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The following sections, if they exist, are offprint from Beacham's Guide to Literature for Young Adults: "About the Author", "Overview", "Setting", "Literary Qualities", "Social Sensitivity", "Topics for Discussion", "Ideas for Reports and Papers". (c)1994-2005, by Walton Beacham.
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Table of Contents | |
Section | Page |
Start of eBook | 1 |
Birth-night of the Humming Birds. | 1 |
I. | 1 |
II. | 1 |
III. | 1 |
IV. | 1 |
V. | 2 |
VI. | 2 |
VII. | 2 |
VIII. | 3 |
IX. | 3 |
I. | 6 |
II. | 6 |
III. | 7 |
IV. | 7 |
V. | 8 |
VI. | 8 |
I. | 12 |
II. | 12 |
III. | 12 |
IV. | 13 |
I. | 15 |
II. | 15 |
III. | 15 |
IV. | 16 |
V. | 16 |
VI. | 17 |
VII. | 17 |
I. | 24 |
II. | 24 |
III. | 25 |
IV. | 25 |
V. | 25 |
I. | 30 |
II. | 30 |
III. | 30 |
IV. | 30 |
I. | 31 |
II. | 31 |
III. | 32 |
IV. | 32 |
V. | 32 |
VI. | 33 |
VII. | 33 |
VIII. | 34 |
IX. | 34 |
X. | 35 |
XI. | 36 |
XII. | 36 |
XIII. | 37 |
XIV. | 38 |
XV. | 38 |
XVI. | 39 |
XVII. | 40 |
XVIII. | 40 |
XIX. | 41 |
[Illustration: The Departure of the Fairies]
I’ll tell
you a Fairy Tale that’s new:
How the merry Elves o’er
the ocean flew
From the Emerald isle to this
far-off shore,
As they were wont in the days
of yore;
And played their pranks one
moonlit night,
Where the zephyrs alone could
see the sight.
Ere the Old world
yet had found the New,
The fairies oft in their frolics
flew
To the fragrant isles of the
Caribbee—
Bright bosom-gems of a golden
sea.
Too dark was the film of the
Indian’s eye,
These gossamer sprites to
suspect or spy,—
So they danced ’mid
the spicy groves unseen,
And mad were their merry pranks,
I ween;
For the fairies, like other
discreet little elves,
Are freest and fondest when
all by themselves.
No thought had they that in
after time,
The Muse would echo their
deeds in rhyme;
So gayly doffing light stocking
and shoe,
They tripped o’er the
meadow all dappled in dew.
I could tell,
if I would, some right merry tales,
Of unslippered fairies that
danced in the vales—
But the lovers of scandal
I leave in the lurch—
And, beside, these elves don’t
belong to the church.
If they danced—be
it known—’twas not in the clime
Of your Mathers and Hookers,
where laughter was crime;
Where sentinel virtue kept
guard o’er the lip,
Though witchcraft stole into
the heart by a slip!
Oh no! ’twas the land
of the fruit and the flower—
Where Summer and Spring both
dwelt in one bower—
Where one hung the citron,
all ripe from the bough,
And the other with blossoms
encircled her brow;
Where the mountains embosomed
rich tissues of gold,
And the rivers o’er
rubies and emeralds rolled.
It was there, where the seasons
came only to bless,
And the fashions of Eden still
lingered, in dress,
That these gay little fairies
were wont, as I say,
To steal in their merriest
gambols away.
But dropping the curtain o’er
frolic and fun,
Too good to be told, or too
bad to be done,
I give you a legend from Fancy’s
own sketch,
Though I warn you he’s
given to fibbing—the wretch!
Yet I learn by the legends
of breezes and brooks,
’Tis as true as the
fairy tales told in the books.
One night, when
the moon shone fair on the main,
Choice spirits were gathered
from meadow and plain—
And lightly embarking from
Erin’s bold cliffs,
They slid o’er the wave
in their moonbeam skiffs.
A ray for a rudder—a
thought for a sail—
Swift, swift was each bark
as the wing of the gale.
[Illustration: Voyage of the Fairies]
Yet long were the tale,
Should I linger
to say
What gambol and frolic
Enlivened the
way;
How they flirted with bubbles
That danced on
the wave,
Or listened to mermaids
That sang from
the cave;
Or slid with the moonbeams
Down deep to the
grove
Of coral, where mullet
And goldfish rove:
How there, in long vistas
Of silence and
sleep,
They waltzed, as if mocking
The death of the
deep:
How, oft, where the wreck
Lay scattered
and torn,
They peeped in the skull,
All ghastly and
lorn;
Or deep, ’mid wild rocks,
Quizzed the goggling
shark,
And mouthed at the sea-wolf,
So solemn and
stark;
Each seeming to think
That the earth
and the sea
Were made but for fairies,
For gambol and
glee!
Enough, that at
last they came to the Isle,
Where moonlight and fragrance
were rivals the while.
Not yet had those vessels
from Palos been here,
To turn the bright gem to
the blood-mingled tear.
Oh no! still blissful and
peaceful the land,
And the merry elves flew from
the sea to the strand.
Right happy and joyous seemed
now the fond crew,
As they tripped ’mid
the orange groves flashing in dew,
For they were to hold a revel
that night,
A gay fancy ball, and each
to be dight
In the gem or the flower that
fancy might choose,
From mountain or vale, for
its fragrance or hues.
Away sped the
maskers like arrows of light
To gather their gear for the
revel bright.
To the dazzling peaks of far-off
Peru,
In emulous speed some sportively
flew,
And deep in the mine, or ’mid
glaciers on high,
For ruby and sapphire searched
heedful and sly.
For diamonds rare that gleam
in the bed
Of Brazilian streams, some
merrily sped,
While others for topaz and
emerald stray,
’Mid the cradle cliffs
of the Paraguay.
[Illustration: The Fairies’ Search]
As these are gathering
the rarest of gems,
Others are plucking the rarest
of stems.
They range wild dells where
the zephyr alone,
To the blushing blossoms before
was known;
Through forests they fly,
whose branches are hung
By creeping plants, with fair
flowerets strung,
Where temples of nature with
arches of bloom,
Are lit by the moonlight,
and faint with perfume.
They stray where the mangrove
and clematis twine,
Where azalia and laurel in
rivalry shine;
Where, tall as the oak, the
The hour is come,
and the fairies are seen
In their plunder arrayed on
the moonlit green.
The music is breathed—’tis
a soft strain of pleasure,
And the light giddy throng
whirl into the measure.
[Illustration: The Fairy Dance]
’Twas a joyous dance,
and the dresses were bright,
Such as never were known till
that famous night;
For the gems and the flowers
that shone in the scene,
O’ermatched the regalia
of princess and queen.
No gaudy slave to a fair one’s
brow
Was the rose, or the ruby,
or emerald now,
But lighted with souls by
the playful elves,
The brilliants and blossoms
seemed dancing themselves.
Of all that did
chance, ’twere a long tale to tell,
Of the dresses and waltzes,
and who was the belle;
But each was so happy, and
all were so fair,
That night stole away and
the dawn caught them there!
Such a scampering never before
was seen,
As the fairies’ flight
on that island green.
They rushed to the bay with
twinkling feet,
But vain was their haste,
for the moonlight fleet
Had passed with the dawn,
and never again
Were those fairies permitted
to traverse the main.
But ’mid the groves,
when the sun was high,
The Indian marked with a worshipping
eye,
The humming birds,
all unknown before,
Glancing like thoughts from
flower to flower,
And seeming as if earth’s
loveliest things,
The brilliants and blossoms,
had taken wings:
And Fancy hath whispered in
numbers light,
That these are the fairies
who danced that night,
And linger yet in the garb
they wore,
Content in our clime and more
blest than before!
[Illustration: Indians’ discovery of the Humming Birds]
Lake Superior.
[Illustration: Lake Superior]
Father of Lakes! thy waters
bend,
Beyond the eagle’s
utmost view,
When, throned in heaven, he
sees thee send
Back to the sky
its world of blue.
Boundless and deep the forests
weave
Their twilight
shade thy borders o’er,
And threatening cliffs, like
giants, heave
Their rugged forms
along thy shore.
Nor can the light canoes,
that glide
Across thy breast
like things of air,
Chase from thy lone and level
tide,
The spell of stillness
deepening there.
Yet round this waste of wood
and wave,
Unheard, unseen,
a spirit lives,
That, breathing o’er
each rock and cave,
To all, a wild,
strange aspect gives.
The thunder-riven oak, that
flings
Its grisly arms
athwart the sky,
A sudden, startling image
brings
To the lone traveller’s
kindled eye.
The gnarled and braided boughs
that show
Their dim forms
in the forest shade,
Like wrestling serpents seem,
and throw
Fantastic horrors
through the glade.
The very echoes round this
shore,
Have caught a
strange and gibbering tone,
For they have told the war-whoop
o’er,
Till the wild
chorus is their own.
Wave of the wilderness, adieu—
Adieu, ye rocks,
ye wilds, ye woods!
Roll on, thou Element of blue,
And fill these
awful solitudes!
Thou hast no tale to tell
of man.
God is thy theme.
Ye sounding caves,
Whisper of Him, whose mighty
plan,
Deems as a bubble
all your waves!
The Leaf.
[Illustration: The Leaf]
It came with spring’s
soft sun and showers,
Mid bursting buds and blushing
flowers;
It flourished on the same
light stem,
It drank the same clear dews
with them.
The crimson tints of summer
morn
That gilded one, did each
adorn:
The breeze that whispered
light and brief
To bud or blossom, kissed
the leaf;
When o’er the leaf the
tempest flew,
The bud and blossom trembled
too.
But its companions
passed away,
And left the leaf to lone
decay.
The gentle gales of spring
went by:
The fruits and flowers of
summer die.
The autumn winds swept o’er
the hill,
And winter’s breath
came cold and chill.
The leaf now yielded to the
blast,
And on the rushing stream
was cast.
Far, far it glided to the
sea,
And whirled and eddied wearily,
Till suddenly it sank to rest,
And slumbered in the ocean’s
breast.
Thus life begins—its
morning hours,
Bright as the birthday of
the flowers—
Thus passes like the leaves
away,
As withered and as lost as
they.
Beneath the parent roof we
meet
In joyous groups, and gayly
greet
The golden beams of love and
light,
That dawn upon the youthful
sight.
But soon we part, and one
by one,
Like leaves and flowers, the
group is gone.
One gentle spirit seeks the
tomb,
His brow yet fresh with childhood’s
bloom:
Another treads the paths of
fame,
And barters peace to win a
name.
Another still, tempts fortune’s
wave,
And seeking wealth, secures
a grave.
The last, grasps yet the brittle
thread:
Though friends are gone and
joy is dead—
Still dares the dark and fretful
tide,
And clutches at its power
and pride—
Till suddenly the waters sever,
And like the leaf, he sinks
for ever!
The Bubble Chase.
[Illustration: The Bubble Chase]
Twas morn, and, wending on
its way,
Beside my path
a stream was playing;
And down its banks, in humor
gay,
A thoughtless
boy was idly straying.
Light as the breeze they onward
flew—
That joyous youth
and laughing tide,
And seemed each other’s
course to woo,
For long they
bounded side by side.
And now the dimpling water
staid,
And glassed its
ripples in a nook;
And on its breast a bubble
played,
Which won the
boy’s admiring look.
He bent him o’er the
river’s brim,
And on the radiant
vision gazed;
For lovelier still it seemed
to him,
That in its breast
his imaged blazed.
With beating heart and trembling
finger,
He stooped the
wondrous gem to clasp,
But, spellbound, seemed a
while to linger,
Ere yet he made
th’ adventurous grasp.
And still a while the glittering
toy,
Coquettish, seemed
to shun the snare,
And then more eager grew the
boy,
And followed with
impetuous air.
Round and around, with heedful
eyes,
He chased it o’er
the wavy river:
He marked his time and seized
his prize,
But in his hand
it burst for ever!
Upon the river’s marge
he sate,
The tears adown
his young cheek gushing;
And long,—his heart
disconsolate—
He heeded not
the river’s rushing.
But tears will cease.
And now the boy
Once more looked
forth upon the stream:
’Twas morning still,
and lo! a toy,
Bright as the
last one, in the beam!
He rose—pursued—the
bubble caught;
It burst—he
sighed—then others chased;
And as I parted, still he
sought
New bubbles in
their downward haste.
My onward path I still pursued,
Till the high
noontide sun was o’er me.
And now, though changed in
form and mood,
That Youth and
river seemed before me.
The deepened stream more proudly
swept,
Though chafed
by many a vessel’s prow;
The Youth in manhood’s
vigor stept,
But care was chiselled
on his brow.
Still on the stream he kept
his eye,
And wooed the
bubbles to the shore,
And snatched them, as they
circled by,
Though bursting
as they burst before.
Once more we parted.
Yet again
We met—though
now ’twas evening dim:
Onward the waters rushed amain,
And vanished o’er
a cataract’s brim.
Though swift and dark the
raging surge,
The Bubble-Chaser
still was there;
And, bending o’er the
dizzy verge,
Clutched at the
gaudy things of air.
With staff in hand and tottering
knee,
Upon the slippery
brink he stood,
And watched, with doting ecstasy,
Each wreath of
foam that rode the flood.
“One bubble more!”
I heard him call,
And saw his trembling
fingers play:
He snatched, and down the
roaring fall,
With the lost
bubble, passed away!
A Dream of Life.
[Illustration: Dream of Life]
When I was young—long,
long ago—
I dreamed myself among the
flowers;
And fancy drew the picture
so,
They seemed like Fairies in
their bowers.
The rose was still a rose,
you know—
But yet a maid.
What could I do?
You surely would not have
me go,
When rosy maidens
seem to woo?
My heart was gay, and ’mid
the throng
I sported for
an hour or two;
We danced the flowery paths
along,
And did as youthful
lovers do.
But sports must cease, and
so I dreamed
To part with these,
my fairy flowers—
But oh, how very hard it seemed
To say good-by
’mid such sweet bowers!
And one fair Maid of modest
air
Gazed on me with
her eye of blue;
I saw the tear-drop gathering
there—
How could I say
to her, Adieu!
I fondly gave my hand and
heart,
And we were wed.
Bright hour of youth!
How little did I think to
part
With my sweet
bride, whose name was Truth!
But time passed on, and Truth
grew gray,
And chided, though
with gentlest art:
I loved her, though I went
astray,
And almost broke
her faithful heart.
And then I left her, and in
tears—
These could not
move my hardened breast!
I wandered, and for weary
years
I sought for bliss,
but found no rest.
I sought—yet ever
sought in vain—
To find the peace,
the joy of youth:
At last, I turned me back
again,
And found them
with my faithful Truth.
The Surf Sprite.
[Illustration: The Surf Sprite]
In the far off sea there is
many a sprite,
Who rests by day, but awakes
at night.
In hidden caves where monsters
creep,
When the sun is high, these
spectres sleep:
From the glance of noon, they
shrink with dread,
And hide ’mid the bones
of the ghastly dead.
Where the surf is hushed,
and the light is dull,
In the hollow tube and the
whitened skull,
They crouch in fear or in
whispers wail,
For the lingering night, and
the coming gale.
But at even-tide, when the
shore is dim,
And bubbling wreaths with
the billows swim,
They rise on the wing of the
freshened breeze,
And flit with the wind o’er
the rolling seas.
At summer eve,
as I sat on the cliff,
I marked a shape like a dusky
skiff,
That skimmed the brine, toward
the rocky shore—
I heard a voice in the surge’s
roar—
I saw a form in the flashing
spray,
And white arms beckoned me
away.
Away o’er the tide we
went together,
Through shade and mist and
stormy weather—
Away, away, o’er the
lonely water,
On wings of thought
like shadows we flew,
Nor paused ’mid scenes
of wreck and slaughter,
That came from
the blackened waves to view.
The staggering ship to the
gale we left,
The drifting corse
and the vacant boat;
The ghastly swimmer all hope
bereft—
We left them there
on the sea to float!
Through mist and shade and
stormy weather,
That night we
went to the icy Pole,
And there on the rocks we
stood together,
And saw the ocean
before us roll.
No moon shone down on the
hermit sea,
No cheering beacon
illumed the shore,
No ship on the water, no light
on the lea,
No sound in the
ear but the billow’s roar!
But the wave was bright, as
if lit with pearls,
And fearful things
on its bosom played;
Huge crakens circled in foamy
whirls,
As if the deep
for their sport was made,
And mighty whales through
the crystal dashed,
And upward sent
the far glittering spray,
Till the darkened sky with
the radiance flashed,
And pictured in
glory the wild array.[A]
Hast thou seen the deep in
the moonlight beam,
Its wave like
a maiden’s bosom swelling?
Hast thou seen the stars in
the water’s gleam,
As if its depths
were their holy dwelling?
We met more beautiful scenes
that night,
As we slid along
in our spirit-car,
For we crossed the South Sea,
and, ere the light,
We doubled Cape
Horn on a shooting star.
In our way we stooped o’er
a moonlit isle,
Which the fairies
had built in the lonely sea,
And the Surf Sprite’s
brow was bent with a smile,
As we gazed through
the mist on their revelry.
The ripples that swept to
the pebbly shore,
O’er shells
of purple in wantonness played,
And the whispering zephyrs
sweet odors bore,
From roses that
bloomed amid silence and shade.
In winding grottos, with gems
all bright,
Soft music trembled
from harps unseen,
And fair forms glided on wings
of light,
’Mid forests
of fragrance, and valleys of green.
There were voices of gladness
the heart to beguile,
And glances of
beauty too fond to be true—
For the Surf Sprite shrieked,
and the Fairy Isle,
By the breath
of the tempest was swept from our view.
Then the howling gale o’er
the billows rushed,
And trampled the
sea in its march of wrath;
From stooping clouds the red
lightnings gushed,
And thunders moved
in their blazing path.
’Twas a fearful night,
but my shadowy guide
Had a voice of
glee as we rode on the gale,
For we saw afar a ship on
the tide,
With a bounding
course and a fearless sail.
In darkness it came, like
a storm-sent bird,
But another ship
it met on the wave:
A shock—a shout—but
no more we heard,
For they both
went down to their ocean-grave!
We paused on the misty wing
of the storm,
As a ruddy flash
lit the face of the deep,
And far in its bosom full
many a form
Was swinging down
to its silent sleep.
Another flash! and they seemed
to rest,
In scattered groups,
on the floor of the tide:
The lover and loved, they
were breast to breast,
The mother and
babe, they were side by side.
The leaping waves clapped
their hands in joy,
And gleams of
gold with the waters flowed,
But the peace of the sleepers
knew no alloy,
For all was hushed
in their lone abode!
On, on, like midnight visions,
we passed,
The storm above,
and the surge below,
And shrieking forms swept
by on the blast,
Like demons speeding
on errands of woe.
My spirit sank, for aloft
in the cloud,
A Star-set Flag
on the whirlwind flew,
And I knew that the billow
must be the shroud
Of the noble ship
and her gallant crew.
Her side was striped with
a belt of white,
And a dozen guns
from each battery frowned,
But the lightning came in
a sheet of flame,[B]
And the towering
sails in its folds were wound.
Vain, vain was the shout,
that in battle rout,
Had rung as a
knell in the ear of the foe,
For the bursting deck was
heaved from the wreck,
And the sky was
bathed in the awful glow!
The ocean shook to its oozy
bed,
As the swelling
sound to the canopy went,
And the splintered fires like
meteors shed
Their light o’er
the tossing element.
A moment they gleamed, then
sank in the foam,
And darkness swept
over the gorgeous glare—
They lighted the mariners
down to their home,
And left them
all sleeping in stillness there!
The storm is hushed, and my
vision is o’er,
The Surf Sprite
changed to a foamy wreath,
The night is deepened along
the shore,
And I thread my
way o’er the dusky heath.
But often again I shall go
to that cliff,
And seek for her
form on the flashing tide,
For I know she will come in
her airy skiff,
And over the sea
we shall swiftly ride!
[Footnote A: The Laplanders are said to entertain the idea that the coruscations of the Aurora Borealis, are occasioned by the sports of the fishes in the polar seas.]
[Footnote B: The loss of the United States Sloop-of-War Hornet, in the Gulf of Mexico, 1829, suggested this passage. She was supposed to have gone down in a hurricane, but as nothing is positively known on the subject, it is not beyond lawful poetical license to imagine, at least in a dream, that the powder magazine was set on fire by the lightning, and the ship rent in pieces, by the explosion.]
[Illustration: Vignette]
The First Frost of Autumn.
[Illustration: The First Frost of Autumn]
At evening it rose in the
hollow glade,
Where wild-flowers blushed
’mid silence and shade;
Where, hid from the gaze of
the garish noon,
They were slily wooed by the
trembling moon.
It rose—for the
guardian zephyrs had flown,
And left the valley that night
alone.
No sigh was borne from the
leafy hill,
No murmur came from the lapsing
rill;
The boughs of the willow in
silence wept,
And the aspen leaves in that
sabbath slept.
The valley dreamed, and the
fairy lute
Of the whispering reed by
the brook was mute.
The slender rush o’er
the glassy rill,
As a marble shaft, was erect
and still,
And no airy sylph on the mirror
wave,
A dimpling trace of its footstep
gave.
The moon shone down, but the
shadows deep
Of the pensile flowers, were
hushed in sleep.
The pulse was still in that
vale of bloom,
And the Spirit rose from its
marshy tomb.
It rose o’er the breast
of a silver spring,
Where the mist at morn shook
its snowy wing,
And robed like the dew, when
it woos the flowers.
It stole away to their secret
bowers.
With a lover’s sigh,
and a zephyr’s breath,
It whispered bliss, but its
work was death:
It kissed the lip of a rose
asleep,
And left it there on its stem
to weep:
It froze the drop on a lily’s
leaf,
And the shivering blossom
was bowed in grief.
O’er the gentian it
breathed, and the withered flower
Fell blackened and scathed
in its lonely bower;
It stooped to the asters all
blooming around,
And kissed the buds as they
slept on the ground.
They slept, but no morrow
could waken their bloom,
And shrouded by moonlight,
they lay in their tomb.
The Frost Spirit went, like
the lover light,
In search of fresh beauty
and bloom that night
Its wing was plumed by the
moon’s cold ray,
And noiseless it flew o’er
the hills away.
It flew, yet its dallying
fingers played,
With a thrilling touch, through
the maple’s shade;
It toyed with the leaves of
the sturdy oak,
It sighed o’er the aspen,
Who dreamed that the morning’s
light would speak,
And show that kiss on the
blushing cheek?
For in silence the fairy work
went through—
And no croning owl of the
scandal knew:
No watch-dog broke from his
slumbers light,
To tell the tale to the listening
night.
But that which in secret is
darkly done,
Is oft displayed by the morrow’s
sun;
And thus the leaves in the
light revealed,
With their glowing hues what
the night concealed.
The sweet, frail flowers that
once welcomed the morn,
Now drooped in their bowers,
all shrivelled and lorn;
While the hardier trees shook
their leaves in the blast—
Though tell-tale colors were
over them cast.
The maple blushed deep as
a maiden’s cheek,
And the oak confessed what
it would not speak.
The beech stood mute, but
a purple hue
O’er its glossy robe
was a witness true.
The elm and the ivy with varying
dyes,
Protesting their innocence,
looked to the skies:
And the sumach rouged deeper,
as stooping to look,
It glanced at the colors that
flared in the brook.
The delicate aspen grew nervous
and pale,
As the tittering forest seemed
full of the tale;
And the lofty ash, though
it tossed up its bough,
With a puritan air on the
mountain’s brow,
Bore a purple tinge o’er
its leafy fold,
And the hidden revel was gayly
told!
The Sea-Bird.
[Illustration: The Sea-Bird]
Far, far o’er the deep
is my island throne,
Where the sea-gull roams and
reigns alone;
Where nought is seen but the
beetling rock,
And nought is heard but the
ocean-shock,
And the scream of birds when
the storm is nigh,
And the crash of the wreck,
and the fearful cry
Of drowning men, in their
agony.
I love to sit, when the waters
sleep,
And ponder the depths of the
glassy deep,
Till I dream that I float
on a corse at sea,
And sing of the feast that
is made for me.
I love on the rush of the
storm to sail,
And mingle my scream with
the hoarser gale.
When the sky is dark, and
the billow high,
When the tempest sweeps in
its terror by,
I love to ride on the maddening
blast—
To flap my wing o’er
the fated mast,
And sing to the crew a song
of fear,
Of the reef and the surge
that await them here.
When the storm is done and
the revel is o’er,
I love to sit on the rocky
shore,
And tell to the ear of the
dying breeze,
The tales that are hushed
in the sullen seas;
Of the ship that sank in the
reefy surge,
And left her fate to the sea-gull’s
dirge:
Of the lover that sailed to
meet his bride,
And his story gave to the
secret tide:
Of the father that went on
the trustless main,
And never was met by his child
again:
Of the hidden things which
the waves conceal,
And the sea-bird’s song
can alone reveal.
I tell of the ship that hath
found a grave—
Her spars still float on the
restless wave,
But down in the halls of the
voiceless deep,
The forms of the brave and
the beautiful sleep.
I saw the storm as it gathered
fast,
I heard the roar of the coming
blast,
I marked the ship in her fearful
strife,
As she flew on the tide, like
a thing of life.
But the whirlwind came, and
her masts were wrung,
Away, and away on the waters
flung.
I sat on the gale o’er
the sea-swept deck,
And screamed in delight o’er
the coming wreck:
I flew to the reef with a
heart of glee,
And wiled the ship to her
destiny.
On the hidden rocks like a
hawk she rushed,
And the sea through her riven
timbers gushed:
O’er the whirling surge
the wreck was flung,
And loud on the gale wild
voices rung.
I gazed on the scene—I
saw despair
On the pallid brows of a youthful
pair.
The maiden drooped like a
gentle flower,
When lashed by the gale in
its quivering bower:
Her arms round her lover she
wildly twined,
And gazed on the sea with
a wildered mind.
He bent o’er the trembler,
and sheltered her form,
From the plash of the sea,
and the sweep of the storm;
But woe to the lover, and
woe to the maid,
Whose hopes on the treacherous
deep are laid!
For the Sea hath a King whose
palaces shine,
In lustre and light down the
pearly brine,
And he loves to gather in
glory there,
The choicest things of the
earth and air.
In his deep saloons with coral
crowned,
Where gems are sparkling above
and around,
He gathers his harem of love
and grace,
And beauty he takes to his
cold embrace.
The winds and the waves are
his messengers true.
And lost is the wanderer whom
they pursue.
They sweep the shore, they
plunder the wreck,
His stores to heap, and his
halls to deck.
Oh! lady and lover, ye are
doomed their prey—
They come! they come! ye are
swept away!
Ye sink in the tide,—but
it cannot sever
The fond ones who sleep in
its depths for ever!
Wild! wild was the storm,
and loud was its roar,
And strange were the sights
that I hovered o’er:
I saw the babe with its mother
die;
I listened to catch its parting
sigh;
And I laughed to see the black
billows play
With the sleeping child in
their gambols gay.
I saw a girl whose arms were
white,
As the foam that flashed on
the billows’ height;
And the ripples played with
her glossy curls,
And her cheek was kissed by
the dancing whirls;
But her bosom was dead to
hope and fear,
For she shuddered not as the
shark came near.
I poised my foot on the forehead
fair
Of a lovely boy that floated
there;
I looked in the eyes of the
drowning brave,
As they upward gazed through
the glassy wave;
I screamed o’er the
bubbles that told of death,
And stooped as the last gave
up his breath.
I flapped my wing, for the
work was done—
The storm was hushed, and
the laughing sun
Sent his gushing light o’er
the sullen seas—
And I tell my tale to the
fainting breeze,
Of the hidden things which
the waves conceal,
And the sea-bird’s song
can alone reveal!
[Illustration: Vignette]
The King of Terrors.
[Illustration: The King of Terrors]
As a shadow He
flew, but sorrow and wail
Came up from his path, like
the moan of the gale.
His quiver was full, though
his arrows fell fast
As the sharp hail of winter
when urged by the blast.
He smiled on each shaft as
it flew from the string,
Though feathered by fate,
and the lightning its wing.
Unerring, unsparing, it sped
to its mark,
As the mandate of destiny,
certain and dark.
The mail of the warrior it
severed in twain,—
The wall of the castle it
shivered amain:
No shield could shelter, no
prayer could save,
And Love’s holy shrine
no immunity gave.
A babe in the cradle—its
mother bent o’er,—
The arrow is sped,—and
that babe is no more!
At the faith-plighting altar,
a lovely one bows,—
The gem on her finger,—in
Heaven her vows;
Unseen is the blow, but she
sinks in the crowd,
And her bright wedding-garment
is turned to a shroud!
On flew the Destroyer,
o’er mountain and main,—
And where there was life,
there, there are the slain!
No valley so deep, no islet
so lone,
But his shadow is cast, and
his victims are known.
He paused not, though years
rolled weary and slow,
And Time’s hoary pinion
drooped languid and low:
He paused not till Man from
his birth-place was swept,
And the sea and the land in
solitude slept.
On a mountain he stood, for
the struggle was done,—
A smile on his lip for the
victory won.
The city of millions,—lone
islet and cave,
The home of the hermit,—all
earth was a grave!
The last of his race, where
the first saw the light,
The monarch had met, and triumphed
in fight:
Swift, swift was the steed,
o’er Shinar’s wide sand,
But swifter the arrow that
flew from Death’s hand!
O’er the
mountain he seems like a tempest to lower,
Triumphant and dark in the
fulness of power;
And flashes of flame, that
play round his crest,
Bespeak the fierce lightning
that glows in his breast.
But a vision of wonder breaks
now on his sight;
The blue vault of heaven is
gushing with light,
And, facing the tyrant, a
form from the sky
Returns the fierce glance
of his challenging eye.
A moment they pause,—two
princes of might,—
The Demon of Darkness,—an
Angel of Light!
Each gazes on each,—no
barrier between—
And the quivering rocks shrink
aghast from the scene!
The sword of the angel waves
free in the air;
Death looks to his quiver,—no
arrow is there!
He falls like a pyramid, crumbled
and torn;
And a vision of light on his
dying eye borne,
In glory reveals the blest
souls of the slain,—
And he sees that his sceptre
was transient and vain;
For, ’mid the bright
throng, e’en the infant he slew,
And the altar-struck bride,
beam full on the view!
The Rainbow Bridge.
[Illustration: The Rainbow Bridge]
Love and Hope and Youth, together—
Travelling once in stormy
weather,
Met a deep and gloomy tide,
Flowing swift and dark and
wide.
’Twas named the river
of Despair,—
And many a wreck was floating
there!
The urchins paused, with faces
grave,
Debating how to cross the
wave,
When lo! the curtain of the
storm
Was severed, and the rainbow’s
form
Stood against the parting
cloud—
Emblem of peace on trouble’s
shroud!
Hope pointed to the signal
flying,
And the three, their shoulders
plying,
O’er the stream the
light arch threw—
A rainbow bridge of loveliest
hue!
Now, laughing as they tripped
it o’er,
They gayly sought the other
shore:
But soon the hills began to
frown,
And the bright sun went darkly
down.
Though their step was light
and fleet,
The rainbow vanished ’neath
their feet,—
And down they went,—the
giddy things!
But Hope put forth his ready
wings,—
And clinging Love and Youth
he bore
In triumph to the other shore.
But ne’er I ween should
mortals deem
On rainbow bridge to cross
a stream,
Unless bright, buoyant Hope
is nigh,
And, light with Love and Youth,
they fly!
The Rival Bubbles.
[Illustration: The Rival Bubbles]
Two bubbles on a mountain
stream,
Began their race
one shining morn,
And lighted by the ruddy beam,
Went dancing down
’mid shrub and thorn.
The stream was narrow, wild
and lone,
But gayly dashed
o’er mound and rock,
And brighter still the bubbles
shone,
As if they loved
the whirling shock.
Each leaf, and flower, and
sunny ray,
Was pictured on
them as they flew,
And o’er their bosoms
seemed to play
In lovelier forms
and colors new.
Thus on they went, and side
by side,
They kept in sad
and sunny weather,
And rough or smooth the flowing
tide,
They brightest
shone when close together.
Nor did they deem that they
could sever,
That clouds could
rise, or morning wane;
They loved, and thought that
love for ever
Would bind them
in its gentle chain.
But soon the mountain slope
was o’er,
And ’mid
new scenes the waters flowed,
And the two bubbles now no
more
With their first
morning beauty glowed.
They parted, and the sunny
ray
That from each
other’s love they borrowed;
That made their dancing bosoms
gay,
While other bubbles
round them sorrowed:
That ray was dimmed, and on
the wind
A shadow came,
as if from Heaven;
Yet on they flew, and sought
to find
From strife, the
bliss that love had given.
They parted, yet in sight
they kept,
And rivals now
the friends became,
And if, perchance, the eddies
swept
Them close, they
flashed with flame.
And fiercer forward seemed
to bound,
With the swift
ripples toward the main;
And all the lesser bubbles
round,
Each sought to
gather in its train.
They strove, and in that eager
strife
Their morning
friendship was forgot,
And all the joys that sweeten
life,
The rival bubbles
knew them not.
The leaves, the flowers, the
grassy shore,
Were all neglected
in the chase,
And on their bosoms now no
more
These forms of
beauty found a place.
But all was dim and drear
within,
And envy dwelt
where love was known,
And images of fear and sin
Were traced, where
truth and pleasure shone.
The clouds grew dark, the
tide swelled high,
And gloom was
o’er the waters flung,
But riding on the billows,
nigh
Each other now
the bubbles swung.
Closer and closer still they
rushed,
In anger o’er
the rolling river;
They met, and ’mid the
waters crushed,
The rival bubbles
burst for ever!
Good Night.
The sun has sunk behind the hills,
The shadows o’er the landscape creep;
A drowsy sound the woodland fills,
And nature folds her arms to sleep:
Good night—good night.
The chattering jay has ceased his
din—
The noisy robin sings no more—
The crow, his mountain haunt within,
Dreams ’mid the forest’s surly roar:
Good night—good night.
The sunlit cloud floats dim and
pale;
The dew is falling soft and still;
The mist hangs trembling o’er the vale,
And silence broods o’er yonder mill:
Goodnight—good night.
The rose, so ruddy in the light,
Bends on its stem all rayless now,
And by its side the lily white
A sister shadow, seems to bow:
Good night—good night.
The bat may wheel on silent wing—
The fox his guilty vigils keep—
The boding owl his dirges sing;
But love and innocence will sleep:
Good night—good night!
The Mississippi.[A]
[Illustration: The Mississippi]
Far in the West, where snow-capt
mountains rise,
Like marble shafts beneath
Heaven’s stooping dome,
And sunset’s dreamy
curtain drapes the skies,
As if enchantment there would
build her home—
O’er wood and wave,
from haunts of men away—
From out the glen, all trembling
like a child,
A babbling streamlet comes
as if to play—
Albeit the scene is savage,
lone and wild.
Here at the mountain’s
foot, that infant wave
’Mid bowering leaves
doth hide its rustic birth—
Here learns the rock and precipice
to brave—
And go the Monarch River of
the Earth!
Far, far from hence, its bosom
deep and wide,
Bears the proud steamer on
its fiery wing—
Along its banks, bright cities
rise in pride,
And o’er its breast
their gorgeous image fling.
The Mississippi needs no herald
now—
But here within this glen
unknown to fame,
It flows content—a
bubble on its brow,
A leaf upon its breast—without
a name!
[Illustration: Banks of the Mississippi]
Strange contrasts here—for
on the glacier’s height,
The tempest raves, and arrowy
lightnings leap—
Yet deep beneath, the wild
flowers lone and light,
On slender stems in breezeless
silence sleep.
Skyward the racing eagles
wildly fling
Their savage clamor to the
echoing dell—
While sheltered deep, the
bee with folded wing,
Voluptuous slumbers in his
fragrant cell.
Around, the splintered rocks
are heaped to heaven,
With grisly caverns yawning
wide between,
As if the Titans there had
battle given,
And left their ruin written
on the scene!
Yet o’er these ghastly
shapes, soft lichens wind,
And timid daisies droop, and
tranquil flowers
A robe of many-colored beauty,
bind,
As if some vagrant fairy claimed
these bowers.
Fit cradle this—Majestic
Stream, for thee!
Nursed at the glacier’s
foot—by tempests fed—
The lightning flashing o’er
thy canopy,
And thunders pealing round
thine infant bed—
The pious Indian marks thy
mystic birth,
’Mid storm and cloud,
and nature’s aspect wild—
And wondering, deems thee
not a thing of earth,
But great Manitto’s
fair and favored child.
Aye—and the mind,
by inspiration taught,
Like nature’s pupil
feels a Presence near,
Which bids the bosom tremble
with the thought
That He who came from Teman
hath been here![B]
What thronging fancies crowd
upon the soul,
As from these heights the
Giant Stream we trace,
And wander with its waters
as they roll
From hence, to their far ocean
dwelling-place—
Marking its birth in this
bleak frigid zone,
Its conquering march to yonder
tropic shore,
The boundless valley which
it makes its own,
With thousand tribute rivers
as they pour!
No classic page its story
to reveal;
No nymph, or naïad, sporting
in its glades;
No banks encrimsoned with
heroic steel;
And haunted yet by dim poetic
shades—
Its annals linger in the eternal
rock,
Hoary with centuries; in cataracts
that sing
To the dull ear of ages; in
the shock
Of plunging glaciers that
madly fling,
The forest like a flight of
spears, aloft:
In wooded vales that spread
beyond the view;
In boundless prairies, blooming
fair and soft;
In mantling vines that teem
with clusters blue;
And as the sunny south upon
us breathes—
In orange groves that scent
the balmy air,
And tempt soft summer with
its fragrant wreaths,
Throughout the year to be
a dweller there.
These of the past their whispered
lore unfold,
And fertile fancy with its
wizard art,
May weave wild legends, as
the seers of old
Made gods and heroes into
being start.
Perchance some mystic mound
may wake the spell:
A crumbled skull—a
spear—a vase of clay
Within its bosom half the
tale may tell—
And all the rest ’tis
fancy’s gift to say.
Alas! that ruthless science
in these days,
To its stern crucible hath
brought at last,
The cherished shapes that
all so fondly gaze
Upon us from the dim poetic
past!
Else might these moonlit prairies
show at dawn,
The dew-swept circle of the
elfin dance—
These woodlands teem with
sportive fay and faun—
These grottoes glimmer with
sweet Echo’s glance.
Perchance a future Homer might
have wrought
From out the scattered wreck
of ages fled,
Some long lost Troy, where
mighty heroes fought,
And made the earth re-echo
with their tread!
It may not be, for though
these scenes are fair,
As fabled Arcady—the
sylph and fay,
And all their gentle kindred,
shun the air,
Where car and steamer make
their stormy way.
Perchance some Cooper’s
magic art may wake
The sleeping legends of this
mighty vale,
And twine fond memories round
the lawn and lake,
Where Warrior fought or Lover
told his tale:
And when the Red Man’s
form hath left these glades,
And memory’s moonlight
o’er his story streams,
From their dim graves shall
rise heroic shades,
And fill the fancy with romantic
dreams.
Then, in the city’s
gorgeous squares shall rise
The chiselled column to the
admiring view—
To mark the spot where some
stern Black Hawk lies,
Whom ages gone, our glorious
grandsires slew!
[Illustration: The Indian Lovers]
Dim shadows these that come
at Fancy’s call—
Yet deeper scenes before the
Patriot rise,
As fate’s stern prophet
lifts the fearful pall,
And shows the future to his
straining eyes.
Oh! shall that vision paint
this glorious vale
With happy millions o’er
its bosom spread—
Or ghastly scenes where battle
taints the gale
With brother’s blood
by brother’s weapon shed?
Away, ye phantom fears—the
scene is fair,
Down the long vista of uncounted
years;
Bright harvests smile, sweet
meadows scent the air,
And peaceful plenty o’er
the scene appears.
The village rings with labor’s
jocund laugh,
The hoyden shout around the
school-house door,
The old man’s voice,
as bending o’er his staff,
He waxes valiant in the tales
of yore:
Far tapering spires from teeming
cities rise,
The sabbath bell comes stealing
on the air,
A holy anthem seeks the bending
skies,
And earth and heaven seem
fondly blended there!
Aye—and beyond,
where distance spreads its blue,
Down the unfolding vale of
future time,
A glorious vision rises on
the view,
And wakes the bosom with a
hope sublime.
Majestic Stream! at dim Creation’s
dawn,
Thou wert a witness of that
glorious birth—
And thy proud waters still
shall sweep the lawn
When Peace shall claim dominion
of the earth.
Here in this vale for mighty
empire made,
Perchance the glorious flag
shall be unfurled,
And violence and wrong and
ruin fade,
Before its conquering march
around the world!
[Footnote A: We are told by the Geographers that the Missouri, which rises in the glaciers of the Rocky Mountains, is properly the head stream of the Mississippi, and it is thus regarded in these lines. In this view, the Mississippi is the longest river in the world.]
[Footnote B: Habakkuk iii. 3.]
[Illustration: Vignette]
The Two Windmills.
[Illustration: The Two Windmills]
Two neighbors, living on a
hill,
Had each—and side
by side—a mill.
The one was Jones,—a
thrifty wight—
Whose mill in every wind went
right.
The storm and tempest vainly
spent
Their rage upon it—round
it went!
E’en when the summer
breeze was light,
The whirling wings performed
their flight;
And hence a village saying
rose—
“As sure as Jones’s
mill, it goes.”
Not so with neighbor Smith’s—close
by;
Full half the time it would
not ply:
Save only when the wind was
west,
Still as a post it stood at
rest.
By every tempest it was battered,
By every thundergust ’twas
shattered;
Through many a rent the rain
did filter;
And, fair or foul, ’twas
out of kilter;
And thus the saying came at
last—
“Smith’s mill
is made for folks that fast.”
Now, who can read this riddle
right?
Two mills are standing on
a height—
One whirling brisk, whate’er
the weather,
The other, idle, weeks together!
Come, gentle reader, lend
thine ear,
And thou the simple truth
shalt hear;
And mark,—for here
the moral lurks,—
Smith held to faith, but not
to works;
While Jones believed in both,
and so,
By faith and practice, made
it go!
Smith prayed, and straight
sent in his bill,
Expecting Heaven to tend his
mill;
And grumbled sore, whene’er
he found
That wheels ungreased would
not go round.
Not so with Jones—for,
though as prayerful,
To grease his wheels he e’er
was careful,
And healed, with ready stitch,
each rent
That ruthless time or tempest
sent;
And thus, by works, his faith
expressed,
Good neighbor Jones by Heaven
was blessed.
The Ideal and the Actual.
My boat is on the bounding
tide,
Away, away from
surge and shore;
A waif upon the wave I ride,
Without a rudder
or an oar.
Blow as ye list, ye breezes,
blow—
The compass now
is nought to me;
Flow as ye will, ye billows,
flow,
If but ye bear
me out to sea.
Yon waving line of dusky blue,
Where care and
toil oppress the heart—
To thee I bid a long adieu,
And smile to feel
that thus we part.
There let the sweating ploughman
toil,
The yearning miser count his gain,
The fevered scholar waste his oil,
But I am bounding o’er the main!
How fresh these breezes to the
brow—
How dear this freedom to the soul;
Bright ocean, I am with thee now,
So let thy golden billows roll!
* * * * *
But stay—what means
this throbbing brain—
This heaving chest—these pulses quick?
Oh, take me to the land again,
For I am very, very sick!
The Golden Dream.
In midnight dreams the Wizard
came,
And beckoned me
away—
With tempting hopes of wealth
and fame,
He cheered my
lonely way.
He led me o’er a dusky
heath,
And there a river
swept,
Whose gay and glassy tide
beneath,
Uncounted treasure,
slept.
The wooing ripples lightly
dashed
Around the cherished
store,
And circling eddies brightly
flashed
Above the yellow
ore.
I bent me o’er the deep
smooth stream,
And plunged the
gold to get,—
But oh! it vanished with my
dream—
And I got dripping
wet!
O’er lonely heath and
darksome hill,
As shivering home
I went,
The mocking Wizard whispered
shrill,
‘Thou’dst
better been content!’
The Gipsy’s Prayer.
[Illustration: The Gipsy’s Prayer]
Our altar is the dewy sod—
Our temple yon blue throne
of God:
No priestly rite our souls
to bind—
We bow before the Almighty
Mind.
Oh, Thou whose realm is wide
as air—
Thou wilt not spurn the Gipsies’
prayer:
Though banned and barred by
all beside,
Be Thou the Outcast’s
guard and guide.
Poor fragments of a Nation
wrecked—
Its story whelmed in Time’s
neglect—
We drift unheeded on the wave,
If God refuse the lost to
save.
Yet though we name no Fatherland—
And though we clasp no kindred
hand—
Though houseless, homeless
wanderers we—
Oh give us Hope, and Heaven
with Thee!
Inscription for a Rural Cemetery.
Peace to the dead! The
forest weaves,
Around your couch, its shroud
of leaves;
While shadows dim and silence
deep,
Bespeak the quiet of your
sleep.
Rest, pilgrim, here!
Your journey o’er,
Life’s weary cares ye
heed no more;
Time’s sun has set,
in yonder west—
Your work is done—rest,
Pilgrim, rest!
Rest till the morning hour;
wait
Here, at Eternity’s
dread gate,
Safe in the keeping of the
sod,
And the sure promises of God.
Dark is your home—yet
round the tomb,
Tokens of hope—sweet
flowerets bloom;
And cherished memories, soft
and dear,
Blest as their fragrance,
linger here!
We speak, yet ye are dumb!
How dread
This deep, stern silence of
the Dead!
The whispers of the Grave,
severe,
The listening Soul alone can
hear!
Song: The Robin.
[Illustration: The Robin]
At misty dawn,
At rosy morn,
The Redbreast sings alone:
At twilight dim,
Still, still,
his hymn
Hath a sad, and sorrowing
tone.
Another day, his song is gay,
For a listening
bird is near—
O ye who sorrow, come borrow,
borrow,
A lesson of robin
here!
Thoughts at Sea.
Here is the boundless ocean,—there
the sky,
O’er-arching
broad and blue—
Telling of God and heaven—how
deep, how high,
How glorious and
true!
Upon the wave there is an
anthem sweet,
Whispered in fear
and love,
Sending a solemn tribute to
the feet
Of Him who sits
above.
God of the waters! Nature
owns her King!
The Sea thy sceptre
knows;
At thy command the tempest
spreads its wing,
Or folds it to
repose.
And when the whirlwind hath
gone rushing by,
Obedient to thy
will,
What reverence sits upon the
wave and sky,
Humbled, subdued,
and still!
Oh! let my soul, like this
submissive sea,
With peace upon
its breast,
By the deep influence of thy
Spirit be
Holy and hushed
to rest.
And as the gladdening sun
lights up the morn,
Bidding the storm
depart,
So may the Sun of Righteousness
adorn,
With love, my
shadowed heart.
A Burial at Sea.
[Illustration: Burial at Sea]
The shore hath blent with
the distant skies,
O’er the
bend of the crested seas,
And the leaning ship in her
pathway flies,
On the sweep of
the freshened breeze.
Swift be its flight! for a
dying guest
It bears across
the billow,
And she fondly sighs in her
native West
To find a peaceful
pillow.
There, o’er the tide,
her kindred sleep,
And she would
sleep beside them—
It may not be! for the sea
is deep,
And the waves—the
waves divide them!
It may not be! for the flush is
flown,
That lighted her lily cheek—
’Twas the passing beam, ere the sun goes
down.—
Life’s last and loveliest streak.
’Tis gone, and a dew is o’er
her now—
The dew of the mornless eve—
No morrow will shine on that pallid brow,
For the spirit hath ta’en its leave.
* * * * *
The ship heaves to, and the funeral
rite,
O’er the lovely form is said,
And the rough man’s cheek with tears is
bright,
As he lowers the gentle dead.
The corse sinks down, alone—alone,
To its dark and dreary grave,
And the soul on a lightened wing hath flown,
To the world beyond the wave.
* * * * *
’Tis a fearful thing in the
sea to sleep
Alone in a silent bed—
’Tis a fearful thing on the shoreless deep
Of the spirit-world to tread!
The Dream of Youth.
[Illustration: The Dream of Youth]
In days of yore, while yet
the world was new,
And all around was beautiful
to view—
When spring or summer ruled
the happy hours,
And golden fruit hung down
mid opening flowers;
Remembrance.[A]
You bid the minstrel strike
the lute,
And wake once
more a soothing tone—
Alas! its strings, untuned,
are mute,
Or only echo moan
for moan.
The flowers around it twined
are dead,
And those who
wreathed them there, are flown;
The spring that gave them
bloom is fled,
And winter’s
frost is o’er them thrown.
Poor lute! forgot ’mid
strife and care,
I fain would try
thy strings once more,—
Perchance some lingering tone
is there—
Some cherished
melody of yore.
If flowers that bloom no more
are here,
Their odors still
around us cling—
And though the loved are lost-still
dear,
Their memories
may wake the string.
I strike—but lo,
the wonted thrill,
Of joy in sorrowing
cadence dies:
Alas! the minstrel’s
hand is chill,
And the sad lute,
responsive, sighs.
’Tis ever thus—our
life begins,
In Eden, and all
fruit seems sweet—
We taste and knowledge, with
our sins,
Creeps to the
heart and spoils the cheat.
In youth, the sun brings light
alone—
No shade then
rests upon the sight—
But when the beaming morn
is flown,
We see the shadows—not
the light
I once found music every where—
The whistle from
the willow wrung—
The string, set in the window,
there,
Sweet measures
to my fancy flung.
But now, this dainty lute
is dead—
Or answers but
to sigh and wail,
Echoing the voices of the
fled,
Passing before
me dim and pale!
Yet angel forms are in that
train,
And One upon the
still air flings,
Of woven melody, a strain,
Down trembling
from Her heaven-bent wings.
’Tis past—that
Speaking Form is flown—
But memory’s pleased and listening ear,
Shall oft recall that choral tone,
To love and poetry so dear.
And far away in after time,
Shall blended Piety and Love
Find fond expression in the rhyme,
Bequeathed to earth by One above.
* * * * *
Poor lute!—thy bounding
pulse is still,—
Yet all thy silence I forgive,
That thus thy last—thy dying thrill,
Would make Her gentle virtues live!
[Footnote A: Written by request for the “Memorial,” a work published in New-York, 1850, in commemoration of the late Frances S. Osgood,—edited by Mary E. Hewett.]
The Old Oak.
[Illustration: The Old Oak]
Friend of my early days, we
meet once more!
Once more I stand
thine aged boughs beneath,
And hear again the rustling
music pour,
Along thy leaves,
as whispering spirits breathe.
Full many a day of sunshine
and of storm,
Since last we
parted, both have surely known;
Thy leaves are thinned, decrepit
is thy form,—
And all my cherished
visions, they are flown!
How beautiful, how brief,
those sunny hours
Departed now,
when life was in its spring—
When Fancy knew no scene undecked
with flowers,
And Expectation
flew on Fancy’s wing!
Here, on the bank, beside
this whispering stream,
Which still runs
by as gayly as of yore,
Marking its eddies, I was
wont to dream
Of things away,
on some far fairy shore.
Then every whirling leaf and
bubbling ball,
That floated by,
was full of radiant thought;
Each linked with love, had
music at its call,
And thrilling
echoes o’er my bosom brought.
The bird that sang within
this gnarled oak,
The waves that
dallied with its leafy shade,
The mellow murmurs from its
boughs that broke,
Their joyous tribute
to my spirit paid.
No phantom rose to tell of
future ill,
No grisly warning
marr’d my prophet dreams—
My heart translucent as the
leaping rill,
My thoughts all
free and flashing at its beams.
Here is the grassy knoll I
used to seek
At summer noon,
beneath the spreading shade,
And watch the flowers that
stooped with glowing cheek,
To meet the romping
ripples as they played.
Here is the spot which memory’s
magic glass
Hath often brought,
arrayed in fadeless green,
Making this oak, this brook,
this waving grass—
A simple group—fond
Nature’s fairest scene.
And as I roamed beside the
Rhone or Rhine,
Or other favored
stream, in after days,
With jealous love, this rivulet
would shine,
Full on my heart,
and claim accustomed praise.
And oh! how oft by sorrow
overborne,
By care oppressed,
or bitter malice wrung,
By friends betrayed, or disappointment
torn,
My weary heart,
all sickened and unstrung—
Hath yearned to leave the
bootless strife afar,
And find beneath
this oak a quiet grave,
Where the rough echo of the
world’s loud jar,
Yields to the
music of the mellow wave!
And now again I stand this
stream beside;
Again I hear the
silver ripples flow—
I mark the whispers murmuring
o’er the tide,
And the light
bubbles trembling as they go.
But oh! the magic-spell that
lingered here,
In boyhood’s
golden age, my heart to bless,
With the bright waves that
rippled then so clear,
Is lost in ocean’s
dull forgetfulness.
Gone are the visions of that
glorious time—
Gone are the glancing
birds I loved so well,
Nor will they wake again their
silver chime,
From the deep
tomb of night in which they dwell!
And if perchance some fleeting
memories steal,
Like far-off echoes
to my dreaming ear,
Away, ungrasped, the cheating
visions wheel,
As spectres start
upon the wing of fear.
Alas! the glorious sun, which
then was high,
Touching each
common thing with rosy light,
Is darkly banished from the
lowering sky—
And life’s
dull onward pathway lies, in night.
Yes—I am changed—and
this gray gnarled form,
Its leaves all
scattered by the rending blast,
Is but an image of my heart;—the
storm—
The storm of life,
doth make us such at last!
Farewell, old oak! I
leave thee to the wind,
And go to struggle
with the chafing tide—
Soon to the dust thy form
shall be resigned,
And I would sleep
thy crumbling limbs beside.
Thy memory will pass; thy
sheltering shade,
Will weave no
more its tissue o’er the sod;
And all thy leaves, ungathered
in the glade,
Shall, by the
reckless hoof of time, be trod.
My cherished hopes, like shadows
and like leaves,
Name, fame, and
fortune—each shall pass away;
And all that castle-building
fancy weaves,
Shall sleep, unthinking,
as the drowsy clay.
But from thy root another
tree shall bloom—
With living leaves
its tossing boughs shall rise;
And the winged spirit—bursting
from the tomb,—
Oh, shall it spring
to light beyond these skies?
To a Wild Violet, in March.
[Illustration: To a Wild Violet, in March]
My pretty flower,
How cam’st thou here?
Around thee all
Is sad and sere,—
The brown leaves tell
Of winter’s breath,
And all but thou
Of doom and death.
The naked forest
Shivering sighs,—
On yonder hill
The snow-wreath lies,
And all is bleak—
Then say, sweet flower,
Whence cam’st thou here
In such an hour?
No tree unfolds its timid
bud—
Chill pours the hill-side’s
lurid flood—
The tuneless forest all is
dumb—
Whence then, fair violet,
didst thou come?
Spring hath not scattered
yet her flowers,
But lingers still in southern
bowers;
No gardener’s art hath
cherished thee,
For wild and lone thou springest
free.
Thou springest here to man
unknown,
Waked into life by God alone!
Sweet flower—thou
tellest well thy birth,—
Thou cam’st from Heaven,
though soiled in earth!
Illusions.
As down life’s morning
stream we glide,
Full oft some Flower stoops
o’er its side,
And beckons to the smiling
shore,
Where roses strew the landscape
o’er:
Yet as we reach that Flower
to clasp,
It seems to mock the cheated
grasp,
And whisper soft, with siren
glee,
“My bloom is not—oh
not for thee!”
Within Youth’s flowery
vale I tread,
By some entrancing shadow
led—
And Echo to my call replies—
Yet, as she answers, lo, she
flies!
And, as I seem to reach her
cell—
The grotto, where she weaves
her spell—
The Nymph’s sweet voice
afar I hear—
So Love departs, as we draw
near!
Upon a mountain’s dizzy
height,
Ambition’s temple gleams
with light:
Proud forms are moving fair
within,
And bid us strive that light
to win.
O’er giddy cliff and
crag we strain,
And reach the mountain top—in
vain!
For lo! the temple, still
afar,
Shines cold and distant as
a star.
I hear a voice, whose accents
dear
Melt, like soft music, in
mine ear.
A gentle hand, that seems
divine,
Is warmly, fondly clasped
in mine;
And lips upon my cheeks are
pressed,
That whisper tones from regions
blest:
But soon I start—for
friendship’s kiss
Is gone, and lo! a serpent’s
hiss.
The sun goes down, and shadows
rest
On the gay scenes by morning
blest;
The gathering clouds invest
the air—
Yet one bright constant Star
is there.
Onward we press, with heavy
load,
O’er tangled path and
rough’ning road,
For still that Star shines
bright before;
But now it sinks, and all
is o’er!
The Rose: to Ellen.
[Illustration: The Rose]
The sportive sylphs that course
the air,
Unseen on wings that twilight
weaves,
Around the opening rose repair,
And breathe sweet incense
o’er its leaves.
With sparkling cups of bubbles
made,
They catch the ruddy beams
of day,
And steal the rainbow’s
sweetest shade,
Their blushing favorite to
array.
They gather gems with sunbeams
bright,
From floating clouds and falling
showers—
They rob Aurora’s locks
of light
To grace their own fair queen
of flowers.
Thus, thus adorned, the speaking
Rose,
Becomes a token fit to tell,
Of things that words can ne’er
disclose,
And nought but this reveal
so well.
Then take my flower, and let
its leaves
Beside thy heart be cherished
near,
While that confiding heart
receives
The thought it whispers to
thine ear!
The Maniac.
[Illustration: The Maniac]
On a tall cliff
that overhung the deep,
A maniac stood. He heeded
not the sweep
Of the swift gale that lashed
the troubled main,
And spread with showery foam
the watery plain.
His reckless foot was on the
dizzy line
That edged the rock, impending
One look to heaven
the raptured Maniac cast,
One low breathed murmur from
his bosom passed:
’God of the soul and
sea! I read thy choice—
Told by the shipwreck and
the whirlwind’s voice.
In this dread omen I can trace
my doom,
And hear thee bid me seek
an ocean-tomb.
Like the lost ship my weary
mind hath striven
With the wild tempest o’er
my spirit driven;
That strife is done—and
the dim caverned sea
Of this wrecked bosom must
the mansion be.
Thou who canst bid the billows
cease to roll,
Oh! smooth a pillow for my
weary soul—
Watch o’er the pilgrim
in his shadowy sleep,
And send sweet dreams to light
the sullen deep!’
Thus spoke the
maniac, while above he gazed,
And his pale hands beseechingly
upraised;
Then on the viewless wind
he swiftly sprung,
And far below his senseless
form was flung;
A thin white spray told where
he met the wave,
And battling surges thunder
o’er his grave!
The Two Shades.
[Illustration: The Two Shades]
Along that gloomy river’s
brim,
Where Charon plies
the ceaseless oar,
Two mighty Shadows, dusk and
dim,
Stood lingering
on the dismal shore.
Hoarse came the rugged Boatman’s
call,
While echoing
caves enforced the cry—
And as they severed life’s
last thrall,
Each Spirit spoke
one parting sigh.
“Farewell to earth!
I leave a name,
Written in fire,
on field and flood—
Wide as the wind,
the voice of fame,
Hath borne my fearful tale
of blood.
And though across
this leaden wave,
Returnless now my spirit haste,
Napoleon’s
name shall know no grave,
His mighty deeds be ne’er
erased.
The rocky Alp,
where once was set
My courser’s hoof, shall
keep the seal,
And ne’er
the echo there forget
The clangor of my glorious
steel.
Marengo’s
hill-sides flow with wine—
And summer there the olive
weaves,
But busy memory
e’er will twine
The blood-stained laurel with
its leaves.
The Danube’s
rushing billows haste
With the black ocean-wave
to hide—
Yet is my startling
story traced,
In every murmur of its tide.
The pyramid on
Giseh’s plain,
Its founder’s fame hath
long forgot—
But from its memory,
time, in vain
Shall strive Napoleon’s
name to blot.
The bannered storm
that floats the sky,
With God’s red quiver
in its fold,
O’er startled
realms shall lowering fly,
A type of me, till time is
told.
The storm—a
thing of weal and woe,
Of life and death, of peace
and power—
That lays the
giant forest low,
Yet cheers the bent grass
with its shower—
That, in its trampled
pathway leaves,
The uptorn roots to bud anew,
And where the
past o’er ruin grieves,
Bids fresher beauty spring
to view:—
The storm—an
emblem of my name,—
Shall keep my memory in the
skies—
Its flash-wreathed
wing, a flag of flame,
Shall spread my glory as it
flies.”
The Spirit passed,
and now alone,
The darker Shadow trod the
shore—
Deep from his
breast the parting tone
Swept with the wind, the landscape
o’er.
“Farewell!
I will not speak of deeds,—
For these are written but
in sand—
And, as the furrow
choked with weeds,
Fade from the memory of the
land.
The war-plumed
chieftain cannot stay,
To guard the gore his blade
hath shed—
Time sweeps the
purple stain away,
And throws a veil o’er
glory’s bed.
But though my
form must fade from view.
And Byron bow to fate resigned,—
Undying as the
fabled Jew,
Harold’s dark spirit
stays behind!
And he who yet
in after years,
Shall tread the vine-clad
shores of Rhine,
In Chillon’s
gloom shall pour his tears,
Or raptured, see blue Leman
shine—
He shall not—cannot,
go alone—
Harold unseen shall seek his
side:
Shall whisper
in his ear a tone,
So seeming sweet, he cannot
chide.
He cannot chide;
although he feel,
While listening to the magic
verse,
A serpent round
his bosom steal,
He still shall hug the coiling
curse.
The Teacher’s Lesson.
I saw a child some four years
old,
Along a meadow
stray;
Alone she went—unchecked—untold—
Her home not far
away.
She gazed around on earth
and sky—
Now paused, and
now proceeded;
Hill, valley, wood,—she
passed them by,
Unmarked, perchance
unheeded.
And now gay groups of roses
bright,
In circling thickets
bound her—
Yet on she went with footsteps
light,
Still gazing all
around her.
And now she paused, and now
she stooped,
And plucked a
little flower—
A simple daisy ’twas,
that drooped
Within a rosy
bower.
The child did kiss the little
gem,
And to her bosom
pressed it;
And there she placed the fragile
stem,
And with soft
words caressed it.
I love to read a lesson true,
From nature’s
open book—
And oft I learn a lesson new,
From childhood’s
careless look.
Children are simple—loving—true;
’Tis Heaven
that made them so;
And would you teach them—be
so too—
And stoop to what
they know.
Begin with simple lessons—things
On which they
love to look:
Flowers, pebbles, insects,
birds on wings—
These are God’s
spelling-book.
And children know His A, B,
C,
As bees where
flowers are set:
Would’st thou a skilful
teacher be?—
Learn, then, this
alphabet.
From leaf to leaf, from page
to page,
Guide thou thy
pupil’s look,
And when he says, with aspect
sage,
“Who made
this wondrous book?”
Point thou with reverent gaze
to heaven,
And kneel in earnest
prayer,
That lessons thou hast humbly
given,
May lead thy pupil
there.
Perennials.
Life is a journey, and its
fairest flowers
Lie in our path
beneath pride’s trampling feet;
Oh, let us stoop to virtue’s
humble bowers,
And gather those,
which, faded, still are sweet.
These way-side blossoms amulets
are of price;
They lead to pleasure,
yet from dangers warn;—
Turn toil to bliss, this earth
to Paradise,
And sunset death
to heaven’s eternal morn.
A good deed done hath memory’s
blest perfume,—
A day of self-forgetfulness,
all given
To holy charity, hath perennial
bloom
That goes, undrooping,
up from earth to heaven.
Forgiveness, too, will flourish
in the skies—
Justice, transplanted
thither, yields fair fruit;
And if repentance, borne to
heaven, dies,
’Tis that
no tears are there to wet its root.
To a Lady who had been Singing.
The spirit-harp within the
breast
A spirit’s
touch alone can know,—
Yet thine the power to wake
its rest,
And bid its echoing
numbers flow.
Yes,—and thy minstrel
art the while,
Can blend the
tones of weal and we,
So archly, that the heart
may smile,
Though bright,
unbidden tear-drops flow.
And thus thy wizard skill
can weave
Music’s
soft twilight o’er the breast,
As mingling day and night,
at eve,
Robe the far purpling
hills for rest.
Thy voice is treasured in
my soul,
And echoing memory
shall prolong
Those woman tones, whose sweet
control
Melts joy and
sorrow into song.
The tinted sea-shell, borne
away
Far from the ocean’s
pebbly shore,
Still loves to hum the choral
lay,
The whispering
mermaid taught of yore.
The hollow cave, that once
hath known
Echo’s lone
voice, can ne’er forget—
But gives—though
parting years have flown—
The wild responsive
cadence yet.
So shall thy plaintive melody,
Undying, linger
in my heart,
Till the last string of memory,
By death’s
chill finger struck, shall part!
The Broken Heart.
Oh think not with love’s
soft token,
Or music my heart to thrill—
For its strings—its
strings are broken,
And the chords would fain
be still!
Oh think not to waken the
measure
Of joy on a ruined lute—
Think not to waken pleasure,
Where grief sits mourning
and mute.
The pearls that gleam in the
billow,
But darken the gloom of the
deep—
And laughter plants the pillow
With thorns, where sorrow
would sleep.
The gems that gleam on the
finger
Of her who is sleeping and
cold,
But wring the hearts that
linger.
And dream of the love they
told.
My bosom is but a grave,
My breast a voiceless choir—
Speak not to the echoless
cave,
Touch not the broken lyre!
The Star Of The West.
The cannon is mute and the
sword in its sheath—
Uncrimsoned the banner floats
joyous and fair:
Yet beauty is twining an evergreen
wreath,
And the voice of the minstrel
is heard on the air.
Are these for the glory encircling
a crown—
A phantom evoked but by tyranny’s
breath?
Are these for the conqueror’s
vaunted renown—
All ghastly with gore, and
all tainted with death?
Bright Star of the West—broad
Land of the Free,
The wreath and the anthem
are woven for thee!
When Tyranny came, his fierce
lions aloft
Told the instinct that burned
in his cohorts of mail—
But our eagles swooped down,
and the battle-field oft,
Was the grave of the foeman,—stern,
ghastly and pale.
The cloud of the strife rolled
darkly away—
And the carnage-fed wolves
slunk back to their den—
While Peace shone around like
the god of the day,
And shed her blest light on
the children of men.
Bright Star of the West—broad
Land of the Free!
The wreath and the anthem
are woven for thee!
Thus Liberty dawned from the
midnight of years;
And here rose her altar.
Oh kneel at her shrine!
Her blessings unnumbered—ye
children of tears,
Whatever be thy Fatherland—lo
they are thine!
In faith and in joy, let us
cherish the light,
That comes like the sunshine
all warm from above,
For thus shall the Demons
that sprung from the night
Of the Past fade away in the
noontide of love.
Bright Star of the West—broad
Land of the Free,
The wreath and the anthem
are woven for thee!
Stern Seer of the future,
thy curtain unroll,
And show to long ages our
empire of peace—
Where man never bent to the
despot’s control,
And the spirit of liberty
never shall cease.
Our Stars and our Stripes
’mid battle’s loud thunder,
Were bound by our sires in
the wedlock of love—
Oh! ne’er shall the
spirit of strife put asunder,
The Union thus hallowed
by spirits above.
Bright Star of the West—broad
Land of the Free,
The wreath and the anthem
are woven for thee!
The Outcast.
[Illustration: The Outcast]
Far, far away,
where sunsets weave
Their golden tissues o’er
the scene,
And distant glaciers,
dimly heave,
Like trailing ghosts, their
peaks between—
Where, at the
Rocky Mountain’s base,
Arkansas, yet an infant, lingers,
A while the drifting
leaves to chase,
Like laughing youth, with
playful fingers—
There Nature,
in her childhood, wrought
’Mid rock and rill,
with leaf and flower,
A vale more beautiful
than thought
E’er gave to favored
fairy’s bower:
And in that hidden
hermitage,
Of forest, river, lake, and
dell,—
While Time himself
grew gray and sage,
The lone Enchantress loved
to dwell.
Ages have flown,—the
vagrant gales
Have swept that lonely land;
the flowers
Have nodded to
the breeze; the vales,
Long, long, have sheltered
in their bowers,
The forest minstrels;
and the race
Of mastodons hath come and
gone;
And with the stream
of time, the chase
Of bubbling life hath swept
the lawn,
Unmarked, save
that the bedded clay,
Tells where some giant sleeper
lies;
And wrinkled cliffs,
tottering and gray,
Whisper of crumbled centuries.
Yet there the
valley smiles; the tomb
Of ages is a garden gay,
And wild flowers
freshen in their bloom,
As from the sod they drink
decay.
And creeping things
of every hue,
Dwell in this savage Eden-land,
And all around
it blushes new,
As when it rose at God’s
command.
Untouched by man,
the forests wave,
The floods pour by, the torrents
fall,
And shelving cliff
and shadowy cave,
Hang as bold nature hung them
all!
The hunter’s
wandering foot hath wound,
To this far scene, perchance
like mine,
And there a Forest
Dreamer found,
Who walks the dell with spectral
mien.
Youthful his brow,
his bearing high—
Yet writhed his lip, and all
subdued,
The fire that
once hath lit his eye.
Wayward and sullen oft his
mood;
But he perchance
may deign to tell,
As he hath told to me, his
tale,
In words like
these,—while o’er the dell,
The autumn twilight wove its
veil.
“Stranger!
these woods are wild and drear;
These tangled paths are rough
and lone;
These dells are
full of things of fear,
And should be rather shunned
than known.
Then turn thy
truant foot away,
And seek afar the cultured
glade,
Nor dare with
reckless step to stray,
’Mid these lone realms
of fear and shade!
You go not, and
you seek to hear,
Why one like me should idly
roam,
’Mid scenes
like these, so dark, so drear—
These rocks my bed, these
woods my home?
“One crime
hath twined with serpent coil
Around my heart its fatal
fold;
And though my
struggling bosom toil,
To heave the monster from
its hold—
It will not from
its victim part.
By day or night, in down or
dell,
Where’er
I roam, still, still my heart
Is pressed by that sad serpent
spell.
Aye, as the strangling
boa clings
Around his prey with fatal
grasp,
And as he feels
each struggle, wrings
His victim with a closer clasp;
Nor yet till every
pulse is dumb,
And every fluttering spasm
o’er,
Releases, what,
in death o’ercome,
Can strive or struggle now
no more;
So is my wrestling
spirit wrung,
By that one deep and deadly
sin,
That will not,
while I live, be flung,
From its sad work of woe within.
[Illustration: “My native hills,” &c.]
“My native
hills are far away,
Beneath a soft and sunny sky;
Green as the sea,
the forests play,
’Mid the fresh winds
that sweep them by.
I loved those
hills, I loved the flowers,
That dashed with gems their
sunny swells,
And oft I fondly
dreamed for hours,
By streams within those mountain
dells.
I loved the wood—each
tree and leaf,
In breeze or blast, to me
was fair,
And if my heart
was touched with grief,
I always found a solace there.
My parents slumbered
in the tomb;
But thrilling thoughts of
them came back,
And seemed within
my breast to bloom.
As lone I ranged the forest
track.
The wild flowers
rose beneath my feet
Like memories dear of those
who slept,
And all around
to me was sweet,
Although, perchance, I sometimes
wept.
I wept, but not,
oh not in sadness,
And those bright tears I would
not smother,
For less they
flowed in grief than gladness,
So blest the memory of my
mother.
And she was linked,
I know not why,
With leaves and flowers, and
landscapes fair
And all beneath
the bending sky,
As if she still were with
“Nature
became my idol; wood,
Wave, wilderness,—I
loved them all;
I loved the forest
and the solitude,
That brooded o’er the
waterfall,—
I loved the autumn
winds that flew
Between the swaying boughs
at night,
And from their
whispers fondly drew
Wild woven dreams of lone
delight.
I loved the stars,
and musing sought
To read them in their depths
of blue—
My fancy spread
her sail of thought,
And o’er that sea of
azure flew.
Hovering in those
blest paths afar,
The wheeling planets seem
to trace,
My spirit found
some islet-star,
And chose it for its dwelling-place.
I loved the morn,
and ere the lay
Of plaintive meadow-lark began,
’Mid dewy
shrubs I tore my way,
Up the wild crag where waters
ran.
I listened to
the babbling tide,
And thought of childhood’s
merry morn,—
I listened to
the bird that tried
Prelusive airs, amid the thorn.
And then I went
upon my way;
Yet ere the sunrise kissed
my cheek,
I stood upon the
forehead gray
Of some lone mountain’s
dizzy peak.
A ruddy light
was on the hill,
But shadows in the valley
slept;
A white mist rested
o’er the rill,
And shivering leaves with
tear-drops wept.
The sun came up,
and nature woke,
As from a deep and sweet repose;
From every bush
soft music broke,
And blue wreaths from each
chimney rose.
From the green
vale that lay below.
Full many a carol met my ear;
The boy that drove
the teeming cow.
And sung or whistled in his
cheer;
The dog that by
his master’s side,
Made the lone copse with echoes
ring:
The mill that
whirling in the tide,
Seemed with a droning voice
to sing;
The lowing herd,
the bleating flock,
And many a far-off murmuring
wheel:
Each sent its
music up the rock,
And woke my bosom’s
echoing peal.
“And thus
my early hours went o’er:
Each scene and sound but gave
delight;
Or if I grieved,
’twas like the shower,
That comes in sunshine, brief
and bright.
My heart was like
the summer lake,
A mirror in some valley found,
Whose depths a
mimic world can make
More beautiful than that around.
The wood, the
slope, the rocky dell,
To others dear, were dearer
yet
To me; for they
would fondly dwell
Mirrored in memory; and set
In the deep azure
of my dreams
At night, how sweet they rose
to view!
How soft the echo,
and the streams,
How swift their laughing murmurs
flew!
And when the vision
broke at morn,
The music in my charmed ear,
As of some fairy’s
lingering horn,—
My native hills, how soft,
how dear!
“So passed
my boyhood; ’twas a stream
Of frolic flow, ’mid
Nature’s bowers;
A ray of light—a
golden dream—
A morning fair—a
path of flowers!
But now another
charm came o’er me:
The ocean I had never seen;
Yet suddenly it
rolled before me,
With all its crested waves
of green!
Soft sunny islands,
far and lone,
Where the shy petrel builds
her nest;
Deep coral caves
to mermaids known—
These were my visions bright
and blest.
Oh! how I yearned
to meet the tide,
And hear the bristling surges
sweep;
To stand the watery
world beside,
And ponder o’er the
glorious deep!
I bade my home
adieu, and bent
My eager footsteps toward
the shore,
And soon my native
hills were blent,
With the pale sky that arched
them o’er.
Four days were
passed, and now I stood
Upon a rock that walled the
deep:
Before me rolled
the boundless flood,
A glorious dreamer in its
sleep.
’Twas summer
morn, and bright as heaven;
And though I wept, I was not
sad,
For tears, thou
knowest, are often given
When the overflowing heart
is glad.
Long, long I watched the waves,
whose whirls
Leaped up the
rocks, their brows to kiss,
And dallied with the sea-weed
curls,
That stooped and
met, as if in bliss.
Long, long I listened to the
peal,
That whispered
from the pebbly shore,
And like a spirit seemed to
steal
In music to my
bosom’s core.
And now I looked afar, and
thought
The sea a glad
and glorious thing;
And fancy to my bosom brought
Wild dreams upon
her wizard wing—
Her wing that stretched o’er
spreading waves,
And chased the
far-off flashing ray,
Or hovering deep in twilight
caves,
Caught the lone
mermaid at her play.
“And thus
the sunny day went by,
And night came brooding o’er
the seas;
A thick cloud
swathed the distant sky,
And hollow murmurs filled
the breeze.
The white gull
screaming, left the rock,
And seaward bent its glancing
wing,
While heavy waves,
with measured shock,
Made the dun cliff with echoes
ring.
How changed the
scene! The glassy deep
That slumbered in its resting-place,
And seeming in
its morning sleep
To woo me to its soft embrace,
Now wakened, was
a fearful thing,—
A giant with a scowling form,
Who from his bosom
seemed to fling
The blackened billows to the
storm.
The wailing winds
in terror gushed
From the swart sky, and seemed
to lash
The foaming waves,
which madly rushed
Toward the tall cliff with
headlong dash.
Upward the glittering
spray was sent,
Backward the growling surges
whirled,
And splintered
rocks by lightnings rent,
Down thundering midst the
waves were hurled.
I trembled, yet
I would not fly;
I feared, yet loved, the awful
scene;
And gazing on
the sea and sky,
Spell-bound I stood the rocks
between.
“’Twas
strange that I, a mountain boy,
A lover of green fields and
flowers,—
One, who with
laughing rills could toy,
And hold companionship for
hours,
With leaves that
whispered low at night,
Or fountains bubbling from
their springs,
Or summer winds,
whose downy flight,
Seemed but the sweep of angel
wings:—
’Twas strange
that I should love the clash
Of ocean in its maddest hour,
And joy to see
the billows dash
O’er the rent cliff
with fearful power.
’Twas strange,—but
I was nature’s own,
Unchecked, untutored; in my
soul
A harp was set
that gave its tone
To every touch without control.
The zephyr stirred
in childhood warm,
Thoughts like itself, as soft
and blest;
And the swift
fingers of the storm
Woke its own echo in my breast.
Aye, and the strings
that else had lain
Untouched, and to myself unknown,
Within my heart,
gave back the strain
That o’er the sea and
rock was thrown.
Yes, and wild
passions, which had slept
Within their cradle, as the
waves
At morning by
the winds unswept,
Rippling within their infant
caves—
Now, wakened into
billows, rose,
And held communion with the
storm:
I saw the air
and ocean close
In deadly struggle; marked
the form
Of the dun cloud
with misty wing,
That wrestled with the giant
main;
I saw the racing
billows spring
Like lions leaping from the
plain;
“So passed
my morning dreams away,
Like birds that shun a wintry
cloud,
And phantom visions,
grim and gray,
Came mist-like from the watery
shroud:
Prophetic visions
of the deep,
Emblems of those within the
breast,
Which, summoned
from their shadowy sleep,
Ride on the storm by passion
pressed!
In ghastly shapes
they rose to view,
All gibbering from their crystal
caves,
As if some horrid
mirth they drew
From the wild uproar of the
waves.
With beckoning
hands they seemed to urge
My footsteps down the dizzy
way,
To join their
train upon the surge,
And dance with them amidst
the spray:
And such the madness
of my brain,
That I was fain to seek the
throng;
To meet and mingle
on the main,
With their mad revelry and
song.
One step, and
down the dizzy cliff,
My form had to the waters
swung,
But gliding in
a wreathy skiff,
That o’er the crested
billows hung,
A white form like
my mother seemed
To shine a moment on my eye;—
With warning look
the vision gleamed,
Then vanished upward to the
sky!
“I left
the thundering tide, and sought
Once more the mountain and
the stream;
But long the wrestling
ocean wrought
Within my bosom: as a
dream
My boyhood vanished,
and I woke
Startled to manhood’s
early morn;
No father’s
hand my pride to yoke,
No mother’s angel voice
to warn.
No,—and
the gentle vision, lost,
That once could curb my wayward
will,
And lull my bosom
passion-tossed,
With one soft whisper, “Peace,
be still!”—
That vision, spurned
by manhood’s pride,
Came down from heaven to me
no more,
And I was launched
without a guide,
To be a wreck on passion’s
shore.
Alas! the giddy
bark at sea,
’Mid waves that woo
it down to death,
From helm and
compass wafted free,
The toy of every tempest’s
breath,—
Is but a type
“Stranger!
a murderer stands before thee!
To tell the guilty tale were
vain—
It is enough—the
curse is o’er me—
And I am but a wandering Cain.
What boots it
that the world bestows,
For deeds of death its honors
dear?
The blood that
from the duel flows,
Will cry to heaven, and heaven
will hear!
Thou shalt not
kill!’ ’Twas deeply traced
In living stone, and thunder-sealed;
It cannot be by
man effaced,
Or fashion’s impious
act repealed.
And though we
seek with thin deceit,
To blind Jehovah’s piercing
gaze,
Call murder, honor,—can
we cheat
The Omniscient with a specious
phrase?
Alas! ’tis
adding crime to crime,
To veil the blood our hands
have spilt,
And seek by words
of softening chime,
To lend blest virtue’s
charm to guilt.
Oh, no! in vain
the world may give
[Illustration: The Moonlit Prairie]
“Stranger,—thy
bosom cannot know
The desolation of the soul,
When the rough,
gale hath ceased to blow,
Yet o’er it bids the
billow roll.
A helmless wreck
upon the tide—
An earthquake’s ruin
wrapped in gloom—
A gnarled oak
blasted in its pride—
Are feeble emblems of my doom.
There is a tongue
in every leaf,
A sigh in every tossing tree—
A murmur in each
wave; of grief
They whisper, and they speak
to me.
Nature hath many
voices—strings
Of varied melody: and
oft
Lone spirits come
on breezy wings,
To wake their music sad or
soft.
But in the wilderness,
where Heaven
Is the wrapt listener, the
tone
Is ever mournful:
there is given,
A chorus for the skies, alone.
At night, when
the pale moonlight falls
O’er prairies, sleeping
like a grave,
And glorious through
these mountain halls,
Pours in a flood its silvery
wave—
I climb the cliff,
and hear the song,
That o’er the breast
of stillness steals:
I hear the cataract
thundering strong
From far; I hear the wave
that peals
Along the lone
lake’s pebbly shore;
I hear the sweeping gust that
weaves
The tree tops,
and the winds that pour
In rippling lapses through
the leaves.
And as the diapason
sweeps
Across the breast of night,
the moan
Of wolves upon
the spirit creeps,
Lending the hymn a wilder
tone.
The panther’s
wail, the owlet’s scream,
The whippoorwill’s complaining
song,
Blend with the
cataract’s solemn theme,
And the wild cadences prolong.
And often when
the heart is chilled
By the deep harmony, the note
Of some light-hearted
bird is trilled
Upon the breeze. How
sweet its throat!
Yet, as a gem
upon the finger
Of a pale corse, deepens the
gloom,
By its bright
rays that laugh and linger
In the dread bosom of the
tomb;
So doth the note
of that wild bird,
Sadden the anthem of the hills,
And my hushed
bosom, spirit-stirred,
With lonelier desolation thrills.
“You bid
me pray? aye, I have prayed!
Each cliff and cave, each
rock and glen,
Have heard my
ardent lips invade
The ear of Heaven,—again,
again.
And in the secret
hour of night,
When all-revealing darkness
brings
Its brighter world
than this of light—
My spirit, borne on wizard
wings,
Hath won its upward
way afar,
And ranged the shoreless sea
of dreams—
Hath touched at
many a wheeling star
That shines beyond these solar
beams;
And on the trackless
deep of thought,
Like Him, who found this Western
World,
’Mid doubt
and storm my passage wrought,
Till weary fancy’s wing
was furled—
And, as the sky-bent
eagle, borne
Down by the lightning blast
of heaven,
So was my outcast
spirit torn,
And backward to its dwelling
driven.
Yet not in vain,
perchance, my tears,
My penitence, my patient prayer,
For, softened
with the flow of years,
My breast is lightened of
its care.
And once at night
when meteors flew
Down on their glittering wings
from heaven,
My mother’s
spirit met my view,
Whispering of peace and sin
forgiven!
Yet, though my
lip to thee confess,
My wrestling bosom’s
sweet relief,
Think not I count
my crime the less,
That pitying Heaven hath soothed
my grief.
No—yon
wild rose hath sweet perfume
To scatter on this desert
air;
Yet, hid beneath
its fragrant bloom,
Sharp thorns are set, the
flesh to tear.
And thus, repentance,
while it brings
Forgiveness to the broken
heart,
Still leaves contrition’s
thousand stings
To waken sorrow with their
smart.
“Such is
my story—this my home,—
And I the monarch of the dell—
Above my head,
the forest dome,—
Around, the battlements that
swell
To heaven, and
make my castle strong.
My messengers are winds that
lave
Far reedy shores,
and bring me song,
Blent with the murmurs of
the wave.
And birds of every
rainbow hue,
The antelope, and timid deer,
The wild goat
mingling with the blue
Of heaven on yonder rock,
are here.
And oft at morn,
the mocking-bird
Doth greet me with its sweetest
lay;
The wood-dove,
where the bush is stirred,
Looks from its cover on my
way.
I would not break
the spider’s thread,—
The buzzing insect dances
free;
I crush no toad
beneath my tread,—
The lizard crawls in liberty!
I harm no living
thing; my sway
Of peace hath soothed the
grumbling bear,—
The wolf walks
by in open day,
And fawns upon me from his
lair.
Aye, and my heart
hath bowed so low,
I gather in this solitude,
Joy from the love
that seems to flow
From these brute tenants of
the leafy wood.
[Illustration: The Farewell]
“Stranger,
farewell! The deepening eve doth warn,
And the mild moonlight beckons
thee away;
And, ere the lingering
night shall melt to morn,
Let thy swift foot across
the prairie stray.
Nay, tempt me
not! for I alone am cast,
A wretch from all I used to
grieve or bless;
And doomed to
wail and wander here at last,
Am deeply wedded to the wilderness.
Thy hand again
shall feel the thrilling grasp
Of friendship—and
thine ear shall catch the tone
Of joyous kindred;
and thine arm shall clasp,
Perchance, some gentle bosom
to thine own.
Oh God! ’tis
right—for he hath never torn,
With his own daring hand the
thread of life—
He ne’er
hath stolen thy privilege, or borne
A fellow mortal down in murderous
strife!
“Stranger,
farewell! these woods shall be my home,
And here shall be my grave!
My hour is brief,
But while it lasts,
it is my task to roam,
And read of Heaven from nature’s
open leaf.
And though I wander
from my race away,
As some lone meteor, dim and
distant, wheels
In wintry banishment,
where but a ray
Of kindred stars in timid
twilight steals—
Still will I catch
the light that faintly falls
Through my leaf-latticed window
of the skies,
And I will listen
to the voice that calls
From heaven, where the wind
stricken forest sighs.
And I will read
of dim Creation’s morn,
From the deep archives of
these mossy hills—
On wings of wizard
thought, my fancy, borne
Back by the whispers of these
pouring rills,
Shall read the
unwritten record of the land—
For God, unwitnessed here
hath walked the dell,
These cliffs have
quivered at his loud command,
These waters blushed, where
his deep shadow fell!
And at his bidding,
’mid these solitudes,
The ebb and flow of life have
poured their waves,
Till Time, the
hoary sexton of these woods,
Despairing, broods o’er
the uncounted graves.
And warrior tribes
have come from some far land,
And made these mountains echo
with their cry—
And they have
mouldered—and their mighty hand
Hath writ no record on the
earth or sky!
And ’mid
the awful stillness of their grave,
The forest oaks have flourished;
and the breath
Of years hath
swept their races, wave on wave,
As ages fainted on the shores
of death.
The tumbling cliff
perchance hath thundered deep,
Like a rough note of music
in the song
Of centuries,
and the whirlwind’s crushing sweep,
Hath ploughed the forest with
its furrows strong.
“Farewell!
the thread of sympathy that tied
My heart to man is sundered,
and I go
To hold communion
with the shades that glide,
Wherever forests wave, or
waters flow.
And when my fluttering
heart shall faint and fail,
These limbs shall totter to
some hollow cave,
Where the poor
Dreamer’s dream shall cease. The gale
Shall gather music from the
wood and wave,
And pour it in
my dying ear; the wing
Of busy zephyrs to the flowers
shall go,
And from them
all their sweetest odors bring,
To soothe, perchance, their
fainting lover’s woe.
My sinking soul
shall catch the dreamy sound
Of far-off waters, murmuring
to their doom,
And eddying winds,
from distant mountains bound,
Shall come to sing a requiem
round my tomb.
The breeze shall
o’er me weave a leafy shroud,
And I shall slumber in the
shadowy dell—
Till God shall
rend the spirit’s darkling cloud,
And give it wings of light.
Stranger, Farewell!”
Good and Evil.
[Illustration: The Expulsion from Eden]
When man from Paradise was
driven,
And thorns around his pathway
sprung,
Sweet Mercy wandering there
from heaven
Upon those thorns bright roses
flung.
Aye, and as Justice cursed
the ground,
She stole behind, unheard,
unseen—
And while the curses fell
around,
She scattered seeds of joy
between.
And thus, as evils sprung
to light,
And spread, like weeds, their
poisons wide,
Fresh healing plants came
blooming bright,
And stood, to check them,
side by side.
And now, though Eden blooms
afar,
And man is exiled from its
bowers,
Still mercy steals through
bolt and bar,
And brings away its choicest
flowers.
The very toil, the thorns
of care,
That Heaven in wrath for sin
imposes,
By mercy changed, no curses
are—
One brings us rest, the other
roses.
Thus joy is linked with every
woe—
Each cup of ill its pleasure
brings;
The rose is crushed, but then,
you know,
The sweeter fragrance from
it springs.
If justice throw athwart our
way,
A deepening eve of fear and
sorrow,
Hope, like the moon, reflects
the ray
Of the bright sun that shines
to-morrow.
And mercy gilds with stars
the night;
Sweet music plays through
weeping willows;
The blackest cave with gems
is bright,
And pearls illume the ocean
billows.
The very grave, though clouds
may rise,
And shroud it o’er with
midnight gloom,
Unfolds to faith the deep
blue skies,
That glorious shine beyond
the tomb.
The Mountain Stream.
One summer morn, while yet
the thrilling lay,
Of the dew-loving lark was
full and strong,
Trampling the wild flowers
in my careless way,
Up the steep mountain-side
I strode along—
My only guide, a brook whose
joyous song,
Seemed like a boy’s
light-hearted roundelay,
As down it rushed, the leafy
bowers among,
Scattering o’er bud
and bloom its pearly spray—
A beauteous semblance of life’s
opening day.
And looking back to that all-gladdening
morn,
When I was free and sportive
as the stream—
When roses blushed with no
suspected thorn,
And fancy’s sunlight
gilded every dream—
While hope yet shed its sweet
delusive beam,
And disappointment still delayed
to warn—
With fond regret, I still
pursued the theme—
With clambering step still
up the steep was borne,
Too sad to smile, too pleased
perchance to mourn.
And now I stood beside that
rivulet’s spring,
That came unbidden with a
bubbling bound—
And stealing forth, a gentle
trembling thing,
It seemed an infant fearing
all around—
Yet clinging to its mother’s
breast—the ground.
But soon it bolder grew, and
with a wing
It went: its carol was
a joyous sound,
Making the silent woods responsive
ring,
And the far forest-echoes,
sighing, sing.
And now I stood upon the mountain’s
height—
Like a wide map, the landscape
lay unrolled—
There could I trace that rivulet’s
path of light,
From the steep mountain to
the sea of gold;
Now leaping o’er the
rocks like chamois bold,—
Now like a crouching hare
concealed from sight,—
Now hid beneath the willow’s
bowering fold,
As if they sought to stay
its arrowy flight,
Then give it forth again more
swift and bright.
’Twas changeful—beautiful;
now dark, now fair—
A tale of life, from childhood
to the tomb—
Its birth-place near the skies,
in mountain air,
Where wild flowers throw around
their sweet perfume,
Like the blest thoughts that
often brightly bloom,
At home, beneath a mother’s
culturing care—
Its form now hid in shadows,
such as gloom
Our downward way—its
grave in ocean, where
It mingles with the wave—a
dweller there!
And though that stream be
hidden from the view,
’Tis yet preserved ’neath
ocean’s briny crest:
That wide eternity of waves
is true—
And as the planets anchored
in their rest,
The sparkling streamlet lives;
and while unblest,
The land-wave stagnant lingers—there
the blue
Tide holds the river stainless
in its breast—
An image still of life, that
sparkles through
The starry deep of heaven,
for ever new.
[Illustration: Vignette]