The roar of cannon and the clang of arms
Have never shook thy bosom with alarms,
And never has thy calm and peaceful flood
Been stained to crimson with a brother’s blood.
The sportsman’s rifle only hast thou heard
Scaring the rabbit and the timid bird;
Or may be in the savage days of yore
The wolf and bear have bled upon thy shore.
But rural peace and beauty reign to-night;
The harvest moon illumes with holy light
Each wave that ripples in its onward flow
O’er rock concealed amid the depths below,
And gives a strange, wild beauty to the scene
On either shore, where trees of evergreen,
Hemlocks and firs, their dusky shadows fling,
Around whose trunks the heavy mosses cling,
With maples clad in crimson, gold and brown,
Bright like the west when first the sun goes down.
Here from this summit where I often roam
I can behold my cot, my humble home;
There I was born, and when this life is o’er
I hope to sleep upon the river’s shore.
There is the orchard which I helped to rear,
It well repays my labor year by year:
One apple tree towers high above the rest
Where every spring a blackbird has its nest.
Sweet Lily used to stand beneath the bough
And smiling listen—but she comes not now.
A fairer bird ne’er charmed the rising day
Than she we loved thus early called away;
But she is gone to sing her holy strains
In lovelier gardens and on greener plains.
There are the fields that I myself have cleared
Of trees and brush, and where a waste appeared
The corn just ready for the sickle stands,
And golden pumpkins dot my fertile lands.
There are the pastures where my cattle feed,
My gentle kind supply the milk we need;
Sweet cream and cheese are daily on our board,
And clothing warm my snowy sheep afford.
There are the flowers my Annie loves to tend,—
How often do I see her smiling bend
To pluck the weeds, or teach the graceful vine
Around the string or slender pole to twine.
How often when the toils of day are done,
And I return just at the set of sun,
She comes to meet me down the verdant lane—
Sweet partner of my pleasures and my pain—
With snow-white buds amid her sunny hair,
To win my favor all her joy and care.
How often does she wander forth with me
And share my seat beneath the maple tree,
And smile and blush to hear my ardent lays
Recount her virtues and pour forth her praise.
Hark! ’tis her voice, sweet as the wildbird’s
song;
She comes to tell me I have tarried long:
I hear her now an old love ditty hum,
And now she calls—I come, dear love, I
come.
THE RETURN.
Grateful to our sleepless eyes,
Lo, the beams of morn arise,
And the mountain-tops are gray
With the light of coming day,—
And the birds are on the wing.
With the happy birds we’ll sing
Bidding doubt and gloom be gone,
Like the shadows at the dawn.
