIO. + +This poem, written about the time of the horrible butchery of the +Sciotes by the Turks, in 1824, has been more fortunate than most +poetical predictions. The independence of the Greek nation, which it +foretold, has come to pass, and the massacre, by inspiring a deeper +detestation of their oppressors, did much to promote that event. + + + +THE INDIAN GIRL'S LAMENT. + +_Her maiden veil, her own black hair_, &c. + + "The unmarried females have a modest falling down of the hair over + the eyes."--ELIOT. + + + +MONUMENT MOUNTAIN. + +The mountain, called by this name, is a remarkable precipice in +Great Barrington, overlooking the rich and picturesque valley of the +Housatonic, in the western part of Massachusetts. At the southern +extremity is, or was a few years since, a conical pile of small +stones, erected, according to the tradition of the surrounding +country, by the Indians, in memory of a woman of the Stockbridge +tribe, who killed herself by leaping from the edge of the precipice. +Until within a few years past, small parties of that tribe used to +arrive from their settlement in the western part of the state of New +York, on visits to Stockbridge, the place of their nativity and former +residence. A young woman belonging to one of these parties related, +to a friend of the author, the story on which the poem of Monument +Mountain is founded. An Indian girl had formed an attachment for her +cousin, which, according to the customs of the tribe, was unlawful. +She was, in consequence, seized with a deep melancholy, and resolved +to destroy herself. In company with a female friend, she repaired to +the mountain, decked out for the occasion in all her ornaments, and, +after passing the day on the summit in singing with her companion the +traditional songs of her nation, she threw herself headlong from the +rock, and was killed. + + + +THE MURDERED TRAVELLER. + +Some years since, in the month of May, the remains of a human body, +partly devoured by wild animals, were found in a woody ravine, near +a solitary road passing between the mountains west of the village of +Stockbridge. It was supposed that the person came to his death by +violence, but no traces could be discovered of his murderers. It was +only recollected that one evening, in the course of the previous +winter, a traveller had stopped at an inn in the village of West +Stockbridge; that he had inquired the way to Stockbridge; and that, in +paying the innkeeper for something he had ordered, it appeared that he +had a considerable sum of money in his possession. Two ill-looking +men were present, and went out about the same time that the traveller +proceeded on his journey. During the winter, also, two men of shabby +appearance, but plentifully supplied with money, had lingered for +awhile about the village of Stockbridge. Several years afterward, +a criminal, about to be executed for a capital offence in Canada, +confessed that he had been concerned in murdering a traveller in +Stockbridge for the sake of his money. Nothing was ever discovered +respecting the name or residence of the person murdered. + + + +THE AFRICAN CHIEF. + + _Chained in the market place he stood_, &c. + +The story of the African Chief, related in this ballad, may be found +in the African Repository for April, 1825. The subject of it was a +warrior of majestic stature, the brother of Yarradee, king of the +Solima nation. He had been taken in battle, and was brought in +chains for sale to the Rio Pongas, where he was exhibited in the +market-place, his ankles still adorned with the massy rings of gold +which he wore when captured. The refusal of his captor to listen to +his offers of ransom drove him mad, and he died a maniac. + + + +THE CONJUNCTION OF JUPITER AND VENUS. + +This conjunction was said in the common calendars to have taken place +on the 2d of August, 1826. This, I believe, was an error, but the +apparent approach of the planets was sufficiently near for poetical +purposes. + + + +THE HURRICANE. + +This poem is nearly a translation from one by Jose Maria de Heredia, a +native of the Island of Cuba, who published at New York, six or seven +years since, a volume of poems in the Spanish language. + + + +SONNET--WILLIAM TELL. + +Neither this, nor any of the other sonnets in the collection, with the +exception of the one from the Portuguese, is framed according to the +legitimate Italian model, which, in the author's opinion, possesses no +peculiar beauty for an ear accustomed only to the metrical forms of +our own language. The sonnets in this collection are rather poems in +fourteen lines than sonnets. + + +THE HUNTER'S SERENADE. + + _The slim papaya ripens_, &c. + +Papaya--papaw, custard-apple. Flint, in his excellent work on the +Geography and History of the Western States, thus describes this tree +and its fruit:-- + + "A papaw shrub, hanging full of fruits, of a size and weight so + disproportioned to the stem, and from under long and rich-looking + leaves, of the same yellow with the ripened fruit, and of an + African luxuriance of growth, is to us one of the richest + spectacles that we have ever contemplated in the array of the + woods. The fruit contains from two to six seeds, like those of the + tamarind, except that they are double the size. The pulp of the + fruit resembles egg-custard in consistence and appearance. It has + the same creamy feeling in the mouth, and unites the taste of + eggs, cream, sugar, and spice. It is a natural custard, too + luscious for the relish of most people." + +Chateaubriand, in his Travels, speaks disparagingly of the fruit of +the papaw; but on the authority of Mr. Flint, who must know more of +the matter, I have ventured to make my western lover enumerate it +among the delicacies of the wilderness. + + + +THE PRAIRIES. + + _The surface rolls and fluctuates to the eye._ + +The prairies of the West, with an undulating surface, _rolling +prairies_, as they are called, present to the unaccustomed eye a +singular spectacle when the shadows of the clouds are passing rapidly +over them. The face of the ground seems to fluctuate and toss like the +billows of the sea. + + + _The prairie-hawk that, poised on high, + Flaps his broad wings, yet moves not._ + +I have seen the prairie-hawk balancing himself in the air for hours +together, apparently over the same spot; probably watching his prey. + + + _These ample fields + Nourished their harvests._ + +The size and extent of the mounds in the valley of the Mississippi, +indicate the existence, at a remote period, of a nation at once +populous and laborious, and therefore probably subsisting by +agriculture. + + + _The rude conquerors + Seated the captive with their chiefs._ + +Instances are not wanting of generosity like this among the North +American Indians towards a captive or survivor of a hostile tribe on +which the greatest cruelties had been exercised. + + + +SONG OF MARION'S MEN. + +The exploits of General Francis Marion, the famous partisan warrior +of South Carolina, form an interesting chapter in the annals of the +American revolution. The British troops were so harassed by the +irregular and successful warfare which he kept up at the head of a few +daring followers, that they sent an officer to remonstrate with him +for not coming into the open field and fighting "like a gentleman and +a Christian." + + + +MARY MAGDALEN. + +Several learned divines, with much appearance of reason, in particular +Dr. Lardner, have maintained that the common notion respecting the +dissolute life of Mary Magdalen is erroneous, and that she was always +a person of excellent character. Charles Taylor, the editor of +Calmet's Dictionary of the Bible, takes the same view of the subject. + +The verses of the Spanish poet here translated refer to the "woman who +had been a sinner," mentioned in the seventh chapter of St. Luke's +Gospel, and who is commonly confounded with Mary Magdalen. + + + +FATIMA AND RADUAN. + +This and the following poems belong to that class of ancient Spanish +ballads, by unknown authors, called _Romances Moriscos_--Moriscan +romances or ballads. They were composed in the 14th century, some of +them, probably, by the Moors, who then lived intermingled with the +Christians; and they relate the loves and achievements of the knights +of Grenada. + + + +LOVE AND FOLLY.--(FROM LA FONTAINE.) + +This is rather an imitation than a translation of the poem of the +graceful French fabulist. + + + +THE ALCAYDE OF MOLINA + + _These eyes shall not recall thee_, &c. + +This is the very expression of the original--_No te llamaran mis +ojos_, &c. The Spanish poets early adopted the practice of calling a +lady by the name of the most expressive feature of her countenance, +her eyes. The lover styled his mistress "ojos bellos," beautiful eyes; +"ojos serenos," serene eyes. Green eyes seem to have been anciently +thought a great beauty in Spain, and there is a very pretty ballad by +an absent lover, in which he addressed his lady by the title of "green +eyes;" supplicating that he may remain in her remembrance. + + iAy ojuelos verdes! + Ay los mis ojuelos! + Ay, hagan los cielos + Que de mi te acuerdes! + + + +THE DEATH OF ALIATAR. + + _Say, Love--for thou didst see her tears_, &c. + +The stanza beginning with this line stands thus in the original:-- + + Dilo tu, amor, si lo viste; + iMas ay! que de lastimado + Diste otro nudo a la venda, + Para no ver lo que ha pasado. + +I am sorry to find so poor a conceit deforming so spirited a +composition as this old ballad, but I have preserved it in the +version. It is one of those extravagances which afterward became so +common in Spanish poetry, when Gongora introduced the _estilo culto_, +as it was called. + + + +LOVE IN THE AGE OF CHIVALRY. + +This personification of the passion of Love, by Peyre Vidal, has been +referred to as a proof of how little the Provencal poets were indebted +to the authors of Greece and Rome for the imagery of their poems. + + + +THE LOVE OF GOD.--(FROM THE PROVENCAL OF BERNARD RASCAS.) + +The original of these lines is thus given by John of Nostradamus, +in his lives of the Troubadours, in a barbarous Frenchified +orthography:-- + + Touta kausa mortala una fes perira, + Fors que l'amour de Dieu, que tousiours durara. + Tous nostres cors vendran essuchs, coma fa l'eska, + Lous Aubres leyssaran lour verdour tendra e fresca, + Lous Auselets del bosc perdran lour kant subtyeu, + E non s'auzira plus lou Rossignol gentyeu. + Lous Buols al Pastourgage, e las blankas fedettas + Sent'ran lous agulhons de las mortals Sagettas, + Lous crestas d'Arles fiers, Renards, e Loups espars, + Kabrols, Cervys, Chamous, Senglars de toutes pars, + Lous Ours hardys e forts, seran poudra, e Arena, + Lou Daulphin en la Mar, lou Ton, e la Balena: + Monstres impetuous, Ryaumes, e Comtas, + Lous Princes, e lous Reys, seran per mort domtas. + E nota ben eysso kascun: la Terra granda, + (Ou l'Escritura ment) lou fermament que branda, + Prendra autra figura. Enfin tout perira, + Fors que l'Amour de Dieu, que touiours durara. + + + + +FROM THE SPANISH OF PEDRO DE CASTRO Y ANAYA. + +_Las Auroras de Diana_, in which the original of these lines is +contained, is, notwithstanding it was praised by Lope de Vega, one of +the worst of the old Spanish Romances, being a tissue of riddles and +affectations, with now and then a little poem of considerable beauty. + + + +LIFE. + + _Where Isar's clay-white rivulets run + Through the dark wood's, like frighted deer._ + +Close to the city of Munich, in Bavaria, lies the spacious and +beautiful pleasure ground, called the English Garden, in which +these lines were written, originally projected and laid out by our +countryman, Count Rumford, under the auspices of one of the sovereigns +of the country. Winding walks of great extent, pass through close +thickets and groves interspersed with lawns; and streams, diverted +from the river Isar, traverse the grounds swiftly in various +directions, the water of which, stained with the clay of the soil it +has corroded in its descent from the upper country, is frequently of a +turbid white colour. + + + +THE GREEN MOUNTAIN BOYS. + +This song refers to the expedition of the Vermonters, commanded +by Ethan Allen, by whom the British fort of Ticonderoga, on Lake +Champlain, was surprised and taken, in May, 1775. + + + +THE CHILD'S FUNERAL. + +The incident on which this poem is founded was related to the author +while in Europe, in a letter from an English lady. A child died in the +south of Italy, and when they went to bury it they found it revived +and playing with the flowers which, after the manner of that country, +had been brought to grace its funeral. + + + +THE DEATH OF SCHILLER. + + _'Tis said, when Schiller's death drew nigh, + The wish possessed his mighty mind, + To wander forth wherever lie + The homes and haunts of human kind._ + +Shortly before the death of Schiller, he was seized with a strong +desire to travel in foreign countries, as if his spirit had a +presentiment of its approaching enlargement, and already longed to +expatiate in a wider and more varied sphere of existence. + + + +THE FOUNTAIN. + + _The flower + Of Sanguinaria, from whose brittle stem + The red drops fell like blood._ + +The _Sanguinaria Canadensis_, or blood-root, as it is commonly called, +bears a delicate white flower of a musky scent, the stem of which +breaks easily, and distils a juice of a bright red colour. + + + +THE OLD MAN'S COUNSEL. + + _The shad-bush, white with flowers, + Whitened the glens._ + +The small tree, named by the botanists _Aronia Botyrapium_, is called, +in some parts of our country, the shad-bush, from the circumstance +that it flowers about the time that the shad ascend the rivers in +early spring. Its delicate sprays, covered with white blossoms before +the trees are yet in leaf, have a singularly beautiful appearance in +the woods. + + + + "_There hast thou," said my friend, "a fitting type + Of human life."_ + +I remember hearing an aged man, in the country, compare the slow +movement of time in early life and its swift flight as it approaches +old age, to the drumming of a partridge or ruffed grouse in the +woods--the strokes falling slow and distinct at first, and following +each other more and more rapidly, till they end at last in a whirring +sound. + + + +AN EVENING REVERY.--FROM AN UNFINISHED POEM. + +This poem and that entitled the Fountain, with one or two others in +blank verse, were intended by the author as portions of a larger poem, +in which they may hereafter take their place. + + + +THE PAINTED CUP. + + _The fresh savannas of the Sangamon + Here rise in gentle swells, and the long grass + Is mixed with rustling hazels. Scarlet tufts + Are glowing in the green, like flakes of fire._ + +The Painted Cup, _Euchroma Coccinea_, or _Bartsia Coccinea_, grows in +great abundance in the hazel prairies of the western states, where its +scarlet tufts make a brilliant appearance in the midst of the verdure. +The Sangamon is a beautiful river, tributary to the Illinois, bordered +with rich prairies. + + + +NOON. + + _At noon the Hebrew bowed the knee + And worshipped_ + +Evening and morning, and at noon, will I pray and cry aloud, and he +shall hear my voice.--PSALM LV. 17. + + + +THE WHITE-FOOTED DEER. + +During the stay of Long's Expedition at Engineer Cantonment, three +specimens of a variety of the common deer were brought in, having all +the feet white near the hoofs, and extending to those on the hind +feet from a little above the spurious hoofs. This white extremity was +divided, upon the sides of the foot, by the general colour of the leg, +which extends down near to the hoofs, leaving a white triangle in +front, of which the point was elevated rather higher than the spurious +hoofs.--GODMAN'S NATURAL HISTORY, vol. ii. p 314. + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Poems, by William Cullen Bryant + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POEMS *** + +***** This file should be named 16341.txt or 16341.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/6/3/4/16341/ + +Produced by richyfourtytwo, Lesley Halamek and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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