THE POE]MS OFALFRED B. STREET. ALFRED B. STREET. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. I. VIE \ o~r PUBLISHED NEW YORK: BY HURD AND HOUGHTON, 459 BROOME STREET. 1867. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1866, by ALFRED B. STREET, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Southern District of New York. RIVERSIDE) CAMBRIDGE: STEREOTYPED AND PRINTED BY H. O. HOUGHTON AND COMPANY. CONTENTS OF VOLUME I. PAGE THE GRAY FOREST EAGLE..... 1 NATURE......7 ONNEKO......23 A FOREST NOOK......... 32 THE WILLEWEMOC IN SUMMER.......35 THE CALLICOON IN AUTUMN....40 THE HILL HOLLOW....... 45 MIDSUMMER..... 48 OSCEOLA. 50 THE SCHOOL-HOUSE...... 55 THE MINISINK...... 58 A SEPTEMBER STROLL... 62 WHITE LAKE.... 67 AN AMERICAN SPRING........ 70 TO --......... 74 SONG FOR INDEPENDENCE....... 76 THE LOST HUNTER........ 77 A FOREST WALK.....83 JANUARY AND JUNE.... 86 THE LATE HON. STEPHEN VAN RENSSELAER. 89 AN OCTOBER RAMBLE.... 92 A CONTRAST.....95 THE FALLS OF THE MONGAUP. 96 A DREAM.....99 BRADY'S LEAP..... 103 THE MILL.... 108 THE FOREST TEMPLE..110 FOURTH OF JULY ODE... 113 THE BEECH-TREE.. 115 iv CONTENTS OF VOLUME I A WALK TO TIVOLI THE ISLAND THE PIONEER.. THE FRESHET.. ONNAWAH THE HUNTER'S FLIGHT INDIAN CORN SKATING... AN AUTUMN LANDSCAPE THE SETTLER... THE PINE-TREE THE INDIAN'S VIGIL THE HARMONY OF THE UNIVERSE THE GARDEN.. MORANNAH.... THE FALLS OF NORMAN'S KILL THE. SMITHY THE CAMP IN THE FOREST.. THE BLOOD-STAINED.. SUNSET ON SHAWANGUNK MOUNTAIN ANGLING... DEER SHOOTING FOWLING SPEARING "i SEEK AND YE SHALL FIND]" FAITH THE FORSAKEN ROAD HOME... MOONLIGHIT THE OLD BRIDGE THE AMBUSH NIGHT IN THE WILDERNESS THE FIRST VIOLET JUNE.. OBSERVATION THE LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS MUSINGS THE CAPTIVE. PAGE. 118 121. 128 132. 137 142. 147 150. 158 161 164 168 174 176 178 187 190 194 200 206 209 213 217 222.224 227.229 233 235 238.241 244.248 251 254 258.260 262 CONTENTS OF VOL UME L THE ALBANY RURAL CEMIETERY THE REVENGE. INDIAN SUMMER. THE SEAT IN THE ROCK. MONGAUP FALLS. SCIENCE... V PAGE. 265 268. 273 278. 281 291 POEMS. THE GRAY FOREST EAGLE. ITH storm-daring pinion, and sun-gazing eye,. The Gray Forest Eagle is king of the sky! Oh, little he loves the green valley of flowers, Where sunshine and song cheer the bright summer hours, He hears in those haunts only music, ahd sees But rippling of waters and waving of trees; There the red robin warbles, the oriole swings, And the thrasher thrills deep the whole wood as it -sings; And if those proud pinions, perchance, sweep along, There is shrouding of plumage, a hushing of song; The sunlight falls stilly on leaf and on moss, With only his shadow black gliding across; But the dark, gloomy gorge, where down plunges the foam Of the fierce, rocky torrent, he claims as his home. VOL. I. 1 2 THE GRAY FOREST EA GLE. There he blends his keen shriek with the roar of the flood, And the many-voiced sounds of the blast-smitten wood; From the fir's lofty summit, where morn hangs its wreath, He views the mad waters white writhing beneath. On a limb of that moss-bearded hemlock far down, With bright azure mantle, and gay mottled crown, The kingfisher watches, while o'er him his foe, The fierce hawk, sails circling, each moment more low. Now poised are those pinions and pointed that beak, His dread swoop is ready, when hark! with a shriek, His eyeballs red-blazing, high bristling his crest, His snaky neck arched, talons drawn to his breast, With the rush of the wind-gust, the glancing of light, The Gray Forest Eagle shoots down in his flight. One blow of those talons, one plunge of that neck, The strong hawk hangs lifeless, a blood-dripping wreck; And as dives the free kingfisher, dart-like on high With his prey soars the Eagle, and melts in the sky. A fitful red glaring, a low rumbling jar, Proclaim the Storm-Demon, yet raging afar; The black cloud strides upward, the lightning more red, And the roll of the thunder, more deep and more dread; A thick pall of darkness is cast o'er the air, And on bounds the blast with a howl from its lair. The lightning darts zigzag and forked through the gloom, And the bolt launches o'er with crash, rattle, and boom; THE GRAY FOREST EAGLE. 3 The Gray Forest Eagle, where, where has he sped? Does he shrink to his eyrie, and shiver with dread? Does the glare blind his eye? Has the terrible blast On the wing of the Sky-King a fear-fetter cast? No no, the brave Eagle! he thinks not of fright; The wrath of the tempest but rouses delight. To the flash of the lightning his eye casts a gleam; To the shriek of the wild blast he echoes his scream; And with front like a warrior that speeds to the fray, And a clapping of pinions, he's up and away! Away, oh, away, soars the fearless and free What recks he the sky's strife?- its monarch is he! The lightning darts round him, undaunted his sight; The blast sweeps against him, unwavered his flight; High upward, still upward he wheels, till his form Is'lost in the black scowling gloom of the storm. The tempest glides o'er with its terrible train, And the splendor of sunshine is glowing again; Again smiles the soft, tender blue of the sky, Waked bird-voices warble, fanned leaf-voices sigh; On the green grass dance shadows, streams sparkle and run, The breeze bears the odor its blossom-kiss won, And fill on the form of the Demon in flight The rainbow's magnificence gladdens-the sight! The Gray Forest Eagle! oh, where is he now, While the sky wears the smile of its God on its brow? There's a dark, floating spot by yon cloud's pearly wreath, 4 THE GRAY FOREST EAGLE. With the speed of the arrow'tis shooting beneath; Down, nearer and nearer it draws to the gaze, Now over the rainbow, now blent with its blaze, To a shape it expands, still it plunges through air, A proud crest, a fierce eye, a broad wing are there; The Eagle-the Gray Forest Eagle-once more He sweeps to his eyrie: his journey is o'er.! Time whirls round his circle, his years roll away, But the Gray Forest Eagle minds little his sway; The child spurns its buds for Youth's thorn-hidden bloom, Seeks Manhood's bright phantoms, finds Age and a tomb; But the Eagle's eye dims not, his wing is unbowed, Still drinks he the sunshine, still scales he the cloud! The green tiny pine-shrub points up from the moss, The wren's foot would cover it, tripping across; The beech-nut, down dropping, would crush it beneath, But'tis warmed with heaven's sunshine, and fanned by its breath; The seasons fly past it, its head is on high, Its thick branches challenge each mood of the sky; On its rough bark the moss a green mantle creates, And the deer from his antlers the velvet-down grates; Time withers its roots, it lifts sadly in air A trunk dry and wasted, a top jagged and bare, Till it rocks in the soft breeze, and crashes to earth, Its brown fragments strewing the place of its birth. THE GRA Y FOREST EAGLE. 5 The Eagle has seen it up-struggling to sight, He has seen it defying the storm in its might, Then prostrate, soil-blended, with plants sprouting o'er, But the Gray Forest Eagle is still as of yore. His flaming eye dims not, his wing is unbowed, Still drinks he the sunshine, still scales he the cloud! He has seen from his eyrie the forest below In bud and in leaf, robed with crimson and snow; The thickets, deep wolf-lairs, the high crag his throne, And the shriek of the panther has answer'd his own. He has seen the wild red man the lord of the shades, And the smoke of his wigwams curled thick in the glades; He has seen the proud forest melt, breath-like, away, And the breast of the earth lying bare to the day; He sees the green meadow-grass hiding the lair, And his crag throne spread naked to sun and to air; And his shriek is now answer'd, while sweeping along, By the low of the herd and the husbandman's song; He has seen the wild red man swept off by his foes, And he sees dome and roof where those smokes once arose; But his flaming eye dims not, his wing is unbowed, Still drinks he the sunshine, still scales he the cloud! An emblem of Freedom,- stern, haughty, and high, — Is the Gray Forest Eagle, that king of the sky! It scorns the bright scenes, the gay places of earth; By the mountain and torrent it springs into birth; 6 THE GRAY FOREST EAGLE. There rocked by the wild wind, baptized in the foam, It is guarded and cherished, and there is its home! When its shadow steals black o'er the empires of kings, Deep terror, deep heart-shaking terror, it brings; Where wicked oppression is armed for the weak, There rustles its pinion, there echoes its shriek; Its eye flames with vengeance, it sweeps on its way, And its talons are bathed in the blood of its prey. Oh, that Eagle of Freedom! when cloud upon cloud Swathed the sky of my own native land with a shroud, - When lightnings gleamed fiercely, and thunderbolts rung,How proud to the tempest those pinions were flung! Though the wild blast of battle rushed fierce through the air With darkness and dread, still the Eagle was there; Unquailing, still speeding, his swift flight was on, Till the rainbow of Peace crowned the victory won. Oh, that Eagle of Freedom! age dims not his eye, He has seen Earth's mortality spring, bloom, and die! He has seen the strong nations rise, flourish, and fall, He mocks at time's changes, he triumphs o'er all; He has seen our own land with wild forests o'erspread, He sees it with sunshine and joy on its head; And his presence will bless this, his own chosen clime, Till the Archangel's mandate is set upon Time. NATURE. NATURE, faint emblem of Omnipotence, Shaped by His hand, the shadow of His light, The veil in which He wraps His majesty, And through whose mantling folds He deigns to show, Of His mysterious, awful attributes And dazzling splendors, all man's feeble thought Can grasp uncrushed, or vision bear unquenched,She is the shrine of this, my offering-song. God glanced on chaos, into form it sprang; Worlds clustered round Him; instant at His will, Blazing, they darted to their destined spheres, Spangling the void, and in their orbits wheeled, Each with a different glory. Kindled suns Shot their fierce beams, and gentle moons were robed In soft, pure, silvery lustre. Chaos lived. As the bright shapes were speeding to their goals The Angels gazed with wonder. Orb on orb Swept past their vision, shedding fitful gleams Upon their jewelled brows and rainbow wings, 8 NATURE. And trailing, as they whirled along their flight, Pathways of splendor, till'the boundless space Flashed in a web of gorgeous brilliancy. But when Omnipotence had formed His robe, And cast its spangled blazonry round Heaven, The countless myriads of those shining ones, Their wonder changed to awe, bowed crown and harp Before the dazzling brightness. Then, as stole The first low music of the singing-stars Swelling and spreading through the gleaming space, The glittering ranks, their awe to gladness turned, Leaping erect, poured from the quivering string Their anthem to the Holiest, till Heaven's air, Stirred by the diapason of the hymn, Rolled on, an ocean of deep billowy sounds. At the creative summons, Earth had wheeled In her eternal course; - oh! not as now, Marred by the bitter curse that flowed from sin, Scathed by God's justice, darkened with His wrath, And made more black by man, —but pure and sweet In all the beauty of her blossoming youth, In all the fragrance of her new-born spring. Paradise, rising at its Maker's touch, Bloomed in its loveliness; the glossy leaves Roofed the rich grass with emerald; gorgeous flowers Swung incense to the air, and warbling birds And rippling waters made each wind that breathed A wandering tongue of softest melody. VA TURE. Alas! that sin should blight that Paradise! Woe for the brightness vanished from the earth! Woe for lost Eden! As the fiery sword Gleamed before eyes that never more might view The glories passed away with innocence, Heaven's radiant brows grew pale at all the grief The first transgression then entailed on man. Steeped in her wickedness, Earth revelled on. At length God's anger burst. The mighty rains Dashed, torrent-like, from black and scowling skies That veiled the world with darkness: valleys swelled To leaping rivers, plains to dashing lakes, And gorges to mad plunging cataracts; The peopled city and the lonely cot Sank in the rising waters; mountain peaks, Dotting the billowy desert, were o'erwhelmed, Until a boundless ocean wildly tossed Its giant surges, and with ceaseless roar Thundered its requiem o'er a world destroyed. Borne by the dove o'er this mysterious sea, To anxious eyes within the floating Ark, The gladdening olive-branch gave pledge of hope And sure deliverance. And when that bright bird, Darting through breaking gloom, o'er lessening flood, Vanished forever, fainter fell the roar, Till the dread requiem ceased; the watery veil 10 NA TURE. Shrank from Earth's features, and, her baptism o'er, In the pure sunshine she looked up and smiled; While o'er her freshened beauty, delicate hues Glowed in arched brightness on the fleeting clouds,God's type of mercy and averted wrath. Time has rolled on his rapid flood since thenEach wave a century —towards that barrier O'er which it leaps, a mighty cataract, Into the ocean of Eternity. Myriads of human motes have sported o'er Its boiling surges, and been swept away; Formed of its mists, upon its slippery banks Empires have risen and vanished; battle-fields Have mingled with its flow their crimson stains, And epochs ruffled it in spots to foam. Nature has kept her order, high above The wild mutations of this rolling tide. Twin-born with Time, and twin-existent, naught Shall swerve her from her proud, sublime career, Until the day of the dread holocaust, When the red sky shall shrivel like a scroll Before the splendors of that " great white throne" Blazing mid crashing spheres and shuddering worlds. How countless and how multiform the scenes Nature presents, expanding as we tread Her sacred precincts! With what various tongues She teaches, and how vast the wisdom gained! Show we her scenes, in Europe's differing climes, NA TURE. 11 Asia the gorgeous, stricken Africa, And God's most glorious gift,- our own wild land. An English landscape: a green winding lane, Skirted with fragrant hawthorns, casting down Broad stripes of shadow on the pleasant grass, Streaked by the slant rays of the sinking sun; The mown hay's odor fills the balmy air, And the light clanging of the whetted scythe Rings from the meadow; o'er yon grove of oaks, Tufting the sky with dome-like foliage, Points the mossed steeple of the village church; And through the parted edges of the leaves Gleam the white gravestones: by this cottage-porch Stoops the rough cart, its long tongue thrust to earth, And near it crouches the tired, panting ox, With the grim mastiff, growling in his sleep. Beneath the woodbined lattice, flashing back In dazzling sparks the sunshine, the faint hum Of the whirled spinning-wheel is blending sweet With the deep low of the approaching kine, And the shrill creaking of the harvest-wain; O'er the green wave of meadow, melting dim In the far distance, sweeps the lordly park, With its gray ivied castle, haughtily Frowning with tower and wall and battlemen't. A scene of glorious Italy! the sky - A delicate sapphire smiles o'er silvered slopes Bright with the olive; purpled terraces 12 NA TURE. Rich with the grape. Isle-dotted Como winds To the dim shroud of its horizon-mist. The glossy myrtles in the fanning air Cast rapid glitterings. In the sunlight, gleam A prostrate column and a broken arch, Their marble bathed in gold: while far, the Alps Lift their proud monarch-forms, with regal robes Of forest purple,- dazzling diamond crowns, And craggy sceptres, -guarding, with stern looks, The radiant climes that brighten at their feet. Romantic Switzerland! wild mountain peaks Casting gigantic shadows, their grim shapes Streaked with bright silver,'the high, headlong plunge Of foaming torrents; from its crag, the fir Leans o'er the cloven gorge with gloomy frown, While the slight poplar and the graceful larch Cluster round chalets set, like spotted pearls, Upon the bosoms of the billowy hills. The glacier flings its darts of dazzling light In the broad sun; and towering up, Mont Blanc Throws down the mighty mantle of his shade Upon the vassal-mountains crouching round. The scorching noontide sun of India fires The sandal-scented air. The tall bamboo Walls the bright Ganges with its jointed stems; Motionless droops the tamarind in the heat, While looming far, the trunk-linked banyan spreads Its branching columns and its leafy aisles, NATURE. 13 A templed forest. On his crashing path Through the down-trampled canes, the elephant Treads to the dark, cool portal, and is lost In the wide-spreading shadow. To the clear, Lily-wreathed mirror of the sacred flood, Bends the striped tiger, and then crouching, hides Within the matted jungle; while around The tall pagoda and the sculptured mosque The fig is bursting, and the cocoa hangs High in the glowing air its ripening globes. Africa shows her picture. Limitless Spread the gray sands, which in their mighty march, Grain upon grain, - each toilsome stride an age,Have whelmed magnificent temple, palace proud, And gorgeous city, and still onward move,Their only witnesses, the myriad years That o'er have flown, since, slow and deep and still, But awful in their stillness, they have passed. Afar upon the blue, the pyramid Towering cuts sharply; near it frowns the Sphynx Wrapped in its sandy mantle, while beneath The grateful shadow of its guardian-palm, The tremulous silver of the fountain glows; Caravan-camels are reclining round Mid turbaned groups. Quick, skimming like a dart, Speeds the light antelope. But what wild shapes Are bursting from the far horizon's rim? High towering as they come, the pillared sands, With fearful roaring and with furnace-breath, 14 NA TUR E. Shrivelling and scorching, whirl along their course: Brass glares above; red surges toss below; And where they pass, the fierce hyena delves And howls in triumph as he rends his prey. America, with her rich, green forest-robe! Yon eagle sweeping from his sunward path, Stoops his broad pinion to a towering peak; Far as on every side his keen eye darts, An emerald ocean stretches, and its depths, Formed by the leaves, as ocean by its drops, Are lying motionless in breathless sleep; But the free, viewless wind sweeps over them; They toss in flashing billows, while a sound Arises, swelling in full, deep-toned strength, The playful gambols of this boundless sea, The murmurs of its gladness. Now a cloud, Massive and black, strides up; the angry gleam Of the red lightning cleaves the frowning folds, And the far thunder mutters; then, as glare Opens on glare and crash succeeds to crash, An awful roar comes deepening;'t is the wrath Of the fierce whirlwind darting on its way, Crushing beneath its tread gigantic trees, Leaving its broad strewed path- a yawning chasm - Through the deep forest-heart: then, as uplifts The scowling curtain of the storm, and leaps The sunshine in the coverts, from his lair Bounds the scared panther with his ringing shriek, And from his swampy den the startled wolf NA T RE. 15 Springs with his clicking teeth and savage snarl; The forest glitters and sends forth a burst Of music, and upon the mossy glade Light treads the graceful deer: the landscape smiles. What splendid beauty, and what grandeur wild Nature displays in this, her loveliest clime,This diamond of her casket! With one hand She grasps the pine among its mantled snow, Rocking in Winter's blasts; the other holds The orange blossoming mid its golden fruit, And trembling in the odor-bearing wind Of changeless Summer. Here, her sloping brows Smile in the bathing sunshine; towering, there, They wear the stern black clouds like diadems; Her veins -the glorious rivers rolling on, Now. dashing wild o'er barrier-ice, and now Rippling beneath magnolian chalices; Her eyes - the sea-like lakes, whose angry tones Vie with the ocean-thunder; and her robe - The gorgeous foliage of the mighty woods. Not only is she grand and beautiful In her majestic outlines, but she paints With every passing season's varying brush Fairy-like pictures of bright loveliness. Joy throughout Nature. April's fitful smiles Have yielded to the warm, soft looks of May. The hopple and the cherry smile no more 16 NA TURE. In white bouquets. The glossy down has left The beech-sprays, and the perfumed birch has dropped Its delicate tassels on the brightened moss. Alone the dogwood shows its blossoms now, Stars of white gauze outspread o'er every leaf, Breaking upon the eye amid the young Transparent verdure spotted on the boughs, Spreading as each day brings a kindlier sun. In the moist hollows and by streamlet-sides The grass stands thickly. Sunny banks have burst Into blue sheets of scented violets. The woodland warbles, and the noisy swamp Has deepened in its tones. All speak of hope, Of renovated youth, and coming joy. A day in June: the full-grown canopy-leaves Sketch, in the gentle breathings of the air, Black quivering forms upon the flower-gemmed earth. O'er the branch-sheltered stream the laurel hangs Its gorgeous clusters, and the basswood breathes From its pearl-blossoms, fragrance. Swinging light Upon the hemlock-top, the thrasher sounds His three-toned flute. From her cool shadowy nook The doe has led her dappled fawn, to taste The low, sweet glade-grass with its clover-spots. Bees waft their lyres; clouds wreathe and melt above, And sunshine smiles in golden gloss below. But now the wind stirs freshlier; darting round, The spider tightens his frail web; dead leaves NATURE. 17 Whirl in quick eddies from the mounds; the snail Creeps to its twisted fortress, and the bird Crouches amid its feathers. Wafted up, The stealing cloud with soft gray blinds the sky, And in its vapory mantle, onward steps The summer shower; over the shivering grass It merrily dances, rings its tinkling bells Upon the dimpling stream, and moving on, It treads upon the leaves with pattering feet And softly murmured music. Off it glides; And as its misty robe lifts up, and melts, The sunshine darting with a sudden burst, Strikes o'er the scene a magic brilliancy. A damp, fresh fragrance from bathed leaves and flowers Steeps the cool, pleasant air. Tree speaks to tree In mirthful warbles; the wet bushes chirp, And the grass answers with its insect-tones. Gorgeous October! at the reddening morn Breathes a slight chillness through the bracing air. The white-frost sparkles, showing myriad prints Of the wood-wanderers, and the beaded drops Glitter upon the gossamer. As the skirt Of rivulet-mist fades gently in the sky, Rich scenes of varied splendor beam around. A forest carnival! as though the threads Of the sun's light had melted on the leaves Each with its different hue; as though all tints Of gem, of bird, of flower, of cloud, of sky, Had met and blended in a general glow. VOL. I. 2 18 NA TURE. And as the sun wheels down, his cloudy robes Seem but a copy of the dyes of earth Brought by his beams, to deck with fitting pomp His passage from the glories he had seen And smiled on, in his day-course through the sky. November's storms have passed. The stern black frost Blighting the pageant-leaves, has left them pale, Shrunken, and sear; and the strong howling blasts Have whirled them from their branches, darkening air, And strewing them o'er earth. Now, sweet and calm, Like music gliding o'er discordant sounds, Or moonlight smiling on a troubled sea, Summer, unrobed of all her glowing charms That graced her prime, but mild and matron-like, For a brief while returns to greet those scenes O'er which she reigned in queenly loveliness. A purple haze is trembling on the air, Softening all near in veils of glimmering gauze, And steeping far-off masses in thick mist Blending their outlines with the shaded sky. So still the atmosphere, the thistle's star Drops motionless on the moss. Such quiet reigns, The low, faint crackling of the dry fallen leaves Stirred by the squirrel's foot is heard, and even The light click of the milkweed's bursting pods, Showing the glossy satin of the plumes Close packed within, with which it wings its seeds. The beech-nut falling from its opened burr, Gives a sharp rattle; and the locust's song, NA TURE. 19 Rising and swelling shrill, then pausing short, Rings like a trumpet. Distant woods and hills Are full of echoes, and each sound that strikes Upon the hollow air lets loose their tongues. The ripples, creeping through the matted grass, Drip on the ear, and the far partridge-drum Rolls like low thunder. The last butterfly, Like a winged violet, floating in the meek Pink-colored sunshine, sinks his velvet feet Within the pillared mullein's delicate down, And shuts and opens his unruffled fans. Lazily wings the crow with solemn croak From tree-top, on to tree-top. Feebly chirps The grasshopper, and the spider's tiny clock Ticks from his crevice.'T is the Sabbath-rest Of Nature, ere she yields to Winter's power. A softer breath is mingled with the keen And piercing air, and o'er the frozen earth And skeleton-forest, from the bleak northwest Uplifts the storm-cloud, gathering fold on fold, A rising mountain; o'er the sky it spreads, A dull, impenetrable, gloomy gray. The russet snow-bird twitters, as loose flakes, One by one, float and flutter through the mist, Spangling his wing and spotting where they light; They thicken as they fall, until they stream In myriad columns, mottling the dun air, And drawing a dense screen around the sight; 20 NA TURE. The landscape whitens, and a shell-like sound Murmurs, - the low-toned music of the snow. Now roaring on its path, the chainless blast Dashes in furious might, until the scene Whirls one wild chaos; then exhausted sinks With dying howls, its strength, and all is still. The morning's sunshine glows upon a waste Sparkling with diamonds. Bare the hill's steep brow, But choked the hollow; meadow broad, and plain, Are furrowed with white surges; fences stretch Like low embankments, while the open woods Are clothed in garbs of spotless purity. Nature is Man's best teacher. She unfolds Her treasures to his search, unseals his eye, Illumes his mind, and purifies his heart. An influence breathes from all the sights and sounds Of her existence; she is Wisdom's self. Rest yields she to the "weary" of the earth; Its "heavy-laden" she endows with strength. When sorrow presses on us, when the stings Of bitter disappointment pierce our soul, When our eye sickens at the sight of man, Our ear turns loathing from his jarring voice, The shadowy forest and the quiet field Are then our comforters. A medicine Breathes in the wind that fans our fevered brow, The blessed sunshine yields a sweet delight, The bird's low warble thrills within our breast, The flower is eloquent with peace and joy, NA TURE. 21 And better thoughts come o'er us. Lighter heart And purer feelings cheer our homeward way; We prize more deep the blessings that are ours, And rest a-higher, holier trust in God. And when the splendid summer moonlight bathes, Blinding the stars, Night's purple sky in rich Transparent splendor, brightening all below, As though earth's guardian angel watching o'er Had dropped his silver mantle from his form Upon her to protect her helpless sleep, Nature speaks soothing music, stealing through Each avenue to the heart, till all is peace: Our thoughts are lifted, passions swept away, And in our soul sweet holiness is shed; The feverish throbbings leave our brow, and sleep Glides o'er our senses like a pleasant shade. And Nature teaches us Philosophy: In the quick shading of her brilliant morn By the dark storm-cloud; in the canker-spot That lurks within her blushing fragrant rose, In the sad blighting of her summer leaves When Autumn wields his tempests; solemnly She warns how full of direst change is life; How perishing our sweetest, brightest joys; How oft death lays our dearest feelings waste, And makes existence cold and desolate. But oh! she teaches also blessed Hope, — Hope, the sustainer! Hope, which keeps the heart 22 NATURE. From breaking in its sorrow. Glorious Hope! In the light seed that cradles the green plant,In the bright sun succeeding the dark night,In blue-eyed Spring, that plants her violets Within departing Winter's melting snows. And, holier theme, she teaches us of God, Her Architect, —her Master. At His feet She crouches, and in offering Him her praise From myriad altars, and in myriad tones, She bids man praise Him also. In the broad Magnificent ocean surging in wild foam, Yet bounded in its madness; in the fierce Shrieking and howling tempest, crashing on In desolating wrath, yet curbed with reins, She shows His awful power, yet tender care; In the free sunlight, in the dropping clouds, And changes of the seasons, she proclaims His boundless goodness, and exhaustless love. Glorious, most glorious Nature! thus she yields Gems to the seeker. But, alas! on earth We see but dim reflections of her light,We hear but whispers of her magic voice. Her dazzling, cloudless splendors will be seen, And her full, perfect harmony be heard, Only when, bursting from its chains of clay, The soul shall reach its immortality. ONNEKO. SPRING in the wilds! its crimson gems The gorgeous maple wore; Rich satin tipped the beechen stems, The birch was tasselled o'er. The wind-flower, first the bluebird sees, When first he flits through budding trees, In myriads trembled round; Soft from the south the air-breaths blew, While every glowing sunbeam drew A violet from the ground. The long rich rays of sunset fell Athwart the forest air, And showed within a swampy dell, A form reclining there. The scalp-lock o'er the brow, the cheeks Fierce blazoned with the war-paint's streaks, The eye still keen and bold, The totem on the bosom traced, The wolf-robe twined around the waist, The Indian warrior told. One hand still grasped the tomahawk, A broken gun lay near, 24 0\ONNrEKO. The last leaf of a withered stalk, He came to perish here. The thrasher, in the topmost tree Whistled its varied harmony; The redbird, fluttering by, Seemed showering fire-sparks from its wings; But naught to him these sounds and things, His hour was come to die. He marked the sunset radiance pour Upon the field of fray, Where, strewn like autumn leaves, in gore His faithful warriors lay; There, knife to bayonet, gun to gun, Their blood in mingled streams had run; Still, with their latest breath Around their chieftain they had fought, Yielding in stern despair to naught But rapid slaughtering death. And as he watched the gold and red Along the western sky, The visioned future pictured spread To his prophetic eye. Scattered and lost his race were driven, Outcasts of earth and cursed by heaven, With none to heed or save, From scenes where once their fathers reigned, To seek the refuge that remained In far Pacific's wave. ONNEKO. 25 The eve had deepened into night, The spangling star-gems now Clustered around the moon, that bright Unveiled her silver brow; His winged thoughts sought the spot where free And peacefully, and happily, He lived till white men came, And turned, in midnight's stormiest gloom, Where late were joy, and life, and bloom, To strife, and death, and flame. Oh brightly rose that fancied scene Before the man of woe! The waving forest's leafy screen, — The village roofs below; The purple of the circling hills, The diamond lake, the sparkling rills That veined the mountain side, The dance, the chase, the fleet canoe, His simple pomp, his warriors true, His tribesmen, and his bride. But now a pall-like cloud was hung Around the blackened air, And like a fiend the Tempest sprung From his sulphureous lair; In the -fierce blast the pine-tree writhed, Darted the lightning fiery scythed, The deafening thunder roared; Roused from his den, the panther's shriek 26 ONNEK O. Rung sharp, and clear, while from his peak The frighted eagle soared. Maddening, as wilder raged the night, Thought burst its faint control, Then swept the phantoms of the fight Across the Sachem's soul; Once more he whirled his hatchet high, Once more he whooped his battle-cry, As, staggering mid his foes, Plume, knife, and bosom raining blood, He for an instant sternly stood, And sank beneath their blows. Just then, broad, bright, and blinding, flashed The lightning o'er the gloom; And down, bare, scorched, and sppintered, dashed A cedar's kingly plume; The cloud, the earth, the trunks, the sprays, Within that blue and sheeted blaze, Leaped startling into light: It passed; but in that fiery car, The Sachem's soul had swept afar In its returnless flight. The frequent gleams of sunny gold, The pleasant showers of rain, And warmth pervading Nature, told That spring had come again; The leaf-buds swelled upon the bough, O NNEKO. 27 A soft-mist clothed the mountain's brow, And sweetly from the hill The bluebird's mirthful carol blent With flute-like, murmuring voices sent From many a snow-born rill. In a wild, lurking gorge that wound Amid the mountain shade, Lost in the mazes of their ground, A group of hunters strayed; The weighty rifle, pouch, and horn, Alike by youth and age were borne, For toil their limbs had strung; And woods, whose years were centuries, Had melted like the passing breeze, Where'er their axes rung. Oft did they seek that passage dark To pierce with practised sight, Oft scan the moss upon the bark To guide their footsteps right; From the dead leaves young grass-blades peered, Its downy curl the fern upreared, Fresh fringe the hemlock showed; The blossomed shadbush crouching low, Scattered its frequent patch of snow Along their tangled road. From the twined root the partridge whirred, The striped snake sought its den, 28 ONNEKO. Shrill chirped the squirrel, as were heard Strange voices in the glen; Filling the woods with fleeting roar, The startled pigeon flock whizzed o'er, The robin called in fright; And once the branches near them crashed, And the fierce.wild-cat screaming dashed Before in leaping flight. At length the misty atmosphere Breathed pestilent and damp, And laurels clustering thick and drear, Proclaimed the sunken swamp; Black straggling trees, with long gray moss And rotting bark, like ghosts across The waste, their branches spread; A melancholy stillness reigned Around, as if there naught remained But relics of the dead. A thicket, denser than the rest, Along their wayside grew, They plunge within its net-like breast — Ha! what is that they view? There lay a grinning skeleton, Where scarce could pierce the summer sun Or breathe the summer air; Some helpless dweller of the woods Starving, amidst these solitudes, Had doubtless perished there. ONNEKO. 29 The creeping ground-pine twined about Each shrunk and fleshless limb, And the white wind-flower looked from out The sockets black and grim; Half-hidden in the foliage round, With which spring clothes the forest ground In blossom, leaf, and stalk, Reddened with rust, there lay upon The moss, the fragment of a gun, And dinted tomahawk. One with white hair, then kneeling low, The tomahawk swept bare, And read the letters " Onneko " In rude marked traces there; The memory of a forest King Was brought on Thought's recurring wing From twilight of the past, Who, scorning fierce to bend the knee, For vengeance and for liberty Long strove, but fell at last. The old man told his story then, How in a distant wood, Embosomed in a pleasant glen, An Indian village stood. There was the lake, whose blue expanse Pictured the council, and the dance,The pirogue's simple sail, - And war-post, where for Onneko 30 ONNEKO. A hundred warriors struck the blow, And rushed upon the trail. Then, how the white men sought the lake, Like vultures for their prey, With craft and worthless toys to take Those hunting-grounds away; How baffled: one wild night of dread, The black sky gleamed with lurid red From burning roofs, and loud The Sachem heard the musket crash, And saw the blood-stained bayonet flash, From out the sulphurous shroud. Then how those smouldering heaps among That prophesied his fate, The maddened chief his death-song sung, And swore eternal hate; In wolf-trod swamps, and mountains where The lurking panther made his lair, The noble savage fought; There oft his war-whoop startling rose, Till borne down by unnumbered foes, He died the death he sought. Then through the listening group, a grief Weighty and deep was spread, They with one impulse raised the chief. From that damp thicket's bed. They delved a grave within the sod, ONNEKO. 31 While to the Indian's Christian's God The old man poured his prayer, Beneath a hemlock's mournful shade, The relics of the Sachem laid, And left him resting there. A FOREST NOOK. A NOOK within the forest: overhead The branches arch, and shape a pleasant bower, Breaking white cloud, blue sky, and sunshine bright, Into pure ivory and sapphire spots, And flecks of gold; a soft, cool, emerald tint Colors the air, as though the delicate leaves Emitted self-born light. What splendid walls, And what a gorgeous roof carved by the hand Of cunning Nature! Here the spruce thrusts in Its bristling plume, tipped with its pale-green points; The scalloped beech-leaf, and the birch's cut Into fine ragged edges, interlace. While here and there, through clefts, the laurel lifts Its snowy chalices half-brimmed with dew, As though to hoard it for the haunting elves The moonlight calls to this their festal hall. A thick, rich, grassy carpet clothes the earth, Sprinkled with autumn leaves. The fern displays Its fluted wreath, beaded beneath with drops Of richest brown; the wild-rose spreads its breast Of delicate pink, and the o'erhanging fir Has dropped its dark, long cone. The scorching glare Without, makes this green nest a grateful haunt A FOREST NOOK. 33 For summer's radiant things: the butterfly Fluttering within and resting on some flower, Fans his rich velvet form; the toiling bee Shoots by, with sounding hum and mist-like wings; The robin perches on the bending spray With shrill, quick chirp; and like a flake of fire The redbird seeks the shelter of the leaves. And now and then a flutter overhead In the thick green, betrays some wandering wing Coming and going, yet concealed from sight. A shrill, loud outcry, -on yon highest bough Sits the gray squirrel, in his burlesque wrath Stamping and chattering fiercely: now he drops A hoarded nut, then at my smiling gaze Buries himself within the foliage. The insect tribe are here: the ant toils on With its white burden; in its netted web, Gray glistening o'er the bush, the spider lurks, A close-crouched ball, out-darting as a hum Tells its trapped prey, and looping quick its threads, Chains into helplessness the buzzing wings. The wood-tick taps its tiny muffled drum To the shrill cricket-fife, and, swelling loud, The grasshopper its swelling bugle winds. Those breaths of Nature, the light fluttering airs Like gentle respirations, come and go, Lift on its crimson stem the maple leaf, Displaying its white lining underneath, And sprinkle from the tree-tops golden rain Of sunshine on the velvet sward below. VOL. I. 3 34 A FOREST NOOK. Such nooks as this are common in the woods: And all these sights and sounds the commonest In Nature when she wears her summer prime. Yet by them pass not lightly; to the wise They tell the beauty and the harmony Of even the lowliest things that God hath made. That His familiar earth and sky are full Of His ineffable power and majesty; That in the humble objects, seen- too oft To be regarded, shines such wondrous grace, The art of man is vain to imitate; That the low flower our careless foot treads down Stands a rich shrine of incense delicate, And radiant beauty; and that God hath formed All, from the cloud-wreathed mountain, to the grain Of silver sand the bubbling spring casts up, With deepest forethought and severest care. And thus these noteless, lovely things are types Of His perfection and divinity. THE WILLEWEMOC IN SUMMER. BUBBLING within some basin green So fringed with fern, the woodcock's bill Scarce penetrates the leafy screen, Leaps into life the infant rill. Oozing along, a winding streak, O'er moss and grass, it whispers meek, Then swelling o'er some barrier root The tiny ripples onward shoot, Then the clear sparkling waters spread And deepen down their sloping bed, Until, a streamlet bright and strong, The Willewemoc glides along Through its wild forest depths, to bear Its homage to the Delaware. Now pebbly shallows, where the deer Just bathes his crossing hoof, and now Broad hollowed creeks, that, deep and clear, Would whelm him to his antlered brow. Here, the smooth silver sleeps so still, The ear might catch the faintest trill; The bee's low hum, the whirr of wings, And the sweet songs of grass-hid things. 36 THE WILLE WEMOC IN SUMMER. There, dashing by, in booming shocks, So loud their wrath the waters wreak, Mid floating trees and scattered rocks, They drown the fierce gray eagle's shriek. Here, the slight cowslip from the moss In ripples breaks the amber gloss; There, the whirled spray showers upward fly To the slant firs crag-rooted high. Blue sky, pearl cloud, and golden beam Beguile my steps this summer day, Beside the lone and lovely stream, And through its sylvan scenes to stray: The moss, too delicate and soft To bear the tripping bird aloft, Slopes its green velvet to the sedge, Tufting the mirrored water's edge, Where the slow eddies wrinkling creep Mid swaying grass in stillness deep: The sweet wind scarce has breath to turn The edges of the leaves, or stir The fragile wreath of gossamer Embroidered on yon clump of fern. The stream incessant greets my ear In hollow dashings, full round tones, Purling through alder branches here, There gurgling o'er the tinkling stones; The rumble of the waterfall, Majestic sounding over all. THE WILLE WEMOC IN SUMMER. 37 Before me spreads the sheltered pool, Pictured with tree-shapes black and cool; Here, the roofed water seems to be A solid mass of ebony; There, the broad surface glances bright In dazzling gleams of spangled light; Now the quick darting waterfly Ploughs its light furrow, skimming by, While circling o'er in mazy rings, The chirping swallow dips his wings; Relieved against yon sunny glare The gnat-swarms, dust-like, speck the air; From yon deep cove where lily-gems Are floating by their silken stems, Out glides the dipping duck, to seek The narrow windings of the creek, The glitterings of his purple back Disclosing far his sinuous track; Now, sliding down yon grassy brink I see the otter plunge and sink, Yon bubbling streak betrays his rise, And through the furrowing sheet he plies. The aspen shakes, the hemlock hums, Damp with the shower the west wind comes; Rustling in heaps the quivering grass, It darkening dots the streamlet's glass, And rises with the herald-breeze The cloud's dark umber o'er the trees; A veil of gauze-like mist it flings, 38 THE WILLEWEMOC IN S UMMER. Dimples the stream with transient rings, And soon beneath this tent-like tree The swift, bright glancing streaks I see, And hear around in murmuring strain The gentle music of the rain. Then bursts the sunshine warm and gay, The misty curtain melts away, The cloud in fragments breaks, and through Trembles in spots the smiling blue; A fresh, damp sweetness fills the scene, From dripping leaf and moistened earth, The odor of the winter-green, Floats on the airs that now have birth; Dashes and air-bells all about Proclaim the gambols of the trout, And calling bush and answering tree Echo with woodland melody. Now the piled west in pomp displays The radiant forms that sunset weaves; And slanting lines of golden haze Are streaming through the sparkling leaves. A clear, sweet, joyous strain is heard,It is the minstrel mocking-bird. The strain of every songster floats Within his rich and splendid notes; The bluebird's warble, brief and shrill; The wailing of the whippoorwill; The robin's call, the jay's harsh screech, His own sweet music heard through each. His three-toned anthem now he sings, THE WILLE WEMOC IN SUMMER. 39 Liquid and low and soft it rings; Then rising with a swell more clear, It melts upon the bending ear, Till with a piercing flourished flight, He bids the darkening scene good-night. THE CALLICOON IN AUTUMN. FAR in the forest's heart, unknown, Except to sun and breeze, Where solitude her dreaming throne Has held for centuries; Chronicled by the rings and moss That tell the flight of years across The seamed and columned trees, This lovely streamlet glides along With tribute of eternal song! Now, stealing through its thickets deep In which the wood-duck hides; Now, picturing in its basin sleep Its green, pool-hollow'd sides; Here, through the pebbles slow it creeps, There, in some wild abyss it sweeps, And foaming, hoarsely chides; Then slides so still, its gentle swell Scarce ripples round the lily's bell. Nature, in her autumnal dress Magnificent and gay, THE CALLICOON IN AUTUMN. 41 Displays her brightest loveliness, Though nearest her decay; The sky is spread in silvery sheen, With breaks of tenderest blue between, Through which the timid ray Struggles in faintest, meekest glow, And rests in dreamy hues.below. The southwest airs of ladened balm Come breathing sweetly by, And wake, amid the forest's calm, One quick and shivering sigh, Shaking, but dimpling not the glass Of this smooth streamlet, as they pass, They scarcely wheel on high The thistle's downy, silver star, To waft its pendent seed afar. Sleep-like the silence, by the lapse Of waters only broke, And the woodpecker's fitful taps Upon the hollow oak; And, mingling with the insect hum, The beatings of the partridge drum, With now and then.a croak, As, on his flapping wing, the crow O'er passes, heavily and slow. A foliage world of glittering dyes Gleams brightly on the air, 42 THE CALLICOON IN AUTUMN. As though a thousand sunset skies, With rainbows, blended there; Each leaf an opal, and each tree A bower of varied brilliancy, And all one general glare Of splendor that o'erwhelms the sight With dazzling and -unequalled light. Rich gold with gorgeous crimson, here, The birch and maple twine, The beech its orange mingles near With emerald of the pine; And even the humble bush and herb Are glowing with those tints superb, As though a scattered mine Of gems upon the earth were strown, Flashing with radiance, each its own. All steeped in that delicious charm -Peculiar to our land, That comes, ere Winter's frosty arm Knits Nature's icy band; The purple, rich, and glimmering smoke, That forms the Indian Summer's cloak, When, by soft breezes fanned, For a few precious days he broods Amid the gladdened fields and woods. The squirrel chatters merrily, The nut falls ripe and brown, THE CALLICOON IN A UTUMN. 43 And, gem-like, from the jewelled tree The leaf comes fluttering down; And restless in his plumage gay, From bush to bush loud screams the jay, And on the hemlock's crown The sentry pigeon guards from foe The flock that dots the woods below. See! on this edge of forest lawn, Where sleeps the clouded beam, A doe has led her spotted fawn To gambol by the stream; Beside yon mullein's braided stalk They hear the gurgling voices talk, While, like a wandering gleam, The yellow-bird dives here and there, A feathered vessel of the air. On, through the rampart walls of rock, The waters pitch in white, And high, in mist, the cedars lock Their boughs, half lost to sight Above the whirling gulf, - the dash Of frenzied floods, that vainly lash Their limits in their flight, Whose roar the eagle, from his peak, Responds to with his angriest shriek. Stream of the wilds! the Indian here, Free as thy chainless flow, 44 THE CALLICOON IN AUTUMN. Has bent against thy depths his spear, And in thy woods his bow,The beaver built his dome; but they, The memories of an earlier day,Like those dead trunks, that show What once were mighty pines, - have fled With Time's unceasing, rapid tread. THE HILL HOLLOW. A HOLLOW in the hills. Spring's melted snows And many rain-showers swelled the tiny brook, Until it dashed a torrent, scooping out A channel, as it tore upon its way. But now, the slender springlet trickles on, Purling and murmuring, with so low a voice The whizzing of yon humming-bird's swift wings, Spanning gray glimmering circles round its shape, Is heard above the prattle. Green and sweet And quiet lies the hollow. From the road, Furrowed with wheels, and beaten hard with feet, A few short steps will place you in the depth Of this soft lap of Nature. When the sun Quivers upon the dust, and on the brow Burns hot and fierce, and short the panting breath, With what refreshing coolness does the air Moisten your lips, and glide around your limbs, Strengthening again to vigor! High o'erhead The yellow bank, scarped by the rushing flood, Dangling with threads of roots, with here and there The twisted feet of clinging firs, like veins Bare, bulging from the earth, and bedded stones, And crowned with. ranks of tall, majestic trees, 46 THE HILL HOLLOW. Casts a black massive shadow half across. The short, thick emerald grass slopes opposite, In a tall graceful curve, to where the rill Glides m its sparkling dance, with castanets Made by the pebble tricklinga August noon Brightens the blue, and sunshine bathes. with gold The slope before me. In the faint light airs The aspen shakes with laughter, but the pine Scarce moves a tassel, and the maple turns The pale green backs of its broad scalloped leaves Lazily over. All around I scent The breath of ripening things; the clustered grape, The apple of the thorn, the mandrake's fruit, Looking like lemons either side its stem, And the low everlasting's fragrance rich, O'erpowering all, when near its satin leaves. The mullein's pillar, tipped with golden flowers, Slim rises upward, and yon yellow-bird Shoots to its top; a crested jay has made That jointed rush a pedestal, and couched Within this thistle's tuft are three bright bees. A fox's den gapes, shelving, by yon root, Thick clustered o'er with shrubs; and this light track Tells where the kine come winding down to drink. Lovely the scene, yet is it but a line In Nature's teeming volume, free to all Who seek to read it; strange that men will not, When its bright leaves are scatter'd round their path TIlE HILL HOLLOW. 47 Like many a blessing also is the scene, Lurking beside the track on which we move In all our dim pursuits; and only hid By some slight veiling screen of circumstance, Because we lack the knowledge, or are loth To make the effort that would gain the prize. Knowledge will come with seeking; circumstance Will fall before the effort, and the cool Green beauty of the blessing, when the brow Burns with the feverish strugglings of the world, And heart and limb are weary in the warThe wolfish war of man with fellow-man,For might, or gold, or glory will be ours. MIDSUMMER. AN August day! a dreamy haze Films air, and mingles with the skies Sweetly the rich, dark sunshine plays, Bronzing each object where it lies. Outlines are melted in the gauze That Nature veils; the fitful breeze From the thick pine, low murmuring draws; Then dies in flutterings through the trees. The bee is slumbering in the thistle, And, now and then, a broken whistleA tread-a hum -a tap -is heard Through the dry leaves, in grass and bush, As insect, animal, and bird Rouse, brief from their lethargic hush. Then, even these pleasant sounds would cease, And a dead stillness all things lock, The aspen seem like sculptured rock, And not a tassel-thread be shaken The monarch-pine's deep trance to waken, And Nature settle prone in drowsy peace. The misty blue, - the distant masses, - The air, in woven purple glimmering,The shiver transiently that passes MIDSUMMER. 49 Over the leaves, as though each tree Gave one brief sigh,- the slumberous shimmering Of the red light,- invested seem With some sweet charm, that soft, serene, Mellows the gold- the blue- the green Into mild-tempered harmony, And melts the sounds that intervene, As scarce to break the quiet, till we deem Nature herself transformed to Fancy's dream. VOL. I. 4 OSCEOLA. PART I. THE rich blue sky is o'er, Around are the tall green trees, And the jessamine's breath from the everglade Is borne on the wandering breeze. On the mingled grass and flowers Stands a fierce and threatening form, That looks like an eagle when pluming his wing To brave the gathering storm. His rifle within his grasp,The bright plume o'er his head, — His features are clothed with a warrior's pride, And he moves with a monarch's tread. He bends his listening ear, He peers through the tangled screen, And he smiles with joy, as the flash of steel Through the everglade's grass is seen. One wave of his stalwart arm, Wild' forms around him stand, OSCEOLA. 51 And his eye glares bright with triumphant light As he looks at his swarthy band. At the hammock's flowery edge Nearer the bayonet's glow The pale-face ranks are rallying, But they seek in vain the foe. They see in that lovely scene But the humming-bird o'er the flowers, And the glittering wing of the paroquet In the cool and fragrant bowers. But hark! from the cypress shade, From the bay-tree's glossy leaves, And the nooks where the vine from bough to bough Its serpent-like festoon weaves, The loud, shrill warwhoops burst On the soft and sleeping air, And the quick, bright darts of surrounding death Are fearfully glancing there. The eagle with fierce delight Abroad has his pinion cast, And he shrieks as he bathes in the crimson rain, And sweeps through the whizzing blast. The battle-storm is o'er, —The hammock is reeking red,But who looks there with victorious smile On the heaps of the pale-face dead? 52 OSCEOLA.'Tis a tribe's young warrior-chief! The deeds of whose vengeful flame Have filled the ear of a mighty land With the terror of his name. He leaps from his covert dark Like the fire-flash from the smoke, And the hamlet awakes from its midnight sleep At his tomahawk's lightning stroke. He enters the peaceful cot, Anid more blood-drops there he leaves Than the multiflora's crimson gems That are trailed about the eaves. PART II. In a dark and dungeon room Is stretched a tawny form, And it shakes in its dreadful agony Like a leaf in the autumn storm. No pillared palmetto hangs Its tuft in the clear, bright air, But a sorrowing group, and the narrow wall, And a smouldering hearth are there. The white froth on his lip, His trembling, gasping breath, And the hollow rattle in his throat Proclaim the conqueror, death. OSCEOLA. 53'T is the proud, victorious chief Who smiled mid the pale-face slain;'T is the eagle that swept through the whizzing blast And bathed in the crimson rain. For his own green forest home He had struggled long and well, But the soul that had breasted a nation's arms At the touch of a fetter, fell. He had worn wild freedom's crown On his bright unconquered brow Since he first saw the light of his beautiful skies: It was gone forever now! But still in his last dread hour Did not bright visions bloom? Bright visions that shed a golden gleam On the darkness of his doom: They calmed his throbbing pulse, And they hung on his muttering breath: The spray thrown up from life's frenzied flood Plunging on to the gulf of death. The close walls shrunk away; Above was the stainless sky, And the lakes, with their floating isles of flowers, Spread glittering to his eye. O'er his hut, the live-oak spread Its branching, gigantic shade, 54 OSCEOLA. With its dots of leaves and its robes of moss Broad blackening on the glade. But a sterner sight rolls round: Battle's wild torrent is there, The tomahawk gleams, and the red blood streams, And the warwhoops rend the air. At the head of his faithful band He peals forth his terrible cry, As he fiercely leaps mid the slaughtered heaps Of the foe that but fought to die. One gasp: and the eye is glazed, And still is the stiffening clay; The eagle soul of the chief had passed On the battle's flood away. THE SCHOOL-HOUSE. IN a green lane that from the village street Diverges, stands the school-house; long and low The frame, and blackened with the hues of Time. Around it spreads the green with scattered trees; Fenced fields and orchards stretching either hand, And fronting. When the strawberry ripe and red Is nestling at the roots of the deep grass, And when the autumn sun has decked with gold And crimson the gnarled apple-bough, light paths Stretch from the play-ground, worn by urchin feet, To the forbidden treasures; forays sad! For fingers stained, or bulging pockets oft Betrayed what the faint sobbing voice denied. A picture of soft beauty shines the scene When painted by the sinking summer sun In tints of light and shade; but winter's gloom Shows nothing but a waste, with one broad track Stamped to the humble door-post from the lane; The snow-capped wood-pile stretching near the walls; And the half-severed log with axe that leans Within the gaping notch. The room displays Long rows of desk and bench; the former stained 56 THE SCHOOL-HOUSE. And streaked with blots and trickles of dried ink, Lumbered with maps and slates and well-thumbed books, And carved with rude initials; while the knife Has hacked and sliced the latter. In the midst Stands the dread throne whence breathes supreme command, And in a locked recess well known, is laid The dread regalia, gifted with a charm Potent to the rebellious. When the bell Tinkles the school-hour, inward streams the crowd, And bending heads proclaim the task begun. Upon his throne, with magisterial brow, The teacher sits, round casting frowning looks As the low giggle and the shuffling foot Betray the covert jest, or idleness. Oft does he call, with deep and pompous voice, The class before him; and shrill, chattering tones In pert or blundering answers, break the soft And dreamy hum of study, heretofore Like beehive sounds prevailing. Now, perchance, Some luckless urchin stands before the throne, With features swoln as scarce to keep the tears, And shoulders raised, while the detected fault Is forth paraded, and the broken law Learnedly dwelt on: then with staring sight, Face all awry, and chattering teeth, he sees The -sceptre taken slowly from its nook, A whip with thongs: pursues with blinking gaze Its upward motion, then, with hideous yell, Tells that the whizzing blow falls not in vain. THE SCHOOL-HOUSE. 57 Now rising from his seat, the teacher strides Athwart the room; as treads he past, each desk Starts into industry: white figures grow Upon the slate; black, spattering pothooks sprawl Upon the blotted, dog-eared copy-book; And eyes are glued upon the letters huge And pictures of the primer: as he wheels, The wandering glance has scarcely time to sink, The queer grimace, and the replying grin To vanish; each regaining its mute sway As turns the back upon them. But bright noon Now through the casement streams in quivering haze, And gushes on the floor: the word is given, And, bursting from the thraldom, rush without The merry throngs, and breaking into groups, Drive their loud pastime on the sunny green. Here flies the ball, - there shoots the marble,- now The racers seek the goal, - each sinew now Is straining in the leap,- while heartfelt mirth Echoes upon the soft and balmy air: The clouds that float and wreathe upon the breeze Not more restrainless than those happy hearts. The glee, bright contrast to the sullen looks And lingering steps with which each urchin seeks, At the sad summons of the morning bell, The hated porch. Yet is the school-house rude, As is the chrysalis to the butterfly, To the rich flower the seed. The dusky walls Hold the fair germs of knowledge; and the tree, Glorious in beauty, golden with its fruits, To the low school-house traces back its life. THE MINISINK. ENCIRCLED by the screening shade, With scattered bush, and bough, And grassy slopes, a pleasant glade Lies spread before me now; The wind, that shows its forest search By the sweet fragrance of the birch, Is whispering on my brow, And the mild sunshine flickers through The soft white cloud and summer blue. Far to the North, the Delaware Flows, mountain-curved, along, By forest bank, by summit bare, It bends in rippling song; Receiving in each eddying nook The waters of the vassal brook, It sweeps more deep and strong; Round yon green island it divides, And by this quiet woodland glides. The ground-bird flutters from the grass That hides her tiny nest; The startled deer, as by I pass, Bounds in the thicket's breast; THE MINISINK. 59 The redbird rears his crimson wing From the long fern of yonder spring: A sweet and peaceful rest Breathes o'er the scene, where once the sound Of battle shook the gory ground. Long will the shuddering hunter tell How once red warriors rose, And wakened with their battle-yell The forest's long repose. How shrieked in vain babe, wife, and sire, As hatchet, scalping-knife, and fire, Proclaimed their bloody foes; Until the boldest quailed to mark, Wrapped round the woods, Night's mantle dark. At length the fisher furled his sail Within the sheltered creek, The hunter trod his forest trail The mustering band to seek; The settler cast his axe away, And grasped his rifle for the fray: All came, revenge to wreak, With the rude arms that chance supplied,And die, or conquer, side by side. Behind the footsteps of their foe They rushed, a gallant throng, Burning with haste to strike a blow For each remembered wrong; 60 THE MINISINK. Here on this field of Minisink, Fainting they sought the river's brink, Where cool waves gushed along; No sound within the woods they heard, But murmuring wind and warbling bird. A scream!-'t is but the panther's; naught Breaks the calm sunshine there; A thicket stirs! — a deer has sought From sight a closer lair; Again upon the grass they droop, When burst close round, the well-known whoop, Shrill, deafening on the air; And onward from their ambush deep, Like wolves the savage warriors leap. In vain upsprung that gallant band And seized their weapons by, Fought eye to eye, and hand to hand, Alas!'t was but to die; In vain the rifle's deadly flash Scorched eagle plume and wampum sash; The hatchet hissed on high, And down they fell in crimson heaps, Like the ripe corn the sickle reaps. In vain they sought the covert dark; The knife gashed every head, Each arrow found unerring mark, Till earth was piled with dead. THE MAINISINK. 61 Oh! long the matron watched to hear Loved tones and footsteps meet her ear, Till hope grew faint with dread. Long did she search the wood-paths o'er,Those tones and steps she heard no more. Years have passed by, the merry bee Hums round the laurel flowers, The mock-bird pours its melody Amid the forest bowers; A skull is at my feet, though now The wild rose wreathes its bony brow, Relic of other hours,It bids the wandering pilgrim think Of those who died at Minisink. A SEPTEMBER STROLL. THE dull mist of September, fitfully Thickening to chill and gusty streams of rain, Lifted at sunset, and the western verge Showed a broad stripe of light; a golden smile Burst o'er the dripping scene, then died away: And the North swept, in hollow moan and hiss, Round dwellings and through branches. Morning broke In cloudless beauty, but a chilly breath Still edged the crystal air. The sun went down, With a rich halo glowing round the spot Where his orb glided, and a splendid belt Of orange burned above his slanting track, Melting to soft, bright gray, that deepened up Into the rich mid-blue; and where the pearl Darkened into the sapphire, bounded forth The courier-star of night's magnificence. Morning again rose gloriously clear: The air was softer, and the gentle West Went fanning where the North had struck its chill; And as the sun climbed up, his light was cast So warm and genial, and the atmosphere Was felt so sweetly and deliciously, A SEPTEMIBER STROLL. 63 It seemed't were pleasure merely to lie down, And bask and breathe. The noontide now has come: Green woods and pleasant fields are smiling forth Inviting welcome. Let us leave the walls Of the close city, and with wandering feet Seek the sweet haunts of Nature. O'er the dust Of the great thoroughfare, with rapid wheels And trampling hoofs vexed ever, where the gay And flaunting motes sport thick in Fashion's beam, Idle and worthless, quick we tread, and turn Gladly aside, where a green, narrow lane Leads to a wild ravine amid the hills. Smooth fields, with browsing cattle, are around, And now and then the tinkling sheep-bell breaks Pleasantly on the ear. Our pathway leads Through a rude gate and o'er a broken bridge, Where the green rushes and long tangled grass Proclaim the shrunken streamlet; a faint track Leads to a barrelled spring, whose waters boil Unceasing from their loose, gray sandy depth. Grass spreads its sides with velvet, and tall trees Drop their black shapes around. We pass along: A gorge winds up, walled in with rocky banks Plumaged with leaning branches; wheel-marks deep Are traced upon the stone floor of the chasm, And grateful shadow rests like sleep within. Grim roots start out from crevices; green sprouts Flaunt from mossed ledges; and large trickling drops, From the steep sides, shed moisture on the air. 64 A SEPTEMBER STROLL. We rest awhile, then tread again our path. A grassy glade, with points and curving banks, The dry bed of a streamlet, lures our steps. The varied aster tribes stand clustered round; The gnarled thorn shows its yellow-crimson fruit, Studding its boughs, and scattered thick beneath; And from the brinks the solidago bends Its golden feather: mingling with the sweet And peaceful quiet, low monotonous sounds Stream from the insects, varied with the swell Of the near locust's peevish clarion, And chirping of the cricket. Now the fence We leap, and stray into the broad green field. The air is an elixir; as we breathe, The blood swift tingles in our veins; we long To bound with transport and shout out our joy. The thread-like gossamer is waving past, Borne on the wind's light wing, and to yon branch, Tangled and trembling, clings like snowy silk. The thistle-down, high lifted through the rich Bright blue, quick float, like gliding stars, and then Touching the sunshine, flash, and seem to melt Within the dazzling brilliance. Yon tall oak, Standing from out the straggling skirt of wood, Touched by the frost, that wondrous chemist, showsSpottings of gorgeous crimson through its green, Like a proud monarch, towering still erect, Though sprinkled with his life-blood.'Close beside, That aspen, to the wind's soft-fingered touch, Flutters with all its dangling leaves, as though A SEPTEMBER STROLL. 65 Beating with myriad pulses. Misty shade Films the deep hollows, misty sunshine glows On the round hills. Across the far-off wood, The atmosphere is shaded like thin smoke, Until we fancy a dim swarm of motes Is glimmering there and dancing. We approach, And tread the dark recesses: withered leaves Spread a thick, crackling mantle; countless trunks Lead on the eye in labyrinths, till lost Within a dizzy maze, and overhead A vast and interlacing roof of green. The hickory-shell, cracked open by its fall, Shows its ripe fruit, an ivory ball, within; And the cleft chestnut-burr displays its sheath White glistening, with its glossy nuts below. Scattered around, the wild rose-bushes hang, Their ruby buds tipping their thorny sprays. The everlasting's blossoms seem as cut In delicate silver, whitening o'er the slopes; The seedy clematis, branched high, is robed With woolly tufts; the snowy Indian-pipe Is streaked with black decay; the wintergreen Offers its berries; and the prince's-pine, Scarce seen above the fallen leaves, peers out, A firm, green, glossy wreath. Within this knot Of twining roots, a shelving aperture Proclaims the hedgehog's chamber; through the gloom Within we see the sparkle of his eye, VOL. I. 5 66 A SEPTEMBER STROLL. And his slim snout thrust level with the brink To scent his danger; but fear not! no staff Will pierce thy winding cavern, to drive forth Thy crouching form, and beat, with cruel blows, Thy gasping being from thee. By we pass, And from the darkening woods released, we see One mass of shadow stretching to the east, And narrow stripes of gold upon the tops Of hill and tree; and climbing the ascent, We view the sun sink calmly to his rest. WHITE LAKE.1 PURE as their parent springs! how bright The silvery waters stretch away, Reposing in the pleasant light Of June's most lovely day. Curving around the eastern side, Rich meadows slope their banks, to meet, With fringe of grass and fern, the tide Which sparkles at their feet. Here, busy life attests that toil, With its quick talisman, has made Fields green and waving, from a soil Of rude and savage shade. While opposite; the forest lies In giant shadow, black and deep, Filling with leaves the circling sky, And frowning in its sleep. 1 Or " Lake Kau-na-ong-ga," meaning literally " two icings." White Lake, which is the unmeaning modern epithet of this beautiful sheet of water, is situated in the town of Bethel, Sullivan county, N. Y. It is in the form of a pair of huge wings expanded. 68 WHITE LAKE. Amid this scene of light and gloom, Nature with art links hand in hand, Thick woods beside soft rural bloom, As by a seer's command. Here, waves the grain; here, curls the smoke; The orchard bends; there, wilds, as dark As when the hermit waters woke Beneath the Indian's bark. Oft will the panther's startling shriek With the herd's quiet lowings swell, The wolf's fierce howl terrific break Upon the sheepfold's bell. The ploughman sees the wind-winged deer Dart from his covert to the wave, And fearless in its mirror clear His branching antlers lave. Here, the green headlands seem to meet So near, a fairy bridge might cross; There, spreads the broad and limpid sheet In smooth, unruffled gloss. Arched by the thicket's screening leaves, A lilied harbor lurks below, Where on the sand each ripple weaves Its melting wreath of snow. WHITE LAKE. 69 Hark! like an organ's tones, the woods To the light wind in murmurs wake, The voice of the vast solitudes Is speaking to the lake. The fanning'air-breath sweeps across On its broad path of sparkles now, Bends down the violet to the moss, Then melts upon my brow. AN AMERICAN SPRING. Now fluttering breeze, now stormy blast, Mild rain, then blustering snow: Winter's stern, fettering cold is past, But where Spring's genial glow? The white cloud floats in smiling blue, The broad, bright sunshine's golden hue Bathes the still frozen earth: A change! above, black vapors roll; We turn from our expected stroll, And seek the blazing hearth. Hark! that sweet carol! what delight! The scene no more is dumb. The little bluebird greets our sight,Spring, magic Spring, has come! The south wind's kiss is on the air, The melting snow-wreaths everywhere Are leaping off in showers; And Nature, in her brightening looks, Tells that her flowers, and leaves, and brooks, And birds will soon be ours. AN AMERICAN SPRING. 71 A few soft, sunny days are here, The air has lost its chill, A bright, green tinge succeeds the sear Upon the southern hill. Off to the woods! a pleasant scene! Here sprouts the fresh young wintergreen, There swells a mossy mound; Though in the hollows drifts are piled, The wandering wind is sweet and mild, And buds are bursting round. Where its long rings unwinds the fern, The violet, nestling low, Casts back the white lid of its urn, Its purple streaks to show: Beautiful blossom! first to rise And smile beneath Spring's wakening skies, The courier of the band Of coming flowers, what feelings sweet Flow, as the silvery gem we meet Upon its needle-wand. A sudden roar,-a shade is cast,We look up with a start, And, sounding like a transient blast, O'erhead the pigeons dart; Scarce their blue glancing shapes the eye Can trace, ere, dotted on the sky, They wheel in distant flight. A chirp! and swift the squirrel scours AN AMERICAN SPRING. Along the prostrate trunk, and cowers Within its clefts from sight. Amid the creeping-pine, which spreads Its thick and verdant wreath, The scauberry's downy spangle sheds Its rich, delicious breath. The bee-swarm murmurs by, and now It clusters black on yonder bough: The robin's mottled breast Glances that'sunny spot across, As round it seeks the twig and moss To frame its summer nest. Warmer shines each successive sky, More soft the breezes pass, The maple's flowers of crimson lie Upon the thick, green grass. The elm has showered its fringes down, The alder drops its tassels brown, Cowslips are by the rill; The thrasher whistles in the glen, Flutters around the warbling wren, And swamps have voices shrill. A simultaneous burst of leaves Next sheds an emerald glow: A single day's bright sunshine weaves This vivid, gorgeous show. Masses of shade are cast beneath, AN AMERICAN SPRING. 73 The flowers are spread in varied wreath Night brings its soft, sweet moon; Mxlrn wakes in mist, and twilight gray Weeps its bright dew, and smiling May Melts blooming into June! TO —. THOU of the soft bright eye and raven hair, Parted in glossy curves upon a brow White as the ocean-pearl; I gaze on thee Until I am unconscious of aught else. I look into the depth of that dark eye, Upon the tablet of that glorious brow, And read the gentle thoughts of thy pure heart; Then turn away with loathing from myself, That I should mingle in the sins of earth When such a being treads it. As thy form Moves in its perfect gracefulness, it seems Made but to float to music, and I feel My pulses bounding wildly. I have hung Upon the silvery accents of thy voice, And thought that sweeter melody ne'er met The ear of man, although in olden times He heard the tongue of Angels. Melting strains O'er moonlit waters, are most like thy tones When sadness broods upon thee, and thy laugh, Ringing so light and merrily from the heart, Is joyous as the bluebird's blithsome song When Spring wakes up the flowers; and thy sweet face TO. 75 Is radiant, as with sunshine brightening o'er. I've watched the motions of thy rich red lips Dropping their music-words, until I longed To be invisible, that I might touch Their rosiness unchidden. 0 how bright Beams Woman in her beauty! she combines All charms possessed of Nature; the light cloud Wreathing its folds across the smiling blue Is not more graceful than her gliding tread; The gem is not more brilliant than her eye; The bird's note more melodious than her voice; She is a shrine where man should bow him down, Forget his paltry mean-souled love of self, And in the sunlight of her purity See the dark shadows of his own vile heart. Thus, gentle lady! do I kneel to thee; And in thy sweet and gentle influence Strive with the passions that consume my life, Turn from the sins that weigh my spirit down, And walk the path made holy by thy tread. SONG FOR INDEPENDENCE. HAIL to this planting of Liberty's tree! Hail to the charter declaring us free! Millions of voices are chanting its praises, Millions of worshippers bend at its shrine, Wherever the sun of America blazes, Wherever the stars of our bright banner shine. Sing to the heroes who breasted the flood That swelling, rolled o'er them - a deluge of blood. Fearless they clung to the ark of the nation, And dashed on mid lightning, and thunder, and blast, Till Peace, like the. dove, brought her branch of salvation, And Liberty's mount was their refuge at last. Bright smiles the beautiful land of our birth, The home of the homeless all over the earth. Oh! let us ever with fondest devotion, The freedom our fathers bequeathed us, watch o'er, Till the Angel shall stand on the earth and the ocean, And shout o'er earth's ruins, that Time is no more. THE LOST HUNTER. NUMBED by the piercing, freezing air, And burdened by his game, The Hunter, struggling with despair, Dragged on his shivering frame; The rifle he had shouldered late Was trailed along, a weary weight, His pouch was void of food, The hours were speeding in their flight, And soon the long, keen, winter night Would wrap the solitude. Oft did he stoop a listening ear, Sweep round an anxious eye, No bark or axe-blow could he hear, No human trace descry. His sinuous path, by blazes, wound Among the trees in myriad round; By naked boughs, between Whose tangled architecture, fraught With many a shape grotesquely wrought, The hemlock's spire was seen. An antlered dweller of the wild Had met his eager gaze, 78 THE LOST HUNTER. And far his wandering steps beguiled Within an unknown maze; Stream, rock, and runway he had crossed, Unheeding, till the signs were lost That guided once his roam; And now, deep swamp and wild ravine, And rugged mountain were between The Hunter and his home. A dusky haze, which slow had crept On high, now darkened there, And a few snow-flakes fluttering swept Athwart the thick gray air: Faster and faster, till between The trunks and boughs a mottled screen Of glimmering motes was spread; That ticked against each object round With gentle and continuous sound, Like brook o'er pebbled bed. The laurel tufts, that drooping hung Close rolled around their stems, And the sear beech-leaves still that clung, Were white with powdering gems. But hark! afar a sullen moan Swelled out to louder, deeper tone, As, surging near, it passed; And bursting with a roar and shock, That made the groaning forest rock, On rushed the winter blast. THE LOST HUNTER. As o'er it whistled, shrieked, and hissed, Caught by its swooping wings, The snow was whirled to eddying mist, That seem'd as barbed with stings; And now't was swept with lightning flight Above the loftiest hemlock's height, Like driving smoke, and now It hid the air with shooting clouds, And robed the trees with circling shrouds, Then dashed in heaps below. Here, plunging in a billowy wreath, There, clinging to a limb, The suffering hunter gasped for breath, Brain reeled and eye grew dim; As though to whelm him in despair, Rapidly changed the blackening air To murkiest gloom of night, Till naught was seen around, below, But falling flakes, and mantled snow That gleamed in ghastly white. At every blast an icy dart Seemed through his nerves to fly, The blood was freezing to his heart, Thought whispered he must die. The thundering tempest echoed death, He felt it in his tightened breath, Spoil, rifle dropped, and slow As the dread torpor crawling came 80 THE LOST HUNTER. Along his staggering, stiffening frame, He sank upon the snow. Reason forsook her shattered throne; He deemed that summer hours Again around him brightly shone In sunshine, leaves, and flowers: Again the fresh, green forest sod, Rifle in hand, he lightly trod,He heard the deer's low bleat; Or, couched within the shadowy nook, He drank the crystal of the brook That murmured at his feet. It changed: his cabin-roof o'erspread, Rafter, and wall, and chair Gleamed in the crackling fire, that shed Its warmth, and he was there; His wife had clasped his hand, and now Her gentle kiss was on his brow; His child was prattling by; The hound crouched, dozing, near the blaze, And through the pane's frost-pictured haze He saw the white drifts fly. That passed: before his swimming sight Does not a figure bound, And a soft voice with wild delight Proclaim the lost is found? No, Hunter, no!'t is but the streak THE LOST HUNTER. 81 Of snow, -'t is but the tempest's shriek, - No human aid is near; Never again that form will meet Thy clasped embrace, those accents sweet Speak music to thine ear. Morn broke: away the clouds were chased; The sky shone pure and bright; And on its blue, the branches traced Their webs of glittering white. Its ivory roof the hemlock stooped, The pine its silvery tassels drooped, Down bent the burdened wood; And scattered round, low points of green Peering above the snowy scene, Told where the thickets stood. In a deep hollow, drifted high, A wave-like heap was thrown; Dazzlingly in the sunny sky A diamond blaze it shone; The little snow-bird chirping sweet Dotted it o'er with tripping feet; Unsullied, smooth, and fair It seemed like other mounds, where trunk And rock amid the wreaths were sunk, But oh! the dead was there! Spring came with skies and breezes bland, Soft suns and melting rains; VOL. I. 6 82 THE LOST HUNTER. And roused by her transforming wand, Earth burst its winter chains. In a deep nook, where moss, and grass, And fern-leaves wove a verdant massSome scattered bones beside, A mother kneeling with her child Told by her tears and wailings wild That there the lost had died. A FOREST WALK. A LOVELY sky, a cloudless sun, A wind that breathes of leaves and flowers, O'er hill, through dale, my steps have won, To the cool forest's shadowy -bowers; One of the paths, all round that wind Traced by the browsing herds, I choose, And sights and sounds of human kind, In Nature's lone recesses lose; The beech displays its marbled bark, The spruce its green tent stretches wide, While scowls the hemlock, grim and dark,.The maple's scalloped dome beside: All weave on high a verdant roof, That keeps the very sun aloof, Making a twilight soft and green Within the columned, vaulted scene. Sweet forest odors have their birth From the clothed boughs and teeming earth; Where pine-cones dropped, leaves piled and dead, Long tufts of grass and stars of fern, With many a wild-flower's fairy urn A thick, elastic carpet spread; Here, with its mossy pall, the trunk, Resolving into soil. is sunk: 84 A FOREST WALK. There, wrenched but lately from its throne, By some fierce whirlwind circling past, Its huge roots massed with earth and stone, One of the woodland kings is cast. Above, the forest tops are bright With the broad blaze of sunny light: But now, a fitful air-gust parts The screening branches, and a glow Of dazzling, startling radiance darts Down the dark stems, and breaks below; The mingled shadows off are rolled, The sylvan floor is bathed in gold: Low sprouts and herbs, before unseen, Display their shades of brown and green; Tints brighten o'er the velvet moss, Gleams twinkle on the laurel's gloss; The robin, brooding in her nest, Chirps as the quick ray strikes her breast, And as my shadow prints the ground, I see the rabbit upward bound, With pointed ears an instant look, Then scamper to the darkest nook, Where, with crouched limb and staring eye, He watches while I saunter by. A narrow vista carpeted With rich green grass, invites my tread; Here showers the light in golden dots, There sleeps the shade in ebon spots, So blended, that the very air A FOREST WALK. 85 Seems network as I enter there. The partridge, whose deep-rolling drum Afar has sounded on my ear. Ceasing its beatings as I come, Whirrs'to the sheltering branches near; The little milk-snake glides away, The brindled marmot dives from day; And now, between the boughs, a space Of the blue laughing sky I trace; On each side shrinks the bowery shade; Before me spreads an emerald glade; The sunshine steeps its grass and moss, That couch my footsteps as I crpss; Merrily hums the tawny bee, The glittering humming-bird I see; Floats the bright butterfly along, The insect choir is loud in song; A spot of light and life, it seems A fairy haunt for fancy dreams. Here stretched, the pleasant turf I press, In luxury of idleness; Sun-streaks, and glancing wings, and sky Spotted with cloud-shapes, charm my eye; While murmuring grass, and waving trees, Their leaf-harps sounding to the breeze; And water-tones that tinkle near, Blend their sweet music to my ear; And by the changing shades alone, The passage of the hours is known. JANUARY AND JUNE. A SABLE pall of sky: the billowy hills Swathed in the snowy robe that Winter throws So kindly over Nature; skeleton trees Fringed with rich, silver drapery, and the stream Dumb in its frosty chains. Yon rustic bridge Bristles with icicles; beneath it stand The cattle-group, long pausing while they drink From the ice-hollowed pools that skim in sheets Of delicate glass, and shivering as the air Cuts with keen, stinging edge; and those gaunt trunks Bending with ragged branches o'er the bank, Seem, with their mocking scarfs of chilling white, Mourning for the green grass and fragrant flowers, That Summer mirrors in the rippling flow Of the bright stream below them. Shrub and rock Are carved in pearl, and the dense thicket shows Clusters of purest ivory. Comfortless The frozen scene, yet not all desolate. Where slopes, by tree and bush, the beaten track, The sleigh glides merrily, with prancing steeds, And the low homestead, nestling by its grove, Clings to the leaning hill. JANUARY AND JUNE. 87 The drenching rain Had streamed, and then, the large loose flakes had showered, Quick freezing where they fell; and thus the scene, By Winter's alchemy, from gleaming steel Was changed to sparkling silver. Yet, though bright And rich, the landscape smiles with lovelier look When Summer gladdens it. The fresh blue sky Bends, like God's blessing, o'er; the scented air Echoes with bird-songs, and the emerald grass Blinks, dappled with quick shadows; the light wing Of the soft west makes music in the leaves; The ripples murmur as they dance along; The thicket, by the road-side, casts its cool Black breadth of shade across the heated dust; The cattle seek the pools beneath the banks, Where sport the gnat-swarms glancing in the sun, - Gray, whirling specks, - and darts the dragon-fly, A gold-green arrow; and the wandering sheep Nibble the short, thick sward, that clothes the brink, Down sloping to the waters. Kindly tones And happy faces make the homestead walls A paradise. Upon the mossy roof The tame dove coos and bows; beneath the eaves The swallow frames her nest; the social wren Lights on the flower-lined paling, and trills through Its noisy gamut; and the humming-bird Shoots, with that flying harp, the honey-bee, Mid the trailed honeysuckle's trumpet-bloom. 88 JANUARY AND JUNE. Sunset wreathes gorgeous shapes within the west, To eyes that love the splendor; morning wakes Light hearts to joyous tasks; and when deep night Breathes o'er the earth a solemn solitude, With stars for watchers, or the holy moon A sentinel upon the steeps of heaven, Smooth pillows yield their balm to prayer and trust; And slumber, that sweet medicine of toil, Sheds her soft dews and weaves her golden dreams. THE LATE HON. STEPHEN VAN RENSSELAER. TOWERING on high, a mighty oak Stood, monarch of the scene, On which revolving summers woke A thicker, fresher green. Beneath its arms, stretched grandly round, The humblest plants protection found From every chilling air; And even the eagle, sweeping by, Stooped to its top with kindling eye, And built its eyrie there. It bent not to the winter blast, The lightning spared its dart; Time seamed its rugged bark, but cast No wither on its heart;, Although the eagle claimed its crest, Its green sprays held the robin's nest, And tiny forms and wings Gleamed round:'t was beautiful to see That oak, with all its majesty, So loved by lovely things. 90 HON. STEPHEN VAN RENSSELAER. But now no more came leafy bloom, The lichen stained its trunk, And, bending to the general doom, In death it calmly sunk. No wrenching storm the trophy won, But fanned by breeze, and decked by sun, It sought its native earth, Which, like a mother, threw across The soft green robe of grass and moss With which she wrapped its birth. The human oak, - the great, the strong Thus towered amid his race; And every year that swept along But brought a lovelier grace; He caused "the widow's heart to sing," And took from Poverty its sting, From Sorrow its despair; And when the war-cry echoed dread, Fame's Eagle, stooping to his head, Entwined the laurel there. Adversity's relentless storm (And all feel human ill) Ne'er left a trace upon his form, Nor on his heart a chill; Though crowned by Fame, yet in his breast Each pure affection was a guest, High thought and noble trust: All saw and blessed that towering one HON. STEPHEN VAN RENSSELAER. 91 Basking in fortune's brightest sun,So gentle, kind, and just. But now, Time clothed that head with white, And bent that stately frame, And, like eve merging into night, Death, Tobed in friendship, came. Oh not with fear and anguish deep, But calmly fell he into sleep, As Summer's sun departs; Men held their breath with awe, when first Upon their ears the tidings burst, Then stamped him on their hearts. AN OCTOBER RAMBLE. A GLORIOUS afternoon: the moving shades Have wheeled their slow half-circles, pointing now Toward the sunshiny east; a shadowy haze Trembles amid the azure overhead, Deepening to purple at the horizon's skirts. Nature is smiling sweetly, and my feet Are wandering in the pleasant woods once more. Keen nights have told of Winter on his way, And Autumn from the dark gaunt trees has drawn (Save a few shreds upon the beech and oak) His gorgeous robe, and cast it o'er the earth For Indian Summer's glimmering form to rest Awhile upon it, ere the blighting frost And muffling snow. More golden is the sun Than in its summer radiance, and it throws Its charm on all around. Along this path I tread, light-hearted, glad to be alone With Nature. Beautiful and grand art thou! Man with his passions dims thy light, his voice Jars with thy sounds, his walls and towers but mar Thy proud, exhaustless glory. Solitude, With its soft, dreamy silence, is the mate The fittest for thee, visible smile of God. AN OCTOBER RAMBLE. 93 I gaze around me: trunks and boughs and leaves! The robin on yon dog-wood's branch I see Picking the crimson berries; now and then The flicker drops his hammer on the bark, And the soft echo starts, as breaks on high The hoarse voice of the sluggish passing crow. My foot stirs up the oval butternut From the dead leaves, its dark brown tinged with gold, And strewed around this old oak's knotted roots Are acorn chalices, with braided sides, Left by the fays to fill their depths with dew For the next moonlight revel on the moss. That strange awakener at Winter's verge, The low witch-hazel, shows its yellow stars Curled thick along its boughs; yon tall, slim plant Dangles with blossoms, like a Chinese tower Pendent with bells; and this blue gentian, tight Has twisted the fringed rim of its long cup, To keep from frost the topaz set within. The air is richest perfume from the fern, Sweetest when dying, like a virtuous life Diffusing its example at its close. I pluck a branch: what delicate tracery Of veins minute! and see upon its back The seeds, in brown and regular array Secreted, as the partridge hides her young Under her wings. Yon aster, that displayed A brief while since its gorgeous bloom, has now Around the shells that multiply its life .94 AN OCTOBER RAMBLE. Woven soft downy plumes. How wonderful And perfect is thy care, 0 Thou most high Creator, Father, God! The flower and man Protected equally by Thee. The woods Are left, and hills and glades and fields are round. Yon piny knoll, thick covered with the brown Dead fringes, in the sunshine's bathing flood Looks like dark gold. From every tip of grass And plant, a web of gossamer is stretched Far as the eye can see, with varying hues Shooting and shifting quick along the threads. The sun now rests upon the western ridge That seems dissolving in a golden haze Where rests his blazing circle: as he sinks, The haze melts off; rich purple clothes the mount, The brief gray twilight brings the scattered stars, And soon upwheels the full broad Hunter's moon, Shedding her affluent silver o'er the earth. A CONTRAST. A LAKE lies slumbering in the wild-wood depths, Picturing naught upon its polished glass But the long-stretching and contracting shades That change as change the hours: its sillen tones Blending but with the forest's daylight songs And midnight howlings; o'er the leafy waste Curls a light thread of smoke,- a hunter's fire; And mid the lilies' floating golden globes, Spangling the margin, where the ripples play And melt in silver, rocks his bark canoe. A few years circle by. The talisman Of toil has waved above this forest-scene. Rich meadows, spotted with dense waving woods, Slope to the sunlit surface of the lake, Whose dashings mingle with the village-din, And rural low and bleat. Where curled that smoke Glitter white walls, and cluster roofs of men, With terraced gardens, leaning to the wave, Religion rearing spires, and Learning, domes To the bright skies that arch this Eden-spot. The rude canoe has vanished, but swift keels Move joyous o'er the smiling, sparkling flood That lies in calm obedience at the feet Of those that freed it from its dungeon-shades. THE FALLS OF THE MONGAUP.1 STRUGGLING along the mountain path, We hear, amid the gloom, Like a roused giant's voice of wrath, A deep-toned, sullen boom: Emerging on the platform high, Burst sudden to the startled eye Rocks, woods, and waters, wild and rude, A scene of savage solitude. Swift as an arrow from the bow, Headlong the torrent leaps, Then tumbling round, in dazzling snow And dizzy whirls it sweeps; Then, shooting through the narrow aisle Of this sublime cathedral pile, Amid its vastness, dark and grim, It peals its everlasting hymn. Pyramid on pyramid of rock Tower upward wild and riven, 1 The Falls of the Mongaup are in Sullivan county, New York, in the heart of the forest. THE FALLS OF THE MONGAUP. 97 As piled by Titan hands to mock The distant smiling heaven. And where its blue streak is displayed, Branches their emerald network braid So high, the eagle in his flight Seems but a dot upon the sight. Here columned hemlocks point in air Their cone-like fringes green; Their trunks hang knotted, black, and bare, Like spectres o'er the scene; Here, lofty crag and deep abyss, And awe-inspiring precipice; There, grottos bright in wave-worn gloss, And carpeted with velvet moss. No wandering ray e'er kissed with light This rock-walled sable pool, Spangled with foam-gems thick and white, And slumbering deep and cool; But where yon cataract roars down, Set by the sun, a rainbow, crown Is dancing o'er the dashing strife, — Hope glittering o'er the storm of life. Beyond, the smooth and mirrored sheet So gently steals along, The very ripples, murmuring sweet, Scarce drown the wild bee's song; VOL. I. 7 98 THE FALLS OF THE MONGA UP. The violet from the grassy side Dips its blue chalice in the tide; And, gliding o'er the leafy brink, The deer, unfrightened, stoops to drink. Myriads of man's time-measured race Have vanished from the earth, Nor left a memory of their trace, Since first this scene had birth; These waters, thundering now along, Joined in Creation's matin-song; And only by their dial-trees Have known the lapse of centuries A DREAM. A SIMPLE sprig of myrtle! As the stem, Clustered with dark-green glossy leaves, was placed Within my grasp, gay visions and bright scenes Thronged round me as by magic; the soft spell Of music had been cast upon my soul, Melting it with delicious cadences Dying upon the ear, or with swift flights Bearing it upward, as on wings, to heaven. Beautiful forms were floating in the dance; Beings, whose looks of radiant loveliness Were blended, like the rainbow, in one blaze Of ravishing splendor: here, the laughing eye Tinged with the hue that robes the violet; And there, the large bright orb of ebony Kindling quick flame where'er its glances fell. Yet, as I gazed upon the glossy gift, The present vanished from me, and above The glowing, glorious sky of Italy,So glowing, and so glorious, Fancy well Might deem it the spread garment of the sun, - Shone in its beauty; olive vales spread out, And myrtle bowers sprung round me; ivied walls And mouldering columns stood before my eye: 100 A DREAM. While, in the distance, like a sapphire, gleamed Bright Maggiore dotted with its isles. I lived, I breathed in that rich purple clime, Where Life's bright cup is brimmed with sparkling joys, That steep the soul in deepest happiness. And then I thought those beautiful dark eyes Beaming beside me, full of light and soul, Were glittering underneath that brilliant heaven, Which the magnificent southern moon had made One sheet of silver; and that clustering hair, Black as the raven's plumage, was entwined With Italy's green myrtle wreaths and flowers; And the sweet tones of that infectious laugh Were sounding o'er the spangled waters, blent With the low music of the light guitar, As the swift gondola darted on its way. And then the vision changed. I was in Spain. Slopes, mantled with their vineyards, rose around; The lemon gleamed, a spot of gold, among Its polished foliage; streams, like silvery threads, Glittered mid bordering. spires; while high, afar, The Pyrenees, like giant-monarchs stood, With crowns of silver, and with purple robes, As if to guard this scene of loveliness. The air seemed peopled with the gay Antique That witnessed the Alhambra in its pride, Grenada's golden towers, and all the bright And gorgeous scenes of vanished chivalry. A DREAM. 101 Within a pleasant glade, upon whose grass The cork-tree threw its shadow, I beheld A group of peasants dancing. Then I thought Thy buoyant, graceful step was bounding free Within the mazes of that merry dance To the light clicking of the castanet: And as the hours flew by, and radiant Day Sank prostrate on the snow of some high peak, With crimson mantle, and with golden plume, While boughs gave birth to shadows, and the air, Rich with the orange fragrance, bore along The silvery ringing of the Spanish bell From some far convent, and the vesper hymn Floated o'er Guadalquiver's glittering breast; I deemed that thou wert straying by the side Of that weird stream, whose sands are made of gold, Like that of olden fable, listening deep To the wild tales of those high passionate hearts, That beat so fiercely in the battle-storm, And throbbed so fondly to the thoughts of love. And as the Eve rose darkling from the West, And looked upon thee with her diamond eye, Palpable images of those days came: The turbaned Moor upon his war-steed bore His lance in rest, and on his breast his lyre; Pennon, and scarf, and falchion flashed; the knight Knelt at the feet of his fair "ladye-love," Castles frowned blackly o'er the mountain-pass, 102 A DREAM. And palaces gleamed brightly in the sun. The vision thus was glowing, wrapping up My thoughts and feelings, when a jesting word Uttered by some gay passer-by, destroyed The fairy happy spell, and I awoke. The waltz was circling by me, and again Music, with her invisible feet, now crept Slowly and softly, and now bounded high With her gay promptings, and I dream'd no more. BRADY'S LEAP. The following incident occurred in the year 1780. The individual referred to was Captain Samuel Brady, a noted hunter and Indian fighter, in the region about the Ohio River. A STRIPE of sky its sunshine threw Upon a sylvan glade, On which the circling forest drew Its pictured shapes of shade;'Twas spotted with low thickets, where Throbbed the faint pulses of the air, Beatings of Nature's sleep; Beside, no motion of a thing, Nor chirp, nor flutter of a wing, Came o'er the stillness deep. But now, far shouts and steps were heard Within the forest's breast, Approaching nearer, till the bird Flew frightened from its nest; Till bough, and moss, and grass were rife With myriad throngs of tiny life Circling and murmuring round; And the whole scene, so lately still, In leaping forms and voices shrill, Woke startled at the sound. 104 BRA DYS LEAP. With laugh, and yell of joy, and hate, A savage group burst in, Like demons met to celebrate A festival of sin. Some stripped a neighboring sapling bare, Some dragged and bound a white man there, And round him branches piled; While all keen knife and hatchet grasped, With eyes that glowed, and breasts that gasped To hold their orgies wild. Maddening for their fierce revelry, Still nearer pressed the throng, Then burst in horrid mocking glee Loud whoop and boisterous song. Woman's shrill tones and Manhood's shout And childish shrieks rang echoing out, Upon the sunny air; But not a fear the lone one shook; He glanced around with lofty look, Undarkened by despair. Through the piled boughs red streaks of flame Like darting serpents ran, Still not a tremor thrilled the frame Of that bound, helpless man. He viewed, with calm and equal breath, The flashing curls of coming death; The same in soul as though His deadly rifle still he bore, BRADYS LEAP. 105 A dauntless hunter warrior, With bosom to the foe. Now to the chant, in circling dance Writhed every bounding limb, And every fiend-like countenance Grew still more black and grim; Some whirled their hatchets round his head With starting eyeballs burning red, And teeth with rage that gnashed; Some scorched his shrinking skin with brands, Or, blood-drops spirting o'er their hands, With knives his bosom gashed. At length a mother, at whose breast A trembling infant clung, Close to the suffering victim pressed With loud and scornful tongue. A hope flashed o'er him: quick as thought, With giant grasp the child he caught And hurled it in the blaze; Then, as all rushed to where it lay, He snapped the shrivelling thongs away, And vanished from their gaze. Now, hunter, urge thy fleet career! Let not a muscle fail, Like wolves that scent the flying deer, Swift feet are on thy trail; Dash through the thicket, -leap the mound, 106 BRADY'S LEAP. Thy foemen's shoutings nearer sound, - On, on, pause not for breath! A shot has grazed that sheltering tree; Rush down this steep declivity! For close behind is death. Within the clustering swamp he springs To seek some darkened nook, Now by the pendent hemlock swings Across the laurel-brook. The bear from covert, snorting, wakes, The snake his warning rattle shakes, But on the hunter flies; Breathless he climbs the broken hill, Below, the foemen follow still, And still their war-whoops rise. But now upon the burdened air Creeps a low, steady roar; The Cuyahoga tumbles there, Hope lights his breast once more. He knows the spot: through narrow rocks The torrent beats with billowy shocks,A war-horse clothed with white, Thundering along its curbless way, Flinging its mane-like showers of spray Athwart the yawning night. One glance: above the hill's steep edge Ascending war-plumes float; BRADY'S LEAP. 107 He bounds to where a dizzy ledge Juts o'er the torrent's throat; Nerving his strength one instant there, His leaping figure cuts the air, The dread ravine is passed; And, as the baffled foemen shrink From the black chasm's terrific brink, His heart beats free at last. Thick, screening branches, as they fly, Turn off the whizzing balls; And now along the western sky The gold-fringed sunset falls. And soon he saw Night's mantle black Folded around his forest track, With friendly stars to guide; And when Morn wove her dappled woof, He sat beneath his cabin roof With glad ones at his side. THE MILL. BESIDE the narrow road that, winding, leads From the broad arched highway, the humble mill Rears its red-gabled front. The forest round Has fallen beneath the axe, to shape the nook For the sharp-pointed roof, and wood-built dam Bridling the swampy streamlet to a pond, Scattered with dead, jagged trees and splintered stumps, And floating logs, round which the frothy scum And drooping weeds are gathered. Stagnant, still, And gloomy seems the wide-spread sheet, what time The sliding gate is lowered: the slimy flume Looks dark; the waters trickle o'er the dam, Or gush from some wide fissure; and the mill Is left to deepest silence. But when morn, Bringing the daily task, uplifts the gate, The scene, like magic, changes: the smooth pond Breaks into slanting lines; the scum whirls round; The rough, black logs sail, jostling, and the weeds Stream in the dancing ripples; through the flume The waters rush in foam, the dusky wheel Whirls its huge circle, as the dashing flood Leaps on its buckets; grate and hum succeed Throughout the structure till the daylight dies. THE MILL. 109 We enter in: a thin white dust is spread O'er walls, and bin, and floor; huge swelling sacks Here, prone, or leaning each on each; there, raised By sinewy hands on brawny backs, and brought With staggering efforts to the porch, where stand The broad-wheeled wagon, and the dozing steeds, That now and then arouse to pick amid The hay-mounds at their feet. The miller, bluff And bustling, powdered thickly o'er with white, Pours from the measure the bright golden corn, Or dark brown buckwheat, in the hopper broad,A level mass that in its midst soon shows A hollowed spot, as swift the particles Drop to the crushing, grinding stones beneath,Till, funnel-shaped, the sliding load appears, And the light grains at last whirl round the mouth Of the deep passage, and quick disappear. From the long tube, within the box beneath, Streams the warm flour in readiness for the sack, And a strong odor breathes like smitten flint, Through the dim, dusty air. Familiar, rude, And known to all, this picture of the mill. Let all, then, heed the lesson. Industry Hews its own place amid this crowded world; And, standing in its humble path, sheds round Life, comfort, by its presence. With a hand That tires not, and a soul that never faints, It brings prosperity around its home, And glads the bosom with perpetual smiles. THE FOREST TEMPLE. GRAND pomp of the Wilderness! solemn and wild, Magnificent temple, for Solitude piled! Its columns the rocks, and its canopy, sky; Its huge mountain-altar reared proudly on high. Round circle the Seasons: Spring dances along, — It is breathing with fragrance and vocal with song; Its grass-carpet lifts to the steps of her showers; At the *wand of her sunbeam come thronging its flowers. Bright, beautiful Summer her thick garland weaves, And its depths are made dim with her mantle of leaves;. There is dancing of shadows in ebony gloss, And gold-slants and sprinkles on blossom and moss. Gay alchemist Autumn transmutes, and behold! The emerald changed to rich crimson and gold; There is glitter of gems, —a proud blazon of hues, And silver mist forming, to melt with the dews; The moon's splendor streams with more pomp from on high, And the star-clusters glow. with more light in the sky. Wild Winter on rushes, ice-crystals its mail, THE FOREST TEMPLE. 111 His war-steed the tempest; his arrows the hail; The temple stands blighted and mute at his glance, The glitter has faded, and past is the dance, Till Spring, with her soft looks and sweet smiles, again Breathes joy, as the Despot abandons his-reign. And music, sweet music, the temple gives forth When Winter has reached his stern home in the North: The torrent-like stream, as, mad-foaming, it bounds, Loud raises, unceasing, its organ-like sounds; There are voices of birds, and a murmur of bees, And soft-strains of wind-harps breathed low through the trees, And thunder o'er-rolling, and launching its crash, And the strong sheeted rains, as fierce downward they dash, And the wild blast, as onward it rages and shoots, Whirling boughs from their trees, -wrenching trees from their roots, The bird-song,- the blast hymn, - the chant of the flood, Sent upward in praise to their Maker and God. And other sounds forth, too, this temple hath cast, Sounds loud as the thunder, and fierce as the blast; When Tyranny's hordes, grasping fetters, were led O'er a region that shuddered with wrath at their tread; 112 THE FOREST TEMPLE. In an air that grew black, as their banners it fanned, Till the fierce storm of Vengeance thick curtained the land.'Twas the war-shout of Freedom! and echoed by men She poured down from mountain and rallied in glen, As proudly.she spread her pure flag for'the fray, And her young Eagle stretched his strong wings on her way. Oh, what though to earth that starred banner was cast! Oh, what though those wings were crushed down by the blast! Brave hearts bore that banner, -'t was lifted anew; High hopes cheered those pinions,-more lofty they flew; Till Victory, loud as the roar of the sea, In heart-bursts were shouted by men that were Free! FOURTH OF JULY ODE. OH, what is that sound swelling loudly on high Wherever our land shows its boundless dominions, And uncurbed with the Stars and the Stripes, in the sky Borne aloft by our flag, spreads our Eagle his pinions!'Tis an Empire's glad strain! The Free, hailing again The day, when their sires trod on sceptre and chain And proudly their sons will remember this day, Till the last wave of time bears its glories away. Oppression strode on; the cloud gathered o'erhead, And Freedom beheld him, with scorn, from. her' station, Our Eagle's fierce eye blazed with wrath at his tread, Till the day that our land reared its front as a Nation. Then the red lightning sprung, Then the thunder-burst rung,'Twas the eye-flash of Freedom,- the sound of her tongue: Then proudly her sons will remember this day, Till the last wave of time bears its glories away. VOL. I. 8 114 FOURTH OF JULY ODE. In its field stood the plough; the axe ceased in the wood; From his log cabin gladly the wild hunter sallied; From city and glen, throngs were poured like a flood, To the flag where the ranks of the valiant were rallied. Oh, let Bunker's red height And let Trenton's wild fight Tell how nobly our sires bled and died for the right: Then proudly their sons will remember this day, Till the last wave of time bears its glories away. On no happier clime than this broad land of ours, Does the sun his bright smiles of beneficence render; From dark storms and bleak snows, to rich skies and sweet flowers, Our flag, our proud flagj streams in starred and striped splendor; Then with shouts of acclaim, And with bosoms of flame, Let us honor those sires whence our liberties came: And proudly their sons will remember this day, Till the last wave of time bears its glories away, THE BEECH-TREE. DROPPED by the wind-kissed parent-spray, The brown nut, whence the beech-tree's birth, Down trodden by the rabbit, lay Forming within the forest earth. Urged by its secret principle, At length from out its perished shell The sprout sought light and air; And by the nibbling fawn unseen Its downy stem grew firm and green, And rose a sapling there. Its roots stretched out - its branches spread,Thickened its trunk, until on high Covered with leaves, its lofty head Made fretwork of its spot of sky. A wand the robin bent, now stood The giant monarch of the wood, Where paused the eagle's flight; Once trembling at the slightest breath, It now scarce deigned to stir, beneath The tempest's fiercest might. The deer, amid its cool green gloom, Sought refuge from the noontide heat, 116 THE BEECH-TREE. And sounding in its leafy dome The thrasher's warbled notes were sweet. The sunbeams scarce could find their way Through its thick screen, their dots to lay Upon the roots below That wreathed deep mossy nooks, where led The quail her brood, when Winter spread His chilling robes of snow. And Nature's jewels,-radiant things, Loved the green sylvan place; the bee, Turning to harps its quivering wings, With arrowy straightness sought the tree. Floated the yellow butterfly, A wandering spot of sunshine, by; And, nestling in its moss, The sky-tinged violet's fairy cup Its draught of fragrance offered up To airs that stole across. Its branches formed the panther's lair When waiting for his deadly leap, And in its hollowed trunk, the bear Coiled his black form in torpid sleep. Ages of Springs renewed its crown, Ages of Autumns cast it down, Till heaps on heaps were strown; Lichens crept up its furrowed side, Its very race of eagles died, But still it held its throne. THE BEECH-TREE. 117 But its time came: its figure drooped, Leaves smiled no more in vernal days, And threads of pale green moss were looped Around its dry and shrivelled sprays. It stood, a spectre gaunt and bare, Reaching a crooked arm in air, To court the lightning's dart; Until the tempest stooped, and cast Its red sulphureous bolt at last, And scorched it to the heart. Then as the gust came whirling round, It shook from root to pinnacle, And headlong, to the echoing ground It hurtling, crashing, thundering fell. Melting away, the fractured trunk To a green moss-mound slowly sunk, Until the soil crept o'er, And by its solemn mystery Took to itself the stately tree, Which once it proudly bore. A WALK TO TIVOLI.1 THE clouds are floating silver, and the sky So pure, the sight seems piercing up to heaven. Distance has hushed the city's ceaseless din; And now the warble of the robin sounds From the near orchard; and the patriarch trees, Shading the quaint old mansion with their leaves And eloquent with the memories of one2 Upon whom smiled the angels, fix the eye. Southward the river gleams; a snowy sail Now gliding o'er its mirror,-now a track Tossing with foam, displaying on its course The graceful steamer with its flag of smoke. Slopes swelling up in giant terraces Dotted with trees, or purpled with thick woods, With scattered roofs, and seamed with winding roads, Frame this rich, beautiful picture to the East. We leave the wheel-thronged thoroughfare; to the left Fresh springs the summer grass, and light and soft, It sinks beneath the footfall. Merrily Dances the streamlet mid its sloping banks, Now bright with dazzling jewelry, and now 1 A beautiful cascade in the Patroon's Creek, near Albany, N. Y. 2 The late Stephen Van Rensselaer. A WALK TO TIVOLI. 119 Darkening with leafy coverts; mark yon bird, Dipping its head and scattering silvery drops By the quick flutterings of its tiny wings. The quiet glade is passed, - the forest spreads Its leafy wall, and in it winds the path. Thick branches like a roof are stretched o'erhead, Through which the sunshine falls in broken streaks, And rains in golden sprinkles; here, the shade Is sketched in fanciful lacework, hiding scarce The chirping cricket; while its dense black mass Would shelter, there, the partridge. Mossy roots Are coiled around like serpents, and the fern Shows its rich fluted wreath mid withered leaves And sear red hemlock fringes, giving Earth Her principle of life; with quick shrill chirp Darts the striped squirrel in his fortress-bush, Leaving his acorn to my crushing foot. The odor of the dead wood scents the air, And the soft winnowing wind comes stealthily Breathing of sassafras. The branching path Here to the upland winds; there, plunges down The sheer rough bank, to skirt the curving marge Of the bright stream, whose waters pure and deep Now broaden to a creek, so wide, yon duck Skimming its surface dwindles in the midst To a faint speck, and now is lost to sight Upon its glossy sheet; below, a breath Might urge the insect on its leaf across, 120 A WALK TO TIVOLI. So narrow winds the passage; here, the oar Could freely dip, the canvas waft the bark Before the breeze loud rushing through the pines. We leave the shadowy woods; a lovely glade Opens upon us, and a deep-toned sound Shakes on the ear; it is the organ-voice Of the hurled waters scattered o'er their rocks In streaks of plunging foam, while high above The twisted fir-tree slants as though to pitch Headlong below. The glade lies smooth and green, Spangled with flowers, and gay with glancing shapes And musical with songs, while on the eye The ripples cast quick darts of blinding light. Oh for the raven-haired and dark-eyed one! To make this radiant scene more beautiful With her sweet presence; the bright sunshine then Would glow more brightly, and this forest-rose Breathe out a richer fragrance; the green grass Would rise up greener from her fairy tread, And I would be in heaven; a star would then Gild my heart's depths with pure and holy ray, And in the soul bright beaming from her eye sMy spirit would find hope, and joy, and peace. THE ISLAND. UPON a narrow river-flat The sunset falls in streaking glow; Here, the mown meadow's velvet plat, And there, the buckwheat's scented snow. A cluster of low roofs is prest Against the mountain's leaning breast. But each rude porch is closed and barred: For tenderest Youth and Age alone Are left those humble roofs to guard, Till Day resumes his blazing throne. Where deepest shade the forest flings, The hunters seek that forest's game; Men tireless as the eagle's wings, Of dauntless heart and iron frame. The sparkling Beaverkill beside,l Benighted in their wanderings wide, They merry dress the slaughtered deer, And make the twilight ring with cheer Now chorus of the woods, -now tale Of panther-fight and Indian trail, 1 A romantic stream in Sullivan county, emptying into the Delaware. 122 THE ISLAND. Till the rude group, the camp-fire round, Crouch with their rifles, on the ground. Where wide the branch-linked river spreads, Near rapids swift, a fairy isle, Three leagues above those mountain-sheds, Looks like a sweet perpetual smile. The muskrat burrows in its sides, Down its steep slopes the otter slides; The splendid sheldrake, floating, feeds In his close haunts amid the reeds; Around its sandy points, all day, Watches and wades the crane for prey; While show its shallows lily-robes Of heart-shaped leaves and golden globes. Above the mountain hamlet, fade Eve's tints, and darkness spreads its shade; Their pointed tops the cedars rear Against the starlight bright and clear. Then come the many sounds and sights Usual in forest summer-nights: At intervals, the flitting breeze Draws soft, low sobbings from the trees; From the deep woods, in transient float, Tinkles the whetsaw's double note; The wakeful frog, unceasing, groans; Twang the mosquito's hungry tones, And echoing sweetly, on the hill, Whistles the sorrowing whippoorwill; THE ISLAND. 123 From the cleft pine the gray owl hoots, Swells from the swamp the wolf's long cry, And, now and then, a meteor shoots And melts within the spangled sky. The fire-fly opes and shuts its gleam, The cricket chirps, the tree-toad crows; And hark! the cougar's distant scream Afar the mountain echo throws. What forms are those that crouch and creep Around those roofs of happy sleep? The dim light falling from the sky Displays the tomahawk and knife: Awake, awake within that lie In guardless rest, and arm for strife! In vain: before each lowly porch The savage grasps his glaring torch. One moment,- then the warwhoops swell Wild, fierce, terrific, yell on yell. With blood cold curdling to the heart, The inmates from their slumbers start; They wake, to hear the climbing flames Roaring around their dwelling-frames, - To see within the ruddy glare The fierce foe mocking their despair. The mother clasps her shrivelling child, And shrieks her anguish shrill and wild; In strangling wreaths the old sire dies; They hush the maiden's frantic cries, 124 THE ISLAND. And matron gray and youthful bride Burn in slow torture side by side. What mean those clouds of rising smoke That streak the morning's dappled sky? Alas, the ghastly sight that broke Upon each hunter's home-turned eye! A heap of smouldering ashes now Is seen beneath the mountain's brow; While cindered bones and limbs round spread In blackened fragments, tell the dead. Another sunset, crouching low Upon a rising pile of cloud, Bathes deep the island with its glow, Then shrinks behind its gloomy shroud. From the sweet isle, loud chant and shout Upon the heavy air ring out; Rolling the twilight hours along In orgies fierce, of dance and song, The Indian warriors celebrate Their last night's deed of vengeful hate, Until the deep and frequent bowl Has drowned in sleep each savage soul. Trees plume the islet's utmost bound, And tangled brushwood clothes the ground; The leaves hang wilted on the sprays, By the fierce drought of August dried, THE ISLAND. 125 Until a spark might whelm in blaze That fairy islet's forest pride. Deep midnight; - loud the storm-wind's roar; The hunters to the margin drew; And every brawny shoulder bore The burden of a light canoe. What though on high before the blast, The clouds, like sable waves, roll past, They scorn the tempest's howling rage; Thoughts not of fear their minds engage, But deep revenge on those that shed Such bitter sorrow on their head. The barks are launched; they plunge and toss, Like bubbles on the swells are cast; But strong arms urge their flight across, The hunters reach the isle at last. They listen: loud the ceaseless crash With which the rapids onward dash; And deep the stern and steady roar Of the thick pines on either shore; But on the isle, no human sound Blends with the tempest's voices round. Exhausted with their orgies, prone To earth each savage form is thrown, With not a guardian eye to keep Its watch above that helpless sleep. At narrow spaces round the isle Each wary hunter rears his pile; 126 THE ISLAND. Formed of the leaves and branches, cast Beneath in myriads by the blast, The loose sear masses stand on high,The smitten flints the sparks supply; The kindled flames like lightnings leap, A furnace seems each glowing heap, And guided by the light, once more The barks are pointed to the shore. Through the thick smoke break streaks of red; To lurid masses quick they spread; Each tree points up, a crimson spire; Below, fierce rolling surges gleam, Until a glaring isle of fire Crackles and roars upon the stream. Keen ears are listening on the shore With vengeful joy to that dread roar, And watchful eyes beholding there Those billows tossing in the air. Once to their sight a figure came, Wrapped in a sheet of clinging flame, And with a shrill and horrid scream, Plunged headlong in the dashing stream. Morn glows: there hangs a brooding pall Over that islet, shrouding all; The pigeon from his perch on shore His monotone coos o'er and o'er; The thrasher in the tamarack Calls echo up in varied sound, THE ISLAND. 127 And gliding on his run-way track The shy deer seeks his grazing-ground. Tones on the sprays, scents on the winds! Each thing of Nature pleasure finds In the bright beams- the sweet bland airSave that black smoking isle, Changed to a waste of deep despair, From its sweet radiant smile. THE PIONEER. THROUGH the deep wilderness, where scarce the sun Can cast his darts, along the winding path The Pioneer is treading. In his grasp Shines his keen axe, that wondrous instrument, That, like the fabled talisman, transforms Deserts to fields and cities. He has left The home in which his early years were passed, And led by hope, and full of restless strength, Has plunged within the forest, there to plant His destiny. Beside some rapid stream He rears his log-walled cabin. When the chains Of winter fetter Nature, and no sound Disturbs the echoes of the dreary woods, Save when some stem cracks sharply with the frost, Then merrily rings his axe, and tree on tree Crashes to earth; and when the long keen night Mantles the wilderness in solemn gloom, He sits beside his ruddy hearth, and hears The wolf fierce snarling'at the cabin door, Or through the lowly casement sees his eye Gleam like a burning coal. Spring's out-post, March, Before the wood-snows melt, with warm bright days THE PIONEER. 129 And frosty nights, calls up the kindly sap From the hard maple's roots; with care he wounds The seamy bark, and drop by drop wells out The sweet and limpid fluid, and his art Fashions the rich dark sugar. Now in piles The prostrate trees are drawn, and upward flash The fallow fires; and when the fiery storm Has died in ashes, and the earth has cooled, His voice sounds cheerly as the gliding plough Turns the loose soil between the blackened stumps. Then to the kindly earth and elements Is left the harrowed seed. Time passes on, And rich green tinges show the rising grain. And when the autumn film is in the air, Stalks, long and slender, rippling to the breeze, And nodding, plump with wealth, reward the toil Of the unwearied sower. The low barn Receives the tawny loads, while in the fields Points the hay-barrack. As the gradual smile Thus steals, with brightening change, o'er Nature's face, From the far settlement he brings in joy A partner to his hearth. Years roll along. Where stood the hut, a white walled cottage now Looks through its screen of roses. Meadows stretch With grain fields round. A village clusters near, In whose broad street is heard a mingled din Of saw and hammer, wagon-wheel and voice. By the swift streamlet hums the busy mill, VOL. I. 9 130 THE PIONEER. And whirrs the bustling, long-roofed factory. As the low sinking sun with magic brush Paints the rich scene in stripes of black and gold, Beneath the tree, where, through the first long night He slept upon the spot his watch-fire blazed To guard him from the panther, smiling sits The white-haired Pioneer, while round him throng Manhood and youth, and merry infancy, Those whom his parent-hand had reared, and those That call him grandsire. Far and wide he sees The wonders he has caused: the bloom-the life Which glanced in broken visions through his brain That night beneath the branches: and as dips The sun within the west, he humbly hopes His sun will sink as gently to the tomb, And rise as brightly to eternal day. The Spirit of our land, personified, Is the bold Pioneer: that Spirit strong And restless, which hath mowed its sinewy way Along the forests, since the primal tree Stooped to the axe-blow. Onward still it moves. The Mississippi long hath heard its song, The dark Missouri in her windings far Hath borne its bark. Across the boundless plains That roll their billows to " The Shining Heights," It wandering treads. The sentry prairie-dog Alarms the burrowed city with his cry At its approaching form. The wild Pawnee, Borne like the wind upon his fiery steed, THE PIONEER. 131 Spearing the buffalo, with wonder sees Its brow of ashy hue. The trapper rude, Snaring the beaver by its lonely pond, Melts into tears as accents he had known In boyhood meet his ear. The snowy peaks Are passed, and still it struggles dauntless on, Following the sun, till broad Pacific's breast Shall gird its progress, and proclaim its bounds. THE FRESHET. A LEGEND OF THE DELAWARE. MARCH hath unlocked stern Winter's chain; Nature is wrapped in misty shrouds, And ceaselessly the drenching rain Drips from the gray, sky-mantling clouds; The deep snows melt, and swelling rills Pour through each hollow of the hills; The river from its rest hath risen, And bounded from its shattered prison; The huge ice-fragments onward dash, With grinding roar and splintering crash; Swift leap the floods upon their way, Like war-steeds thundering on their path, With hoofs of waves and manes of spray, Restrainless in their mighty wrath. Wild mountains stretch in towering pride Along the river's either side; Leaving between it and their walls Narrow and level intervals. When Summer glows, how sweet and bright The landscape smiles upon the sight? THE FRESHET. Here, the bright golden wheat-fields vie With the rich tawny of the rye; The buckwheat's snowy mantles, there, Shed honeyed fragrance on the air; In long straight ranks the corn uprears Its silken plumes and pennoned spears; The yellow melon, underneath Plump ripens, in its viny wreath; Here, the piled rows of new-mown grass; There, the potato-plant's green mass; All framed by woods,-each limit shown By zigzag rail, or wall of stone; Contrasting, here, within the shade, The axe a space hath open laid, Cumbered with trees hurled blended down, Their verdure changed to withered brown; There, the soil, ashes-strewed and black, Shows the red flame's devouring track; Slim fire-weeds shooting thick where stood The leafy monarchs of the wood: A landscape frequent in the land, Which Freedom, with her gifts to bless, Grasping the axe when sheathing brand, Hewed from the boundless wilderness. The rains have ceased: the struggling glare Of sunset lights the misty air; The fierce winds sweep the myriad throng Of broken ragged clouds along; From the rough saw-mill, where hath rung, 133 ~134 THE FRESHET. Through all the hours, its grating tongue, The raftman sallies, as the gray Of evening tells the flight of day, And slowly seeks with loitering stride, His cabin by the river side. As twilight darkens into night, Still dash the waters in their flight, Still the ice-fragments, thick and fast, Shoot like the clouds before the blast. Beyond-the sinuous channel wends Through a deep, narrow gorge, and bends With curve so sharp, the drifting ice, Hurled by the flood's tremendous might, Piles the opposing precipice, And every fragment swells the height; Hour after hour uprears the wall, Until a barrier huge and tall Breasts the wild waves that vain upswell To overwhelm the obstacle: They bathe the alder on the verge, The leaning hemlock now they merge, The stately elm is dwindling low Within the deep ingulfing flow, Till curbed thus in its headlong flight, With its accumulated might, The river, turning on its track, Rolls its broad-spreading volumes back. The raftman slumbers; through his dream THE FRESHET. 135 Distorted visions wildly stream: Now in the wood his axe he swings, And now his saw-mill's jarring rings; Now his huge raft is shooting swift Cochecton's wild, tumultuous rift, Now floats it on the ebon lap Of the grim shadowed Water Gap, And now't is tossing on the swells Fierce dashing down the slope of Wells. The rapids crash upon his ear, The deep sounds roll more loud and near, They fill his dream, - he starts, -- he wakes! The moonlight through the casement falls, Ha! the wild sight that on him breaks,The floods sweep round his cabin-walls. Beneath their bounding, thundering shocks The frail log fabric groans and rocks; Crash, crash! the ice-bolts round it shiver; The walls like blast-swept branches quiver; His wife is clinging to his breast, The child within his arm is prest, He staggers through the chilly flood That numbs his limbs, and checks his blood. On, on he strives: the waters lave Higher his form with every wave; They steep his breast, on each side dash The splintered ice with thundering crash; A fragment strikes him; ha! he reels; That shock in every nerve he feels; Faster, bold raftman, speed thy way, 136 THE FRESHET. The waves roar round thee for their prey; The cabin totters, - sinks,- the flood Rolls its mad surges where it stood: Before thy straining sight, the hill Sleeps in the moonlight, bright and still. Falter not, falter not, struggle on, That goal of safety may be won; Heavily droops thy wife with fear, Thy boy's shrill shriekings fill thine ear; Urge, urge thy strength to where out-fling Yon cedar branches for thy cling. Joy, raftman, joy! thy need is past, The wished-for goal is won at last. Joy, raftman, joy! thy quick foot now Is resting on the upland's brow. Praise to high Heaven! each knee is bent, And every heart in prayer of grateful love is blent. ONNAWAH. AWAY from Man's close haunts, his toils and cares, And mean ambitions. In the deepest core Of the free wilderness, a crystal sheet Expands its mirror to the trees that crowd Its sloping borders. Oft in life's green spring My foot hath wandered to its lovely side, That Nature's purity might cleanse my heart From stains of human contact, as a wind Clears from the sky its clouds. A morn in June. A hood of gray is o'er. The waters sleep, — A plain of glass. Through the thick, heavy air Far echoes ring. A dampness slight, that steals Across the brow, foretells the misty rain From the cold east. With swift and gladsome step I bend my way to where upon a bank Stands a rude hut of logs. Black stumps are round, The red-stemmed buckwheat struggling up between, And the bright rye slim lengthening into stalks. Here dwells an aged hermit of the wild. His keen black eye and tinted skin proclaim An Indian fountain to his blood, and taught By Nature only, here his days have passed. 138 ONNA WAH. His linden-scooped canoe is launched, and forth We glide upon the lake. Each paddle-dash Wakens an echo. Quick the slender pike Shoots from the surface like a scaly dart, His splashing fall loud smiting on the ear. Light breaking bubbles tell of finny sports On every hand, while in the mottled depths Along the side of our canoe, dark backs Glance like swift phantoms. Off a long low point Without the net of lily-stems, we drop The anchoring stone, and through the light-winged hours We ply our sport. The sunset glows, and then, As wearied we recline, the old man tells The legend of the lake. "Long years ago, An aged Indian with his only son Dwelt in yon hut,-the last of that great tribe Which kindled once their fires upon the spot Where the twin branches of the Delaware Glide into one, and in their language called Chihocken, or the Meeting of the Floods. Bright was this lake to gray-haired Onnawah, As those pure waters that the mind oft sees In the far spirit-land. The old bald pines Stood for his fathers; in the winds he heard The voice of her long perished, and the flowers Seemed smiling with his children's merry looks; His son, I say, was all that now remained Of his once crowded lodge. ONNA WA H. 139 One Autumn morn That son departed on a distant hunt. With broken rifle-lock he homeward bent His steps, and now upon a hill he paused To rest him from his toil. Beneath him lay The placid lake, so near, the fanning wind Could waft his lightest' crest-plume on its face. In the blue western smoke the beamless sun Was plunging, and the red tints of the lake Were paling into gray. Off this same point The sire was seated in his bark canoe, Luring the hungry pike. The old man's form Was touched by one slant ray that melted off Even as the son gazed on him. Sweet and still The peaceful scene, as though the holy smile Of the Great Spirit hallowed it. The son Felt his heart swell, and low he knelt to bless His Manitou that he had still a sire. Hark! a sharp cracking sound! a rifle-shot From the twined shore below. He started up. His sire had fallen with breast athwart the side Of the down-slanted bark; a tinge of blood Was on the glassy water. With a shout Of taunting triumph, forth a figure sprang From a deep thicket. At one glance the son That figure knew, —a pale-face who had lost The inmates of his hearth by one fierce sweep Of torch and tomahawk, but wielded not By those who had a kindred drop in veins Of sire or son; no, no,- I swear it, youth, 140 ONNA WA H. By the Great Spirit. But the pale-face vowed, Vowed to his God his stern revenge should seek All, all of Indian race. The son, I say, Knew the quick leaping form, and down he dashed With heart all flame, and feet like darting wings. The ruthless murderer had plunged within The ruffled water, and I —he-the son Leaped in his rippling track. His hand had touched The sacred head of my - the sire, with knife Keen for the scalp; but now the son was there. With one strong grasp I tore him from his hold, And clutched his throat; twice, twice I felt the thrill Of his cold piercing knife, but in that grasp My strength was centred. Out his eyeballs strained: Ha! ha! black grew his swelling features, forth His quivering tongue was thrust: ha! ha! his form Writhed like a snake's. With one hand then I seized His streaming hair, as I this lock, and bent The head down deep within the splashing waves, Till shudderings shook no more his nerveless frame, And the quick globules no more gurgled up To the red surface. Loosened from my clutch, Drooping, he sank, while to the rocking side Of the canoe that held the father's form, The son - youth, have I said't was I! - then clung, And climbed, though fainting with his wounds, within. The point was near, and with his precious load He slowly won his way, till o'er the sand He dragged, with staggering steps, his stiffening sire, And placed him in a pit an upturned pine ONNA WAH. 141 Had hollowed; heaped the form with withered leaves,. And then sank down to die. But not so willed Had the Great Spirit. A young hunter found The bleeding form, bound up the wounds, and bore The sufferer to the hut, and o'er him watched, Till life again ran freely in his veins. When he arose, within a fitting grave He placed his sire. Youth, seest thou yon green mound, O'er which the laurel hangs its chalice-flowers? There sits gray Onnawah, with calumet And knife and hatchet, waiting till the son Shall join him, and together they begin Their brierless journey to the spirit-land." THE HUNTER'S FLIGHT. SULTRY and close was the noontide air! The fire of August was burning there. No cloud sent shade, and no wind breathed sigh, To the thirsty earth, through the brassy sky; Even drooped, in the depths of the forest bowers, The shrivelling leaves and the shrinking flowers: And faintly, and slowly, the hunter strode By the blaze-tree and moss of his lonely road. He saw, as he looked through his narrow bound, But a red haze mantling each object around, So thick, that his footfall nearly trod On the black snake basking along the sod, And touched with his rifle the rabbit that crouched More close in the bush where it tremblingly couched; The gossamer motionless hung from the spray Where the weight of the dew-drop had torn it away; The rock, by the aspen, stood not more still Than those delicate leaves an air-whisper could thrill; And the seed of the thistle, that whisper could swing Aloft on its wheel, as though borne on a wing When the yellow-bird severed it, dipping across, THE HUNTER'S FLIGHT. 143 Its soft plumes unruffled, fell down to the moss. The foot of the hunter sunk deep in the mass Of green slime, which late gushed a clear brook, through the grass; And on, as he struggled, his breath came thick, And his limbs turned faint, and his spirit sick. Upon a prostrate, mossy trunk, At length the toil-worn hunter sunk. The insect's whirring clarion wound Up from the grass, with lulling sound; The quail's quick whistle echoed clear From the red buckwheat-stubble near; The drowsy murmur of the bee, The bird's low twitter from the tree, His beating pulses soothed, till sleep Stole on his eyelids, sweet and deep. Dreams hold their empire now: In the cool stream his lip is revelling deep, Round his hot skin the balmy breezes creep, Until the clammy hair sits lightly on his brow. Now on the mountain ledge With his fleet hound, he tracks the flying deer; And now,. with its loud thunders in his ear, He sends his skimming bark along the torrent's edge. More loudly swelled the torrent's sound, 144 THE HUNTER'S FLIGHT. It seemed to fill the air around, And wakening with a start of fear, That deep, stern roar still met his ear; Thick stifling smoke obscured his view With fiery spots fierce glaring through; Up a near summit sped his flight, There burst the scene upon his sight. An ocean of flame far was blazing and roaring, And, whirling and surging, swift onward was pouring; The forest was rocking and plunging below In a gulf, which each fall made more fiercely to glow; The tallest trees melted away like a breath As those waves circled on, full of horror and death; And. the ground seemed to crumble, while high over all Dense, black, and gigantic, smoke hung like a pall. As onward this cataract awful careered, The scene to the terrified hunter appeared Like a demon aroused, marching on in his ire, With trumpet of thunder and banner of fire. An instant gazed the hunter there, The instant whelmed in deep despair. Then bounding, he flew on his footstep of wind From the flames, that more fiercely came rolling behind. Red gleams were darting o'er his head; Like rain, the coals were round him shed, THE HUNTER'S FLIGHT. 145 And a huge pine beside him thundered, Blinding his sight with fragments sundered. As swifter speeds he, winged with fear, Hark! piercing howls come swelling near. With jaw of foam, and skin scorched black, And rolling eye, and bristling back, Tearing his flesh with pain and wrath, A panther bounds along his path. But now, quick silvery sparkles break Upon his eye: the lake —the lake — Bursts to his view; oh! cool and sweet The waters gurgle at his feet: One plunge in their crystal-the hunter laves His feverish limbs in the laughing waves, And he cleaves his way to the refuge before, Where the forest stands green on the opposite shore. On the moist soft verdure the hunter bends, His incense of thanks for his safety ascends. To the brink of the lake yawns the red abyss, Like serpents the flames on its edges hiss; But a gleam flashed o'er, more quick and keen Than the dart of the blaze in that burning scene, And a sound rolled by, more stern and deep Than the roar of that element's wildest sweep; The frowning storm-cloud's voice and eye Spreading his mantle across the sky. In thick gray sheets poured the drenching rain, And the flames shrank back with their greedy train, VOL. I. 10 146 THE HUNTER'S FLIGHT. Now cowering low, and now flashing high With a fitful start, to sink down and die. Still more fierce and more fast dashed the rain, till attired In his shroud of thick smoke, the red Demon expired. INDIAN CORN. WHEN the warm sunshine and the southern wind Have tinged the russet of the basking hills, And made warm sheltered nooks grow hourly green, - When buds swell on the boughs, and under banks, The eye is sweetly startled by the sight Of the -white violet, where, the day before, Its slender stem was hidden in the moss, — Come to the field where swift the rich dark soil Is curling into ridges, as the share Glides on its way. The tawny furrows now Fill the wide space. The yellow seeds are dropped, And the soft, earth is loosly mounded o'er. Sun-gleams and rain-streaks braided, hourly give Their generous influence. Once more to the field. Points of deep green are bristling on their hills,The infant plants. Each day rears up the shoots. Now cawings fill the air, as from the wood The thievish flock, swift flying, stoops below; And then black shapes are scattered in the green, Strutting and croaking, busily tearing up The tender roots, while slow along the fence The stealing farmer with his ready gun Scans keen his hoped-for prey. But lo! a croak 148 INDIAN CORN. From some high rail, and on broad skimming wing Darts the whole flock, with guttural chorus, off, Just as the gun is aiming. Next the dawn Falls gray and indistinct, upon a shape Gaudily decked within the cornfield's midst, Nodding its limbs to every breath of air. The crow commander, from the hemlock's top, Eyes the strange form askance; from greater height Still looks, and as the object yet remains, Leads off his legions to the neighboring field. But now the tall, slim stalks put forth long leaves, And while the summer brightens to its prime, Their heads are tipped with plumes, and frdm their sides, Fringes of yellow silk and long green cones Proclaim the swelling ears. The burning sun Pours down its withering fire, and up the stalks Still rise, the fringes deepen, and the ears Grow rounder, while the buckwheat in the heat Shrivels and blackens. Opal Autumn comes. The tops are sever'd, and the crackling sheaths Show, through the frequent rents, the thick-set grains Glazed into flinty gold. A few more days, And then brown stacks, the stubble spotting, tell The labor of the reaper. Soon the barn Groans with the toil-won treasures. When the blasts Of chill November warn that Winter, stern And fierce, is on his way, and fitfully Snow specks the harsh gray air, the freezing Night, INDIAN CORN. 149 Stiffening the frame of nature, knits anew The social ties within the kitchen walls, Kindled by the red tongue that fills the jaws Of the huge fireplace, with the ruddy gleams, Dancing on flitches from the rafters hung,On pumpkins ranged in rows along the floor, And on the pile of maize ears; merrily The husking group of youths and maidens ply Their sportive toil, loud laughing, as the jest Flies lightly round; while with a placid smile Old age looks on, and in its happiest'glee, Childhood sports round, pursuing now with shouts The frisking kitten, doubling up the ears Of the old crouching dog, or seeing through The window-pane the crimson phantom face Quivering upon the gloom without, awe-struck Into brief silence. Thus the hours pass by, Until the music of the violin Tells that the work is o'er, the dance begun. Then jolts the heavy wagon o'er the road, To the red mill, heaped up with rounded bags, And soon the golden flour pours warm from out The busy hopper. Now the precious grain Performs its grateful office: food for man, It lights the winter hearth with cheerfulness, Gladdens the heart, and causes it to raise Thanksgivings to the Holy One who grants Seed-time and harvest to His footstool earth. SKATING. THE thaw came on with its southern wind And misty drizzly rain; The hill-side showed its russet dress, Dark runnels seamed the plain; The snowdrifts melted off like breath, The forest dropped its load, The lake, instead of its mantle white, A liquid mirror showed; It seemed —so soft was the brooding fog, So fanning was the breeze - You'd meet with violets in the grass And blossoms on the trees. But shortly before the sundown, The gray and spongy clouds Began to break above the head And hurry away in crowds; The bland wind shifted to the west, Where a stripe of brassy light Glowed like the flame of a furnace, When the sun had passed from sight; And, in the fleeting twilight, cold And colder waxed the air, SKA TNG. Till it fell on the brow like the touch of ice, As the still night darkened there. Oh, bitter were the hours! and those Who, wakeful, marked them pass, Could hear the snap of table and chair And ring of breaking glass; Without, though the wind was quiet, Crack, crack, went the maple and oak, As if some mighty trampling power Those huge stems downward broke; The very wolf, the fierce, gaunt wolf, Though famishing, to his cave Crept shivering back, nor sought again, The deadly cold to brave. And morning glowed with a heartless sun And a heaven of harshest blue, And an air that pricked and stung the skin, As if darts invisible flew; But oh the sight, the radiant sight That broke upon the eye! Millions of sparkles danced around Of every varied dye; The boughs were steel, the roofs were steel, With icicles hanging down, Steel gave a helmet to the hill,To the mountain-top a crown. The lake, far, far, it stretched, no gem More pure, more clear and bright; i51 152 SKA TING. Solid as iron, and smooth as glass, It froze in a single night; When sunk the sun,'t was a watery waste, With ripples upon its gloss; When rose the sun,'t was a polished plain That a steed might safely cross; How free would glide the skate now: Hurrah for a pleasant day! To the lake-side, to the lake-side, Away, my boys, away. We bind our feet with their steely wings, And we launch along in glee; Hurrah, hurrah, how swift we go! No bird more swift than we; We hiss along our glittering path, The banks slide quickly by, The trees within spin round and round, And above is a gliding sky; The eagle is fleet, but we envy him not, Though all heaven is his domain, He cannot feel more eager joy Than we on this glassy plain. Beneath us glares the mottled ice With great white clefts athwart, Broke by the lake in its toil to breathe; Hark now to the sharp report! What a rumble is passing all over, A groan so hollow and deep, SKA TING. 153 Surely the lake is rent in twain: The heart gives fearful leap. No, no, as well might the diamond break When ringing to a blow. Hurrah! then onward, onward, boys, More swift, more merrily go. Our shadows gleam before our track, The air hums in our ears, - The pure clear air, the mountain air, How it braces, how it cheers! We cluster in groups, we scatter away, We whirl, we rush, we wheel,All round us are figures of strange device Engraved by the flashing steel; Again that dismal bellow! How the prisoned lake roars out! But it cannot burst from its manacle, For all its angry shout. Ha! why do the foremost in yon race Upon their heels lean back? The ground ice flies from their skates like froth, As they stop in their deep-cut track; We all approach:'t is a little space The lake has burst for air, Spread o'er with a film like isinglass; Back, back, for death is there! The miller's boy one year ago, Rushed swift on a spot like this; 154 SKATING. One crack of the brittle ice, one shriek, And he sank in the abyss. Oh quickly we hurried toward the place, With deadly fear and awe; Afar in the freezing element His struggling form we saw: Oh quickly all hurried with might and main, For we knew he could not swim, But ere the fleetest could reach the spot, No aid was there for him; We saw his blue and ghastly face Sink down in the rippling flood, And then we gazed on the empty space With horror-frozen blood. But by-and-by his father came With pale and frenzied look, He reached the border of the space, And then one leap he took; One leap he took, and the waters closed In whirls above his head, A moment, and he rose to view, And with him rose the dead, - The dead all drooping and crusted o'er With particles of frost,And the strong man, weeping, bore away His only and his lost. We leave the spot: to the outlet bank We glide for an instant's rest, SKATING. 155 This log, edged round with crystals, yields A seat upon its breast; Our tight-bound feet are aching, But our veins glow warm and free; Ha, ha! in that hollow of weak white ice, Joe tumbles to his knee! But look to the icy lace-work Embroidered around the bank! And see, how the frozen rushes stand In sparkling jewelled rank! Again away: but the sun has sunk, And the west, —what a gorgeous view! An orange base, red, green, and gray, Thence deepening up to blue; And now, low flying to their woods, Those distant crows, whose caws Have faintly touched the ear, are lost, As closer the twilight draws; And now dark night, dark starry night, For it is but a brief delay From the golden tip of the loftiest pine To the arch of the milky way. Dark night, dark starry night, and above How bright the clusters glow! Here steadily burning orbs, and there One sheet of twinkling snow. The bank is a mass of frowning gloom, And the ice just gives to view 156 SKA TING. A few star glimmerings at our feet, Then shrinks in darkness too. But what care we for the darkness, For the shallows of the lake Are spotted round with stumps, and there Our bonfires will we wake. Red sparkles dance from the smitten steel, On the leaves and sticks we heap; Hurrah! what glorious pyramids Of clear flame upward leap! What a flashing glow is shed about! The ice, in crimson, gleams, And the dark woods of the outlet Are kindled by the beams; So bare start out their depths to sight, That the moss of the old dead pines Down hanging in flakes from the topmost limbs, Like golden network shines. Hark to those fierce but lessening snarls! We have frightened some wolf away, Some prowling wolf, this freezing night On the lookout for his prey; Again: a crash in the forest limbs, A panther's startled spring; From the deepest haunt of the wilderness His keen shriek soon will ring; In the magic circle of this light We fear no forest-foe; SKA TING. 157 Hurrah! hurrah! o'er the blushing ice We merrily, merrily go! But the hours are wearing into the night, Our limbs are in need of rest, And hark! shrill rushing down the lake Comes a gust from the dread northwest;'T is the first breath of the tempest, And mark! in the spangled sky, Like surges of a gloomy sea, Shoot clouds of murkiest dye.'T will be a wild, wild winter night Of bitter hail and sleet, But within the walls of our happy homes We'11 slumber sound and sweet. AN AUTUMN LANDSCAPE. A SLOPE of upland, shorn by nibbling sheep To a rich carpet, woven of short grass And tiny clover, upward leads my steps By the seamed pathway, and my roving eye Drinks in the vassal landscape. Far and wide Nature is smiling in her loveliness. Masses of woods, green strips of fields, ravines Shown by their outlines drawn against the hills, Chimneys and roofs, trees, single and in groups, Bright curves of brooks, and vanishing mountaintops Expand upon my sight. October's brush The scene has colored; not with those broad hues Mixed in his later palette by the frost, And dashed upon the picture till the eye Aches with the varied splendor, but in tints Left by light scattered touches. Overhead There shines a blending of cloud, haze, and sky A silvery sheet with spaces of soft blue; A trembling veil of gauze is stretched athwart The shadowy hill-sides and dark forest-flanks; A soothing quiet broods upon the air, AN A UTUMN LANDSCAPE. 159 And the faint sunshine winks with drowsiness. Far sounds melt mellow on the ear: the barkThe bleat - the tinkle - whistle - blast of hornThe rattle of the wagon-wheel - the low - The fowler's shot - the twitter of the bird, And even the hum of converse from the road. The grass, with its low insect-tones, appears As murmuring in its sleep. This butterfly Seems as if loath to stir, so lazily It flutters by. In fitful starts and stops The locust sings. The grasshopper breaks out In brief harsh strains amid its pausing chirps; The beetle, glistening in its sable mail, Slow climbs the clover-tops, and even the ant Darts round less eagerly. What difference marks The scene from yester-noontide. Then the sky Showed such rich, tender blue, it seemed as if'T would melt before the sight. The glittering clouds Floated above, the trees danced glad below To the fresh wind. The sunshine flashed on streams, Sparkled on leaves, and laughed on fields and woods. All, all was life and motion, as all now Is sleep and quiet. Nature in her change Varies each day, as in the world of man She moulds the differing features. Yea, each leaf Is variant from its fellow. Yet her works Are blended in a glorious harmony, For thus God made His earth. Perchance His breath 160 AN A UTUMN LANDSCAPE. Was music when he spake it into life, Adding thereby another instrument To the innumerable choral orbs Sending the tribute of their grateful praise In ceaseless anthems toward His sacred throne. THE SETTLER. His echoing axe the settler swung Amid the sealike solitude, And rushing, thundering, down were flung The Titans of the wood; Loud shrieked the eagle as he dashed From out his mossy nest, which crashed Beneath the conquering blow, And the first sunlight, leaping, flashed On the wolf's haunt below. Rude was the garb, and strong the frame Of him who plied his ceaseless toil: To form that garb, the wild-wood game Contributed their spoil; The soul that warmed that frame, disdained The tinsel, gaud, and glare, that reigned Where men their crowds collect; The simple fur, untrimmed, unstained, This forest-tamer decked. The paths which wound mid gorgeous trees, The streams whose bright lips kissed their flowers, The winds that swelled their harmonies Through those sun-hiding bowers, VOL. I. 11 162 THE SETTLER. The brown ravine -the green arcade, The nestling vale —the grassy glade, In woods all round unfurled, These scenes and sounds majestic, made His lonely, only world. His roof adorned a lovely spot, Mid the black logs green glowed the grain, And many a plant the woods knew not, Throve in the sun and rain. The smoke-wreath curling o'er the dell, The low - the bleat - the tinkling bell, All made a landscape strange, Which was the living chronicle Of deeds that wrought the change. The violet smiled at spring's first tinge, The rose of summer spread its glow, The maize hung out its autumn fringe, Rude winter brought its snow; And still the settler labored there, His shout and whistle woke the air, As cheerily he plied His garden-spade, or drove his share Along the hillock's side. He marked the fire-storm's blazing flood Roaring and crackling on its path, And scorching earth, and melting wood, Beneath its greedy wrath; THE SETTLER. 163 He marked the rapid whirlwind shoot Trampling the pine-tree with its foot, And darkening thick the day With streaming bough and severed root, Hurled whizzing on its way. His gaunt hound yelled, his rifle flashed, The grim bear hushed its savage growl, In blood and foam the panther gnashed Its fangs, with dying howl; The fleet deer ceased its flying bound, Its snarling wolf-foe bit the ground, And with its moaning cry The beaver sank beneath the wound, Its pond-built Venice by. Humble the lot, yet his the race! When Liberty sent forth her cry, Who thronged in Conflict's deadliest place, To fight - to bleed - to die. Who cumbered Bunker's height of red, By hope, through weary years were led, And witnessed Yorktown's sun Blaze on a Nation's banner spread, A Nation's freedom won. THE PINE-TREE. STERN dweller of the mountain I with thy feet Grasping the crag, and lifting to the sky Thy haughty crest! Stern warrior king! thy form Scarce deigns to shake, when even the mighty blast Which the strong eagle fears to stem, swoops down And breaks upon thee. O'er the glimmering chasm As leanest thou, with one giant limb outspread Thy sceptre, and seamed armor on thy breast, What is more grand, more glorious than thou The headlong torrent pitching at thy base Sends forth but vassal rumblings, when the storm Awakes thy thunder, and the puny woods Seem like bent saplings when thy towering shape Swings in its majesty. The lightning's dart Hath streaked, but not consumed thee: upward still As the black chariot of the fiend o'er rolls, Upward still, warrior-king, thy crest doth point, And in sublime defiance dost thou fling Thy emerald robe from off thy wounded breast, For other blows to fall, fierce hissing forth Thy scorn as flies the tempest. On thy rock, Thy throne impregnable, thou hast not reigned During the lapse of ages, for a blast THE PINE-TREE. 165 To break thee, nor a lightning-shaft to cleave Thy plumed head to the earth. The hurricane And showers of blazing levin-bolts alone Can hurl thee from thy post of centuries. Yet art thou gentle, monarch of the crag! When all is gentle round thee: when the sky Is soft with summer, and the sunshine basks In love upon thy branches, bright-winged birds Flutter within thy plumes, and make thee gay With their sweet songs: the downy-pinioned breeze Soothes thee, until thou murmurest in a voice Of blandest music, that upon the ear Steals like a long-drawn sigh. As proud thy head Bears the wild tempest when its rains are launched In slanted phalanx, so when from the west The wind fans lightly, and the parted clouds Let the fresh sunshine leap, thy branches drop Their sprinklings on the blossom hung beneath, Till its blue eye shines deeper in its blue, And floats its sweet breath sweeter, while the moss That plump and green o'erspread thy iron roots, Fringed delicate sandals, seem some trysting-place, Where fairy shapes of gold and ebony Glance o'er in mazy dances. Winter bleak, Howling through forests changed to skeletons At the first mimicking breath of Autumn sent. As the mere Courier of his dread approach, 166 THE PINE-TREE. Though hurling all his blasts, from thee recoils, His fury spent in vain: not one slight plume, No, not the tiniest fibre of thy sprays Blanches or falls; but as thou stoodest when Spring Made earth leap living at the bluebird call, Unchanged wilt thou again her carol hail, And tell where passed her timid steps from prints Of violets and of cowslips. Let us mark, Proud pine! thou one of myriad instruments Through which mysterious solemn Nature breathes The music of her wisdom in our souls-; Oh let us mark thy likeness in the world, The wondrous world of man. True Greatness towers A glorious monarch, throned on craggy thought Decked in its proud regalia. When the blast Of Fortune bursts, it bends not: o'er the herd It spreads its sceptred arm, and weaker souls Bow, when occasion wakes its energies In all their native glory. Earth's wild storms May sweep across it, and their lightnings touch Its lifted crest, but haughtily it dares The scathing wrath, and casts its deepest scorn At the endeavor baffled. Glorious gifts Are not bestowed for every passing cloud Of life to lay them darkened in the dust. And it is gentle too, when gentle hearts Are round it; love for love it freely gives, And while it bears the storm upon its head, THE PINE-TREE. 167 It yields a cherishing care to those that cling Unto it for protection. In life's change It changes not, but as it smiled in joy, So in the bleak waste of adversity, It wears its customed look, and welcomes back The sunshine of renewed prosperity. THE INDIAN'S VIGIL. THE untouched forest depth displayed Its thick, rich roof of summer shade, With sunshine streaming broad across, Bathing the hemlock's sloping top, And showering mid the elm, to drop In golden spots upon the moss; Or, slanting through green clefts, to pass In narrow streaks along the grass Of some wild tree-notched road Whose leafy fretwork, arching high, Glimpses of cloud, and dots of sky, The upward vision showed. Here reared the beech its sprinkled bark Beside the maple's rough and dark, And birchen column smooth and gray; There, prostrate on its place of birth, Raising its mass of clinging earth, The wind-fallen woodland giant lay. Where, grasping with its knotted wreath Of roots, the moundlike trunk, beneath In brown wet fragments spread, A young usurping sapling reigned, THE INDIAN'S VIGIL. Nature, Mezentius-like, had chained The living with the dead. Within the deepest of the wood, Where the huge bolls more scattering stood, An area lay of grass and flowers; There the blue violet modestly Shrank from the murmuring kissing bee, And sweetly in the bordering bowers His changing notes the thrasher sung, While the gray squirrel's chatterings rung At each spray-bending bound. And tapping up the mossy oak The checkered flicker also woke The sylvan echoes round. An eagle, in this lovely scene, Stood perched upon a hillock green, Where strewed remains of bow and spear With here and there a scattered bone, Bared by the frost and rain, made known An Indian burial-place was here. And as he stood, his form stretched high, And from his keen and martial eye Glances around he shot, He seemed, within the halo-light With ruffled plumes, and crown of white, The monarch of the spot. Balancing on his outspread wing, At length he looked as if to spring, 169 170 THE INDIAN'S VIGIL. While higher arched his kingly neck; Rustled the leaves, and with a shriek He swept up, pointing high his beak, And dwindled to a fading speck. The next, an Indian from the wood, Stepped in that scene of solitude And knelt before the mound, With kindling eye and solemn air, As though, at last, its Mecca there His pilgrimage had found. Worn were his moccasins,-his trail From where the Rocky Mountains' gale Ruffles Missouri's farthest source, Where herds the bison, prowls the bear, And wild horse snuffs the prairie air And scours along his curbless course. He, by a deathless wish impelled To view the sacred mound, which held The ashes of his race, Earth-blended remnants, -yet that made This lone, green, forest-nestling glade A consecrated place. Now wafted by the west wind's sigh A gray cloud stole across the sky, The pleasant shower that summer weaves, And, with the streaming sunshine blent, Its fine and gentle droppings sent In pattering music on the leaves. THE INDIAN'S VIGIL. It lifted, and the wind, bequeathed With the fresh forest-odors, breathed From every verdant thing,The birch, the spruce, the sassafras, The fern, the pine, the moss, the grass, - Crept on with burdened wing. Sunset, with all its opal hues, Glowed, faded, with the melting dews, And o'er the cedar's tapering height The young moon bent her brightening bow And cast her deepening gleams below, As twilight darkened into night. Timidly firom the pearly sky, Opened each star its sparkling eye, Then, red the crescent sank, And fire-flies, through the gloom that lowered, Their fitful golden spangles showered About the outlined bank. The myriad sounds the ear heeds not When sunshine glows - now filled the spot; The streamlet spoke in purling flow, Murmured the leaves, - the spider's clock Ticked in some crevice of the rock, Blent with the cricket's chirping low. While frequent, from the slimy bog Came the hoarse bugle of the frog And night-hawk's downward rush; And every brooding pause to fill 171 172 THE INDIAN'S VIGIL. The tree-toad's sweet continuous trill Swelled through this breathing hush. What were the thoughts that o'er him swept, As there the lone one vigil kept? Did not the bones that filled the mound Shaped into forms, arise anew, And gather to his mental view Instinct with life, above - around! The fathers at their council-fire, The warriors in their battle-ire, The maidens true and fair; And one with fawnlike step and eye, He thought she was too young to die, Was she too smiling there? And morning came; the pure cool breeze Brought rustling leaf-tones from the trees, Night's purple changed to crimson sheen; The stars shrank back-the vapors white, That webbed the branches, took their flight, And bursts of warblings woke the scene. The deer stole timorous to the brook, Its drumming wing the partridge shook, The darting sunbeams glowed; And sadly from his musing bed, The faithful Indian rose, to tread Again his homeward road. Emerging from the forest dim, There lay a bitter scene to him. THE INDIAN'S VIGIL. 173 Gardens, and fields, and village spires, And human groups; he heard the air Ring with the axe; he saw the share Tearing the earth; the fallow fires Eating the trees. He fiercely turned, And the soiled earth beneath him spurned; And ne'er, mid waving grain And thickening roofs, the Indian found That glassy glade, -that hallowed mound, His nation's tomb, again. THE HARMONY OF THE UNIVERSE. GOD made the world in perfect harmony. Earth, air, and water, in its order, each With its innumerable links, compose But one unbroken chain; the human soul The clasp that binds it to His mighty arm. A sympathy throughout each order reigns. A touch upon one link is felt by all Its kindred, and the influence ceaseth not Forever. The massed atoms of the earth, Jarred by the rending of its quivering breast, Carry the movement in succession through To the extremest bounds, so that the foot, Tracking the regions of eternal frost, Unknowing, treads upon a soil that throbs With the equator's earthquake. The tall oak, Thundering its fall in Apalachian woods, Though the stern echo on the ear is lost, Displaces, with its groan, the rings of air, Until the swift and subtle messengers Bear, each from each, the undulations on To the rich palace of eternal Spring THE HARMONY OF THE UNIVERSE. 175 That smiles upon the Ganges. Yea, on pass The quick vibrations through the airy realms, Not lost, until with Time's last gasp they die. The craggy iceberg rocking o'er the surge, Telling its pathway by its crashing bolts, Strikes its keen teeth within the shuddering bark, When night frowns black. Down, headlong, shoots the wreck, Lost is the vortex in the dashing-waves, And the wild scene heaves wildly as before; But every particle that whirled and foamed Above the groaning, plunging mass, hath urged Its fellow, and the motion thus bequeathed Lives in the ripple edging flowery slopes With melting lace-work; or with dimples rings Smooth basins, where the hanging orange-branch Showers fragrant snow, and then it ruffles on, Until it sinks upon Eternity. Thus naught is lost in that harmonious chain, That, changing momently, is perfect still. God, whose drawn breaths are ages, with those breaths Renews its lustre. So't will ever be, Till, with one wave of His majestic arm, He snaps the clasp away, and drops the chain Again in chaos, shattered by its fall. THE GARDEN. WHEN the light flourish of the bluebird sounds, And the south wind comes blandly; when the sky Is soft in delicate blue with melting pearl Spotting its bosom, all proclaiming Spring, Oh with what joy the garden-spot we greet Wakening from wintry slumbers. As we tread The branching walks, within its hollowed nook, We see the violet by some lingering flake Of melting snow, its sweet eye lifting up As welcoming our presence. Overhead The fruit-tree buds are swelling, and we hail Our grateful task of moulding into form The waste around us. The quick delving spade Upturns the fresh and odorous earth. The rake Smooths the plump bed, and in their furrowed graves We drop the seed. The robin stops his work Upon the apple-bough, and flutters down, Stealing, with oft-checked and uplifted foot, And watchful gaze bent quickly either side, Toward the fall'n wealth of food around the mouth Of the light paper pouch upon the earth. But fearful of our motions, off he flies, And stoops upon the grub the spade has thrown THE GARDEN. 177 Loose from its den beside the wounded root. Days pass along. The pattering shower falls down, And then the warming sunshine. Tiny clefts Tell that the seed has turned itself and swift Is pushing up its stem. The fruit-trees now Have broken into blossom; and the grape Casting aside, in peels, its shrivelled skin, Shows its soft furzy leaf of delicate pink; And the thick midge-like blossoms round diffuse A strong delicious fragrance. Soon along The trellis stretch the tendrils, sharply pronged, Clinging tenacious with their winding rings And sending on the stem. A sheet of bloom Then decks the garden, till the summer glows Forming the perfect fruit. In showery nights The fire-fly glances with its pendent lamp Of greenish gold. Each dark nook owns a voice: While perfume floats on every wave of air. And as we reap the rich fruits of our toil We bless the God who rains His gifts on us, Making the earth its treasures rich to yield With slight and fitful care. Our hearts should be Ever but harps to send unceasing hymns Of thankful praise to One who fills all space, And yet looks down with smiles on lowly Man. VOL. I. 12 MORANNAH. SUNBEAMS were glowing, Streamlets were flowing, Breezes were sweeping the beautiful sky; But, contrast of sadness To all this sweet gladness, Morannah the chieftain was waiting to die. Through a loop, a dart of flame Shot by sunset, streaked the gloom; Fired the prostrate warrior's frame, Panther-robe and eagle-plume. But the robe was stiff with gore, Stained and bent the haughty crest; Crimson drops were on floor, Oozings of his mangled breast. Round the block-house where he lay, Sloped a knoll of green; There the same slant sunset ray Bathed a festive scene. All the village throngs were there: Aged men and children fair, Hunters in their deerskin dress, MORANNAH. 179 Just from out the wilderness; Choppers with the glittering axe Carried at their brawny backs; All rejoicing o'er the fate Of that dying man, Object long of fear and hate, Placed beneath a ban. Fierce hunted like a wild beast, driven From wood to wood, from glen to glen, Now climbing peaks by lightning riven, Now crouching in the panther's den, Still roamed the forest-monarch free, Smiling disdain upon the foe, Till deepest, foulest treachery, Brought the proud soaring eagle low. Within the block-house walls, the morn Had seen the hapless chieftain borne, And now, the first white star of night Would beam upon his spirit's flight. The church's rude belfry, low, vane-topped, and square, And the octagon shape of the block-house, between, Robed rich in the tints that are painted by air, The dome-rounded head of a mountain was seen. There in the toil had the eagle been caught, There was the deep damning treachery wrought. That mountain's summit is a ledge; Upon each side a precipice 180 MORANNAH. So sheer, each tree that grasps the edge Seems tottering o'er the deep abyss. Oft had the chieftain found the place A refuge from the white man's chase, But the last warrior of his tribe Had fallen before the proffered bribe; Tempted with gold, he had sworn to clear The hunter's way to the slumbering deer. Midst an oak's roots is a cavity Shelving down like a fox's den: Standing beside the old gnarled tree,'T is hidden from the closest ken; For long, thick fern-leaves there are hung, An emerald veil o'er the entrance flung. But the slant pit once passed, expand A cavern's walls, that, winding in, Seem wrought out by a Titan's hand, The ledge's rocky heart to win. On the dark passage leads, till high Glimmers a faint glimpse of the sky As through a cleft; the cavern ends, But up a rough, wild stair ascends, Scooped in the granite; till the tread To the rock's towering height is led. Midnight came with wind and cloud; Now dark, now bright, The moon's rich light, Fitfully glanced through the tattered shroud. Mi ORANNA H. 181 Through the gate of the palisade Half a score of the settlers went Just as the summer night begun, (Half a score for the taking of one,) Armed with rifle and with blade, And swift their course to the mountain bent. The gold-bought traitor at their head, Up through the mountain woods they sped. Skirting the precipice, threading the glen, By the haunt of the wolf —near the rattlesnake's den; Fierce eyeballs glared at them from tree and from nook, The tempest in rage the dark wilderness shook; Still, led by the guilty one, onward they wend, To the lair of the guilty one's sachem and friend. Now they are at the old oak-tree Whose wreathed roots hide the cavity. High above them soars the ledge, Glimmering outlines mark the edge; Naught they see, save here and there Huge trees writhing in the air; Naught they hear, save now and then Wolf-howls from the neighboring glen; While with fitful shriek and roar Sweeps the wild wind, furious, o'er. Down the little shelving hollow Quick the wretched traitor slides; One by one the settlers follow; Slow along the cavern sides 182 M ORANNA H. Grope they onward, till the stair Leads them to the upper air. In a thicket's twining breast, Lies Morannah whelmed in sleep: Chieftain, wake thee from thy rest! Foemen close around thee creep! Closer, closer- wake, oh wake! Then, swift bounding from thy lair Who thy foot could overtake Dashing down the rocky stair? Baffled, known to none but. thee, Clinging to the dangling grape, To the slanting cedar-tree, Down the ledge —there leads escape. Motionless, hapless Morannah lies, Closer and closer the foemen creep; One more moment, they grasp their prize. Ha! a rustle! with startled leap Up starts Morannah; in sudden sheen Bursts the freed moonlight upon the scene. It shows the crouching foe, and near, Drawn back as if in mortal fear, An Indian -what! his warrior there, With trembling limbs and bristling hair! Quick flashed the truth; his hatchet gleamed, Dead fell the traitor at his feet; No more the fitful moonlight beamed, Away - away, his course is fleet; MORANNAH. 183 A shot rings sharply on the night, He staggers in his headlong flight; Another brings him to his knee; He rises, clinging to a bough, And firmly braced against a tree, He waits the foemen's coming now. With his keen hatchet and his knife Clutched tightly in his outstretched hands, Ready to brave the unequal strife, The bleeding forest-warrior stands. As springs the panther from his lair, His eyeballs flashing flames to dare, Destruction's toils around him flung, With one wild whoop, one sweeping blow, Amid the back-recoiling foe Morannah fiercely sprung. And shrieking high his battle-yell, He bleeding fought and fighting fell. Still the low sunshine sweetly played Upon the circling palisade; It bathed with gold the knoll of green, It streamed the village huts between; The block-house on its western face From steep projecting roof to base, Was flooded with the radiance bright; The loops seemed filled, like eyes, with light, While the long ladder leaning there, Stood pencilled sharply on the air. 184 AMORANNAH. Feebler grew Morannah's breath, Keener grew the pain, Phantoms, born of coming death, Floated through his brain. Phantoms of the stormy past Thronging round him thick and fast,Till a single vision grew, Living, to his mental view. Where the deep woods their coverts spread, Chasing the deer his steps were led, And not till day its hazy course had run, Bearing his spoils, his homeward course he wonHa! do his straining eyeballs see aright! Where is the roof that met at morn his sight? Where, oh where! Naught but a black and smouldering waste is there: All, all-his sire, his boy, his bride, By white man's ruthless hands had died. The tempest rose; in fiercest might Through the surging forest bore, And in that wild and fearful night A bloody oath he swore, While the lightning glared in sulphury light And the thunder rattled o'er. Another vision by him swept, Well had that oath of blood been kept; By day the field with carnage reeked, At night the village sank in flame, MORANNA H. 185 Until men bowed and women shrieked Where'er was spoke his name. Then like the clouds in tempestuous strife, By rolled the last closing scenes of his life. The battle on the mountain's crest, Where, by a thousand foes hemmed round, Striving to shield him with their breast A grave his faithful warriors found,His wounds, captivity, and flight, With his last tribesman by his side, And then the scene of yesternight! Oh! on that mountain had he died! Then had no close walls choked his breath, Hastening the wings of hovering death; His ear the taunt had never met, The jest-the sneer-the epithet, From those that shook in deadliest fear When night closed round its solemn shades, Lest ere the day dawn they should hear His war-whoop round their palisades. The sun now touched the horizon's rim; The slanting pickets faded dim; The block-house reared its rounded form, Its roof yet tipped with radiance warm Which melted off; but still the throng Rejoiced in laughter and in song, And not till night claimed earth and air, Was the green block-house hillock bare. 186 MORANNA H. As the first star gemmed twilight's gloom, The hamlet's white-haired patriarch Entered, with torch, the captive's room; He heard a rattle in the dark. Perchance he came to taunt the chief, For the old man was fierce in ire; Perchance he came to yield relief, For age allays the spirit's fire. He heard that rattle; high his torch he reared: There lay the chieftain —there the warrior feared, His limbs faint fluttering, while from out his throat Came that death-rattle, - life's expiring note. But as the light upon his brow was flung, Up from his couch the dying sachem sprung, - Up from his couch, and with one- warrior look In his clinched grasp his knife he feebly shook, From his weak tongue one faltering war-whoop passed, Then down the chieftain sank - death, death had come at last. THE FALLS OF NORMAN'S KILL. A DAY in Indian Summer: here, the sky Shows a bright veil of silver; there, a shade Of soft and misty purple, with the fleece Of downy clouds, and azure streaks between. The light falls meekly, and the wooing air Fans with a brisk vitality the frame. The woods have lost the bright and varied charm Of magic Autumn, and the faded leaves Hide with one robe of biown the earth that late Glowed like the fabled garlens of the East. Still all around is lovely. Far the eye Pierces the naked woods, and marks the shades, Like prone black pillars with their capitals, Formed by the sprays; and rocks, ravines, and mounds, (Hidden when Summer smiles) and sparkling rills, Trickling o'er mossy stones. A low, stern tone Rumbles upon the air, as winding down The gullied road, I seek the gorge where flows The stream to mingle with the river flood 1 The Norman's Kill is a stream about two miles south of Albany, the turnpike crossing it very near its entrance into the Hudson. The Falls are a little to the right, in a deep ravine. 188 THE FALLS OF NORMAN'S KILL. In the brief eastward distance. On my left Are the brown waters, a high rocky isle Like a huge platform midway; and the steep Tree-columned ridge, in summer dense with shades, But ragged now with gaunt and leafless boughs, And only green where stand the kingly pines And princely hemlocks. On my right the bank, Of slate and crumbling gravel, pitches down Now sheer, now hollowed out, the dark blue clay Showing its strata veins, while on the edge High up and dwarfed by distance, cling tall trees. A rocky rampart, seamed and dashed with white, Is piled before me, and the bending sky Close at its back. Advancing, with the sound Louder and louder, waters leap and gush And foam through channelled outlets; dashing now O'er terraces, now flinging o'er a rock A shifting fringe of silver, shooting quick Through some deep gully, like a glassy dart, And now in one rich mass of glittering foam Sent downward, with light particles of spray In white smoke rising. Like the puny wrath Of the weak child, to manhood's passion-burst When his fierce heart is flaming; like the voice Of the low west wind, to the mighty sweep Of the roused northern storm-blast, art thou now, Oh rushing stream! to when the roaring rains Have swelled thy fountains, and with thundering shocks, Foaming and leaping, thou dost dash along, THE FALLS OF NORMAN'S KILL. 189 Restrainless in thy awful force, to rend And whirl and whelm, until a mightier wave Swallows thy raging being. Bridge and tree Torn into fragments, roll and plunge and toss, Till those that now might look on thee and smile, Turn grave and tremble. One more lesson deep And sad, in Nature's ever opened book, Art thou, bright stream! Change, quick and endless change, Is ever moving round us. Sun and cloud, Winter and summer, light and darkness, all, All whirl their contrasts. Life may spread its path Glorious with hope and beautiful with joy; Home with its blessings, like an Eden smile; Beware, gay, thoughtless dreamer i hush thy song! Beware! Is joy immortal on the earth? Beware! Hath angel Hope, with pointing hand And buoyant pinion, never fled, and left The fiend Despondency to fill her place With blackness? Hush thy song, gay dreamer! pause In thy light dancing tread! the awful change May now, even now, be swift approaching thee. THE SMITHY. THERE crouched a little smithy at the corner of the road, In the village where, when life shone fresh and bright, was my abode; A little slab-roofed smithy, of a stained and dusky red, An ox-frame standing by the door, and at one side a shed; The road was lone and pleasant, with margins -grassygreen, Where browsing cows and nibbling geese from morn till night were seen. High curled the smoke from the humble roof with dawning's earliest bird, And the tinkle of the anvil, first of the village sounds, was heard; The bellows-puff, the hammer-beat, the whistle, and the song, Told, steadfastly and merrily, toil rolled the hours along, Till darkness fell, and the smithy then with its forge's clear deep light Through chimney, window, door, and cleft, poured blushes on the night. THE SMITHY. 191 The morning shows its azure breast and scarf of silvery fleece, The margin-grass is grouped with cows, and spotted o'er with geese; On the dew-wet green by the smithy, there's a circle of crackling fire, Hurrah! how it blazes and curls around the coalman's welding tire! While o'er it, with tongs, are the smith and his man, to fit it when cherry-red, To the tilted wheel of the huge grimed ark in the background of the shed. There's a stony field on the ridge to plough, and Brindle must be shod, And at noon, through the lane from the farm-house, I see him slowly plod; In the strong frame, chewing his cud, he patiently stands, but see! The bands have been placed around him - he struggles to be free: But John and Timothy hammer away, until each hoof is armed, Then loosened Brindle looks all round, as if wondering he's unharmed. Joe Matson's horse wants shoeing, and at even-tide he's seen, An old gray sluggish creature, with his master on the green; 192 THE SMITHY. Within the little smithy, old Dobbin, Matson draws, There John is busily twisting screws, and Timothy filing saws; The bellows sleeps, the forge is cold, and twilight dims the room, With anvil, chain, and iron bar, faint glimmering through the gloom. I stand beside the threshold and gaze upon the sight, The doubtful shape of the old gray horse, and the points of glancing light: But hark! the bellows wakens, out dance the sparks in air, And now the forge is raked high up, now bursts it to a glare; How brightly and how cheerily the sudden glow outbreaks, And what a charming picture of the humble room it makes! It glints upon the horseshoes on the ceiling-rafters hung, On the anvil and the leaning sledge its quivering gleams are flung; It touches with bronze the smith and his man, and it bathes old dozing gray, And a blush is fixed on Matson's face in the broad and steady ray; One moment more, and the iron is whirled with fierce and spattering glow, THE SMITHY. 193 And swank! swank! swank! rings the sledge's smite, tink! tlink! the hammer's blow. "Whoe, Dobbin!" says Tim, as he pares the hoof, "whoe! whoe!" as he fits the shoe, And the clink of the driving nails is heard, till the humble toil is through; Pleased Matson mounts his old gray steed, and I hear the heavy beat Of the trotting hoofs up the corner road till the sounds in the distance fleet; And I depart with grateful joy to the King of earth and heaven, That even to life in its lowliest phase, such interest should be given. voi0. I. 13 THE CAMP IN THE FOREST. A BAND of hunters were we. All day long Our feet had trailed the woods. The panther fierce, The snorting bear, the cowering wolf, and deer Swift as our balls, had fallen, as cracked the shots Of our slim, deadly rifles. Sunset now Was brightening the leaf-seas that swept all round, As with a glory. In a lovely spot, A little hollow glade, we stayed our steps. Tempting it looked in pleasant grass, snowed o'er With the white forest-clover. Scattered round Were long, low, narrow mounds. Upon our brows The delicate south wind broke, then melted smooth Over each limb in balm. The western sky Was made one glow with the descending sun, Which, mid the mantling leaves and crowded trunks, Showered bright and brilliant patches. The lone spot Lay steeped in shade and coolness. From the stream The low song of the ripples, as they purled Over some knotted root, with now and then The twitter of the snipe, sweet filled the air. A sandy pathway, kindled rich and warm THE CAM1P IN THE FOREST. 195 By a slant beam, sloped downward to the lymph, Through the thick alders. As the grateful wind Poured its moist sweetness o'er our strengthening frames, We roused our camp-fire. From the bended boughs We hung our spoil; while on the ruddy coals The broiling deer-flesh told of coming cheer. Loud rose the talk and high the boast, and wide The frequent song reechoed, for the band Though rude felt kindly. A gray light was spread Across the hollow, but the tree-tops round Cut sharp on mellow brightness. Deepest gold Melting to rich transparent pearl, proclaimed Where the blue-bosomed sun had disappeared. Within the clefts of bushes, and beneath The thickets, raven darkness frowned, but still The leaves upon the edges of the trees Preserved their shapes. Our hunter cheer was past. A glimmering dimness thickened in the air Until the leaves were blended each in each. The lurking darkness widened till it veiled Thicket and bush. The neighboring throng of trunks Retired within the gloom that hid the depths Of the thick forest, till the brush of night Had shaded in each object. Still a hue Of brightness lingered round the tracery Of the tree-summits, where a few pale stars Were deepening; while within the broad rich west One orb - night's first - was beating like a. pulse. 196 THE CAMP IN THE FOREST. The camp-fire reared its crimson crackling cone, Bronzing the dark, deep umbrage of the pine, Spattering the thickets with great crimson blots, And streaking, as with streams of blood, the sward. So strong the ruddy gloss close round the fire, The grass-blades twinkled, and the clover-tufts Flashed out like silver spangles. In the depths Of the black forest, where the gleams reached not, The fire-flies sparkled, and within the nooks The dead-wood showed a glaring like fierce eyes. As the band sat around the camp-fire's glow, The jest and song flew quickly; legends strange And stories of the woods, old daring feats, Dangers escaped, and panther-fights, passed round From. lip to lip, till one old hunter, strong And vigorous, though his form was gaunt and bent, Glanced on the narrow mounds where flecks of gold Had late been quivering, and with sorrowing voice Told the dark, bloody legend of the spot. "The hunters had been out, as we this day, Beating the Willewemoc's woods, which then Were far more lonely, wild, and dark than now. Our village was a straggling hamlet, girt With slanting palisades. As sunset glowed, Our footsteps fell upon this self-same spot. We halted. The melodious stream its gifts Gave to our tongues. The golden-tinted woods Laid on our brows their shadows, and the glass Spread to our limbs its velvet. Song and tale, THE CAMP IN THE FOREST. 197 As now, went round the group. High flashed our fire, And the dark boughs blushed brightly in its glare. Round the clear blaze the hunters stretched their frames, Grasping their rifles. One - myself - was placed As sentry to protect their helplessness. The frog piped shrill its music, and the owl Vied with the whippoorwill: all else was still. Another hour, the fire had cowered below Crouching and springing fitfully, and then Licking the ashes. On my eyelids weighed Sleep, heavily, like lead, while now and then My brain would whirl in brief forgetfulness. Hark! a twig snapped: hush! silence fell again,'T was but a squirrel. Ha! from- out the woods Was not the blackness crawling in dim shapes Near us? No, no,'t was but the glimmer of sleep Within my fluttering eyelids. Still I heard Each sylvan sound proclaiming peace and rest, The owl-hoot, cricket-chirp, and sorrowing plaint Of the lone whippoorwill, while myriad frogs Rang out their silver chiming. Down I sank. A burst of shrieks. The fire leaped brightly up. Hatchets were flashing, wild forms leaping round, And limbs quick tossing in death agonies. I started, but a knee was on my breast, A fierce red eye met mine, and gnashing teeth Whence the hot breath came hissing, and as pealed Shrill horrid whoops upon my shrinking ears, 198 THE CAMP IN THE FOREST. I felt the hatchet sink within my side; The sharp, cold knife swift glided round my brows, My hair was clutched, and then with keenest pangs The scalp was wrenched away; my sight grew black. I woke to consciousness: my tortured head Lay on a human breast; a human eye Looked pitying on me. Soon the features broke Upon my swimming memory;'t was the scout Of the near village, whose kind hand was now Sprinkling the stream's cool silver on my face, While round me many an anxious neighbor stood. "The morning sun had painted with its light Palisades, roofs, and block-house, but the forms Of the expected hunters darkened not The sunbeam slanting in a narrow cleft Through which the clearing- pathway pierced the woods; The gaze was ceaseless from the picket-loops, But still the hunters came not. Noon reeled red Upon the summits of the distant pines, And edged the threshold of the cleft with shade; Still they were absent. Downward sloped the sun; Blackened the cleft, and yet they came not thence. At length a group, with fear-winged footsteps sought The lost, and found them. Scalped in jellied gore, The hunters lay, stone-dead. A movement slight Told that I lived. The scout bound up my head Stripped by the knife; and while these graves, round which THE CAMP IN THE FOREST. 199 The fire-flies show and shut their gold-green lamps, Were hollowed for my comrades, I was borne To my low cabin by the block-house knoll, Where with grim Death I fought a weary time, But rose to vigorous strength and life at last." THE BLOOD-STAINED. AN Indian-Summer noon. A purple haze, Blurring hill outlines, glazing dusky nooks, And making all things shimmer to the eye, Is woven within the air. A woodland path That leads me to a quiet glade, I tread. The sunshine twinkles round me, and the wind Touches my brow with delicate, downy kiss. A stillness so intense around is breathed, That the light crackling of the withered leaves On which I tread sounds loudly. Dropped below, The walnut clicks as though a pebble smote On water, and the tiny beech-nuts, showered By the gray-squirrel leaping from his branch, Patter like rain-drops. Now the glade is reached. Moss-mounds are scattered o'er it, and short grass Clothes it with velvet. Through the midst, a stream Laps, like a tongue, amid its pebble-stones, And drips along its plants. Upon its bank, Traced by the wood-cart, winds a narrow track From the thick forest to the village near. Upon the highest mound, a cabin rude, Framed of rough, barky logs, and seamed with clay, Once stood. A fragment of its roof is now THE BLOOD-STAINED. 201~ Slanted within the little area formed By the decaying base. Within the square The mullein lifts its pillar, and a web Of blackberry brambles, spangled o'er in spring With silver, and in autumn studded thick With ebon gems, is twined. Here, years ago, Lived an old hunter. Rough his deer-skin garb And wild his features. Black and shaggy brows Roofed the deep sockets, in whose gloomy depths Glared fierce, keen eyes. Those couched and snakelike balls Ne'er met another's look, but with quick shift Eluded, and if still the gaze sought his, A frown drew up its coils upon his brow, And from those cavernous depths malignant gleams Shot sidelong as he turned. Deep mystery robed The hunter. None his lonely cabin shared, Save one gaunt hound, with grim and threatening look, Whose savage growls, whene'er belated foot Trod the night-shadowed glade, caused thrill of fear. The chopper, wending homeward in the dark, From his near wood-lot at the forest edge, Heard horrid shrieks, and oaths, and frenzied shouts In the old hunter's voice, from out the hut, Ceasing as those deep warning growls arose At the near-coming footstep. When abroad Amid the haunts of men the hermit went, He bore his rifle slanted on his arm, With finger ever ready to the lock. As through the village street he swiftly passed, 202 TIHE BLOOD-STAINED. Shooting his subtle sidelong glances round, It seemed as though his coming cast a shade Upon the sunshine. Children ceased their play And clung to one another till he passed. And the old gossips, chattering in a group, Paused and gazed after him with fearful looks. His brain seemed struggling with insanity. Once a strange sunset glared. The clouds were bathed In a dark crimson; the same lurid hue Gleamed to mid-heaven, and over earth the tinge Seemed like spilled blood. The village groups in awe Were gazing at the sight, when, suddenly, The hunter, with the carcass of a deer Slung o'er his shoulders, from the girdling woods Came with slow laboring foot. The sunset streamed Broadly upon him. As if turned to stone, He stopped, - the carcass fell, and with strained eyes And mouth agape he looked before, around, Below, shuddered, —and then, with thrilling cry, Sank on the earth. The foam stood on his lip, Mingled with blood drawn by his gnashing teeth. The villagers drew round and gazed with dread Upon his writhing features. With a start Then sprang he to his feet, and muttered, "Blood! Blood! blood! all blood! the very sky and earth Give witness of the deed. Ha! hide thy throat, Spouting its red-hot gushes on my brow! I do defy thee: ha! ha! ha! I stand To battle with thee," drawing from its sheath His keen, bright hunting-knife. "Away! away! THE BLOOD-STAINED. 203 Or the lone camp-fire blow I strike again." His eyes shone spots of fire; his long black hair Seemed knotting with the agony impressed On brow and cheek, but as the last dread words Fell from his tongue, he started and looked round. The maniac wildness vanished from his face, And searching inquiry and deep alarm Succeeded; subtle grew his serpent-eye, And, lifting up the deer, he muttered low Of sudden pains, and quickly left the spot. Again -'t was such a glorious day as this; The village children, I among the rest, Went nutting in the woods. In merriest mood We shook the hickory's ivory balls below, And left a circle of green shells around The mossy roots. Now mocking in our glee The harsh, brief trumpet of the restless jay Tossing among the thickets his plumed head And fluttering his blue wings; now up the oak Gazing, led thither by the shrieking yelps Of the pet spaniel, shivering with delight And dancing as on wires, until we saw The squirrel's silvery fur within the leaves, We toyed along, till came we to the edge Of the dread glade. Upon the soft, sweet air We heard a voice; now bubbling amid leaves, Now choked, now lifted nearly to a scream. It seemed as though the broken accents tried To fiame a prayer, but'could not. Back we pressed - 204 THE BLO OD-S TA INED. Back from the sounds. But one bold, reckless boy Trod with a cautious, oft-arrested step, And face where curiosity o'er fear Had triumphed, and upon the grassy glade He saw the hunter prostrate; dashing now His head upon the earth, and now with hands Tight folded, stealing timid looks toward heaven, But quickly dropping them, while those dread sounds Came from his writhing form. He saw and fled. One eve, - one winter eve, - upon the ice Of a small lake, whose narrow foot wound in Beside the glade, we glided fleet with'skates Until dark night. The rich Auroral fires, Those lightnings of the frost, were kindled up; Now skirting the horizon with bright tints, Now shooting high, until a crimson arch Bent across heaven. The reddened ice gleamed back The radiance, and the snow in ghastly hues Glared in the forests. While that splendid arch Was brightest, from the glade mad screams outpealed With groans and horrid laughter. Fear gave wings, And to the sparkling hearth-fires of our homes We hurried. Wild at midnight roared the storm. The snow beat heavily on the window-panes, And the sleet tinkled. From the neighboring woods We heard the keen hiss of the yellow pine, And the stern surging of the hemlock boughs Fierce struggling with the blast. The wolf was out, For now and then we heard his mournful howl Blent with the forest-voices. Morning came, THE BL OD-S TA INE D. 205 With breathless atmosphere and brilliant sun. The chopper, hastening to his hill-side lot In his rude wood-sled, as his oxen slumped Across the glade, saw, at the forest edge, Wolves fiercely battling. Wrathful snarls he heard And gnashing teeth; and quickly speeding back, He led a hasty-summoned village group, Each with his rifle, to the spot. A shower Of deadly bullets piled the wolves around, Or drove them to the forests. When the heap Of shaggy limbs, thick spotted with fierce eyes, Had ceased their writhings, toward them stole the group. The fragments of a human form were strewed In the wild midst; white bones were here and there Scattered among long strips of gory flesh And shreds of garments. Near them lay a hound, Mangled and crushed into a shapeless heap. A face, half peeled from brow to chin, was seen Among the fragments. Gazing with deep awe, The simple villagers those features knew; And looking at each other, whispering low, And calling up each scene that made the life Of the rude hunter such dark mystery, They broke a grave within the frozen earth, Gathered, in shuddering silence, the remains, And left the blood-stained to his last repose. SUNSET ON SHAWANGUNK MOUNTAIN. A PARADISE of beauty in the light Poured by the sinking sun, the mountain glows In this soft summer evening. Dark and cool The shadow of the opposite hills is spread O'er Mamakating, save where brightly stretch The edges of the golden mantle, wove In the rich loom of sunset, and thrown o'er The earthen monarch's form. Within the light Sparkles the stream, the shaven meadows glow, The cornfields glitter, smiles the kindled grain, Farm-house and barn cast far their ebon shapes, While the long tip of the hay-barrack lies Upon the clubbed foot of the midway pine Bristling on Shawangunk. But within the midst Of the sweet valley stand the village-roofs, With the first shiftings of the -twilight gray Upon their outlines. Onward slowly creeps The mighty shadow; no more shines the stream, Meadow and cornfield darken, and the grain Looks faded; deeper swim the twilight shades, Until the hollow links in blended gloom. On still the shadow steals; the mountain's foot Is blackened, but a glow of quivering tints SUNSET ON SHAWANGUNK MOUNTAIN. 207 Yet plays upon its breast. Half light, half gloom, Now shows the slope. Up, up the shadow creeps Toward the steep brow; the lustrous gloss peels off Before it, till along the ragged top Smiles a rich stripe of gold, that up still slides Until it dwindles to a thread, and then, As breath glides from a mirror, melts away. Now as I tread the twisting cattle-path Along its base, the cool air on my brow, I hear a ceaseless twitter running through The trees and bushes from the nestling birds, Blent with the long-heaved sighing of the pine, The buzz of insects on their skimming wings, And the deep-throated gurgle of the brook Down in the black ravine. A mingled voice The hollow too upsends: low human talk, Shrill whistlings, tones of children at their play; The cow-bell tinkling in the meadow-grass; The loud, quick bellow echoing down the vale; The bleat, the barn-yarn clarion, and the wheel On the ear shaking; yea, so still the air, I hear the pleasant rustling of the scythe Cutting its keen way through the long, deep grass, And even the fitful stamping of yon horse Standing within a corner of the rails Bounding his pasture. Back I trace my path. The twilight deepens. Shadowy, vast, and grim The mountain looms, while on the western hills 208 SUNSET ON SHAWANGUNK MOUNTAIN. The darkness gathers in one gloomy cloud; O'erhead the stars out-tremble, and the moon, Late cold and blind, is filling rich with light; And as the east grows duskier, shadows faint Are thrown upon the earth, till soft and sweet The moonlight bathes all nature in its calm And solemn joy. Oh holy, holy hour! Hour of pure thought, when worldly cares depart,When heaven seems near the weary one of earth, And God o'erbending with inviting smile. ANGLING. THE south wind is breathing most sweetly to-day, The sunshine is veiled in a mantle of gray, The Spring rains are past, and the streams leap alongNot brimming nor shrunken- with sparkle and song; T is the month loved by anglers, -'t is beautiful June! Away then, away then, to bright Callikoon! A narrow wild path through the forest is here, With light, tiny hoof-prints,- the trail of the deer! Beside and above us, what splendor of green! The eye can scarce pierce the dense branches between. How lightly this moss-hillock yields to the foot! How gnarled is yon bough, and how twisted that root! What white and pink clusters the laurel hangs out; The air one deep hum from the bees all about! The chestnut -'t is gala day with her —behold, Her leaves nearly covered with plumage of gold! While thick in the depths of the coverts below, The blackberry blossoms are scattered like snow. High up, the brown-thrasher is tuning its lay, And the red-crested woodpecker hammers away; VOL. I. 14 210 ANGLING. The caw of the crow echoes hoarse from the tops; The horn of the locust swells shrilly, and stops; While knots of bright butterflies flutter around, And seeks the striped squirrel his cave in the ground. We break from the tree-groups: a glade deep with grass; The white clover's breath loads the sense as we pass; A sparkle - a streak - a broad glitter is seen, - The bright Callikoon through its thickets of green! We rush to the banks: its sweet music we hear, Its gush, dash, and gurgle all blent to the ear. No shadows are drawn by the cloud-covered sun; We plunge in the "crystal, our sport is begun. Our line where that ripple shoots onward, we throw; It sweeps to the foam-spangled eddy below; A tremor, a pull, the trout upward is thrown, He swings to our basket, - the prize is our own. We pass the still shallows; a plunge at our side, - The dive of the muskrat, its terror to hide. A clamor is heard, spots are darting from sight,The duck with her brood speeding on in affright. A rush, - the quick water-snipe cleaving the air; We pass the still shallows, - our prey is not there. But here, where the trunk stretches half o'er the brook, And slumbers the pool in a leaf-shadowed nook, Where eddies are dimpling and circling away, ANGLING. 211 Steal gently, for here lies the king of our prey. Throw stilly: if greater the sound meets his ear Than the burst of a bubble, you strike him with fear; How cautious his touch of the death-hiding bait; The rod now is trembling: wait! patiently wait! A pull, - raise your line, yet most gently, -'t will bring The credulous victim more sure to his spring; A jerk, and the angle is bent to its length, Play the line from the reel or't will break with his strength! He darts round in foam, but his vigor is past; Draw steadily to you,- you'11 have him at last! Raise up, but beware that strong struggle and gasp, And the noble snared creature is filling your grasp. How bright with the water-gloss glitters the pride Of his brown-clouded back, red and gold spotted side! But we leave the reft scene of the dead monarch's reign, Like a despot that moves on to triumph again. The voice of the rapid now burdens the air,Approach, for our prey's crowded city is there! Here whirlpools, there eddies; here stillness, there foam; We ply well our efforts, -no further we roam. Our baskets we fill, but our muscles are tired, And a shade in the sky tells that day has expired; The robin has chanted his vespers and flown; The frog from the creek has commenced his trombone; 212 ANGLING. The spider has ceased his slight furrow to show; The brown sprawling shrimp seeks the pebbles below; The bank then we clamber, our home-path resume, The torch-bearing fire-fly to lighten the gloom, And dreams of our sleep-fettered pillow restore Our day-sport, distorted but pleasing, once more. DEER SHOOTING. THE east is now dappled with dawning of light, To the woods for the deer ere the sun is in sight! The white frost has spread its fresh, silver-like veil, And if a hoof passes, it tells us the tale. The hound in swift gambols darts hither and yon, We shoulder our rifles, and rapidly on. Each limb how elastic, - how bracing the air! Hurrah, boys, what know we of sorrow or care! Our veins tingle wild with delight, as we feel The breath of the autumn morn over us steal; The herds to their pastures are wending along, And hark! the first robin has burst into song! The hawk leaves the pine, in slow circles to sail, And in the brown stubble-field whistles the quail; Tread faster! for now the deer glides from the shade To drink at the streamlet, and feed in the glade; If longer we loiter, we'll seek him in vain, He'11 soon make his couch in the thickets again. His haunts we approach: creep on cautious and slow, The stir of a branch our dread presence will show; 214 DEER SHOOTING. His haunts we approach; scan the glade-grass, and look For his prints in the soft oozy marge of the brook; Here's a dash of the moss from the rock; there has sunk His hoof in the brown brittle dust of the trunk; Lead the hound to yon thicket! these tracks all around Proclaim that the run-way at last we have found. His rich rainbow banner hath Autumn unrolled, The woods blaze in splendors of crimson and gold; The leaves cutting sharp on the soft sapphire sky Shine clusters of jewels suspended on high; The dream-like and delicate light melting through Seems changed where it falls to an opal-like hue, So vivid and varied the colors that glow On the undergrowth spread, a deep mantle, below. With canopy o'er, rich as monarch could claim, And rifle on shoulder I wait for the game. As breathings I hold, the hound's music to hear, The trickle of waters comes meek to my ear; His hollow-toned trill the dark cricket repeats; Like watch-ticks, the spider's quick regular beats; In contrast, the glee of the grasshopper-throng With the catydid's solemn monotonous song; Then wearied with listening, I smile as, in ire, The milksnake out-launches his pronged tongue of fire, And on the prone beech, the coxcombical crow DEER SHOOTING. 215 Struts lordly, as if his black plumage to show: But hark to that sound stealing faint through the wood! Heart hammers, breath thickens, swift rushes the blood! It swells from the thicket more loud and more near,'T is the hound giving tongue! he is driving the deer! My rifle is levelled, swift tramplings are heard, A rustle of leaves, then, with flight like a bird, His antlers thrown back, and his body in motion With quick rise and fall like a surge of the ocean, His eyeballs wide rolling in frenzied affright, Out bursts the magnificent creature to sight. A low cry I utter he stops, bends his head, His nostrils distended, limbs quaking with dread; My rifle cracks sharp, he springs wildly on high, Then pitches down headlong, to quiver and die. On the trail now comes, leaping and panting, the hound, And I hear the shrill whoop -of my comrade resound; Up wheels the broad sun, his fresh joy giving light The innermost depths, striking quick into sight: A twitter and flutter awake in the trees; The stream casts its white curling breath to the breeze; As under our burden we stagger along The sociable wren bids good-morrow in song, 216 DEER SHOOTING. But the chatterbox squirrel is swelling with wrath, And stamping, lets drop his brown nuts in our path; We heed not his antics, but, trudge on amain, And stand, spent with toil, at our threshold again. FOWLING. A MORN in September! the east is yet gray, Come, Carlo! come, Jupe! we'll try fowling to-day: The fresh sky is bright as the bright face of one A sweeter than whom the sky looks not upon; And those wreathed clouds that melt to the breath of the south Are white as the pearls of her beautiful mouth; My hunting-piece glitters, and quick is my task In slinging around me my pouch and my flask; Cease, dogs, your loud clamor! you'11 deafen my brain; Keep your breath for the sport, and your gambols restrain. Here, leave the geese, Carlo! to nibble their grass, Though they do stretch their long necks and hiss as we pass; And that fierce little bantam, that flies your attack, Then struts, flaps, and crows with such airs, at your back; And the turkey, too, smoothing his plumes in your face, Then ruffling so proudly, as leave you the place; Ha! ha! that old hen bristling up mid her brood, Has taught you a lesson, I trust, for your good, - 218 FO WLING. By the wink of your eye, and the droop of your crest, I see your maraudings are now put at rest. The rail-fence is leaped, and the wood-boughs are round, A moss-couch is spread for my foot on the ground; A shadow has dimmed the leaves' amethyst glow, The first glance of Autumn his presence to show! The beech-nut is ripening above in its sheath, Which will burst with the black frost and drop it beneath; The hickory hardens snow-white in its shell, The butternut's globes show more large in the dell, The chestnut is changing its hue in its burr, The cones are full-grown on the pine-tree and fir, The hopple's red berries are tinging with brown, The tips of the sumach have darken'd their down, The white brittle Indian-pipe lifts up its bowl, The wild turnip's leaf curls out broad like a scroll, The cohosh displays its white balls and red stems, The braid of the mullein is yellow with gems, While its rich spangled plumage the golden-rod shows, And the thistle yields stars to each air-breath that blows. A quick startling whirr now bursts loud on my ear, - The partridge, the partridge, swift pinioned by fear-; Low onward he whizzes, Jupe yelps as he sees, And we dash through the brushwood to note where he trees; I see him,- his brown speckled breast is displayed FOWLING. 219 On the branch of you maple that edges the glade; My fowling-piece rings, Jupe darts forward so fleet, Ere I load he lays down the dead bird at my feet. I pass by the scaur-berries' drops of deep red In their green creeping leaves, where he daintily fed; And his couch near the root, in the warm forest-mould, Where he wallowed, till sounds his close danger foretold. On his branch, the bright oriole dances and sings, With rich crimson bosom and glossy black wings; And the robin lights warbling, then flutters away, For I harm not God's creatures so tiny as they; But the quail, whose quick whistle has lured me along, No more will recall his strayed mate with his song; And the hawk, that is circling so proud in the blue, Let him keep a lookout, or he'11 tumble down too: He stoops, the gun echoes, he plunges beneath, His yellow claws curled, and fierce eyes glazed in death. Lie there, cruel Arab! the mocking-bird now Can rear her young brood without fear of thy blow;$ And the brown wren can warble his sweet little lay, Nor dread more thy talons to rend and to slay; And with luck, an example I'11 make of that crow, For my green sprouting wheat knew no hungrier foe; But the black rascal seems from his summit to scoff,. And as I creep near him, he croaks, and is off. The woods shrink away and wide spreads the morass,. With junipers clustered, and matted with grass, 220 FOWLING. Trees standing like ghosts, their heads splintered and bare, O'erhung with pale lichens, like age-whitened hair, The tamarack here and there, rising between, Its gray mossy boughs tufted over with green; With clumps of dense laurels, and brown-headed flags, And thick slimy basins black dotted with snags: Tread softly, now, Carlo! the woodcock is here; He rises, his long bill thrust out like a spear; The gun ranges on him, his journey is sped, Quick scamper my spaniels and bring in the dead: We plunge in the swamp, the tough laurels are round, - No matter, our shy prey not lightly is found; Another up-darts, but unharmed in his flight,Confound it! the sunshine then dazzled my sight! But the other, my shot overtake as he flies, — Come, Carlo! come, Carlo! I wait for my prize; Another, another, till, proofs of my sway, From my pouch dangle heads in a ghastly array. From this scene of exploits, now made birdless, I pass, Pleasant Lake gleams before me, a mirror of glass; My boat's by the margin, with branches supplied, From the keen-sighted duck my approaches to hide; A flock spots the lake now, - crouch, Carlo, below, - And I move, with light paddle, on cautious and slow. By yon wide lily-island, its meshes that weaves, Of balls rich and golden, and large oval leaves, I watch them; how bright and superb is the sheen Of their plumage, gold blended with purple and green; FOWLING. 221 How graceful their dipping, - how gliding their way, - They are almost too brilliant to mark as a prey! One flutters enchained in those brown speckled stems, His yellow foot striking up bubbles like gems, Another with stretched neck darts swiftly across To the grass, whose green points dot the mirror-like gloss; But my labor I cease, their wise leader the drake, Eyes keen the queer thicket afloat on the lake; They group close together - both barrels - oh dear, What screaming and diving and splashing are here! The smoke-curls melt off as the echoes rebound,Hurrah! five dead victims are floating around. But "cloudland" is tinged now with sunset, and bright On the water's smooth polish point long lines of light, The headlands stretch likewise their dark shadows o'er, And I pull with my spoil once again to the shore. SPEARING. THE lake's gold and purple have vanished from sight, The glimmer of twilight is merged into night, The woods on the borders in blackness are massed, The waters in motionless ebony glassed, The stars that first spangle the pearl of the west Are lost in the bright blazing crowds of the rest; Light the torch! - launch the boat! -for to-night we are here, The salmon, the quick-darting salmon, to spear. We urge our light craft by the push of the oar Through the serpent-like stems of the lilies near shore, And turn the sharp prow at yon crescent-shaped cove, Made black by the down-hanging boughs of its grove; The meek eddy-gurgle that whirls at our dip, Sounds low as the wine-bead which bursts on the lip; On the lake, from the flame of our torch, we behold A pyramid pictured in spangles of gold, And the marble-like depths on each side of the blaze Are full of dark sparkles, far in as we gaze; The loon from his nook in the bank, sends a cry; The night-hawk darts down, with a rush, through the sky; SPEARING. 223 In gutturals hoarse, on his green slimy log To his shrill piping tribe, croaks the patriarch frog; And bleat, low, and bark, from the banks, mingle faint With the anchorite whippoorwill's mournful complaint.. We glide in the cove; let the torch be flared low! The spot where our victim is lurking,'t will show; Midst the twigs of this dead sunken tree-top he lies, Poise, comrade, your spear! or farewell to our.prize! It darts; to the blow his best efforts are bent, A white bubbling streak shows its rapid descent; He grasps it as upward it shoots through the air, Three cheers for our luck!- the barbed victim is there! Give way, boys! give way, boys! our prow points to shore, Give way, boys! give way, boys! our labor is o'er. As the black mass of forest our torch-light receives, It breaks into groups of trunks, branches, and leaves: Low perched on the hemlock, we've blinded with light Yon gray-headed owl! -see him flutter from sight! And the orator frog, as we glide with our glow, Stops his speech with a groan, and dives splashing below; One long and strong pull, the prow grates on the sand, Three cheers for our luck, boys! as spring we to land. " SEEK AND YE SHALL FIND." A FAIR young girl, one golden summer day Was wandering through a wood. The two whose love Guided the tottering steps of infancy, Had gone on high to wear bright wings and raise Sweet anthems with the angels; she was left The world's wild tempest to sustain alone. Yet had her mind been filled with love for God, Taught that He e'er was present, that His eye Looked always on her, and His holy arm Circled her in protection; and when Death Was fastening heavenward pinions to the one The last to leave her, as a mother's voice Trembled upon her ear, she heard in awe, Heard as her tears fell fast, that voice implore The Father, Him who reigns in highest heaven, To look upon the helpless child on earth, And guide, and guard, and bless her. Since that hour Oh! ever after, did her childish heart Thrill and hush deep within itself, as thought Wafted that death-bed scene, and in her ear That broken voice was whispered. She had looked In the soft twilight, hour of balm and dew, In the deep night magnificent with stars, " SEEK AND YE SHALL FIND." 225' In golden morn, and in the gorgeous set Of the proud sun, and asked in prayer for God, For God, her Father! and, oh blessed thought! The Father of the loved ones passed away. But naught, oh naught had met her eye or ear To tell her of His presence. She was sad. Her footsteps now were straying in the bright And glorious summer noontide. Fresh and green The leaves hung round her; overhead the sky Seemed one bright smile; rich streaks of sunshine glanced Like pointing fingers through the crowded stems, And little birds, with soft-toned songs that seemed Tuned for her ear, flew round her; tiny flowers Wooing her touch were nestling in their nooks, And all was peace and beauty. On a mound Sloping like velvet, sank her girlish form. Soft murmurs in the grass, a purling voice In the near rill, a low, deep organ tone Thrilling the pine-tree, lulled each sense, and sleep Glided across her with its downy touch. The ground-bird tripped beside and looked askance, Then whirred away. The squirrel gazed and barked And leaped into its bush. A straying fawn Bleated in fear as his large staring eye Met the prone form, and still she slumbered on. A sweet, sweet dream enchained her: in her view Two radiant shapes, around which sparkled still The light that flashes from the " Great White Throne," Stood, every moment brightening, and soft sounds VOL. I. 15 226 "SEEK AND YE SHALL FIND." Like far-off echoes, crept upon her ear. The pure forms pointed round, the melting tones Bade her eyes open and behold her God: Just then a robin perched upon the pine Pouring a gush of music, and she woke. A mist seemed vanishing from her eye, -a veil Seemed waving from her mind. She looked, - a light Steady and clear, streamed broad within her heart, And she saw God. Yes! God was in the sky Cloudless and bright above her; in the flower That breathed beneath; in the rich fingered gold Of the slant sunshine; in the emerald leaves O'ercanopied: His voice was in the grass Murmuring around, the stream, and organ pine; And bending low her knee and shedding tears More sweet and soothing than she e'er had known, She lifted up her childish voice and prayed. FAITH. IF that high faith, whose holy beam The future's midnight turns to day, Be but delusion's feverish dream, Returning reason sweeps away, Oh who could nerve against despair, When storms surround the staggering bark! Oh who his weary burdens bear Along a path so cold and dark! The keen regret, the wasting grief, The tears that make life's daily showers, Oh where from these could come relief! Oh where! if that dark creed be ours! Better at once to end our pain, In the hushed grave our sorrows cast, Than drag along the galling chain, And have no goal to reach at last. But if that Faith that heavenward glows Sheds on our hearts its radiance clear, Then come, oh Earth! with all thy woes! We care not for our trials here. 228 FAITH. The soul, the soul can never die; Away all clouds will soon be driven; Its goal is yonder glorious sky, Its everlasting home is heaven. THE FORSAKEN ROAD. IN the deep bosom of the wilderness, Arbored with green, now hidden by the leaves Dropped at the breath of Autumn, seaming here The hollow wet with oozing springs, and there Traced lightly on the firm and level glade, Winds, in two wheel-marks, a forsaken road. Now it is lost within a sward of grass Spread pleasantly, with scattered groups of trees,A place to lie in, when the summer sun Throws broken gold; thence strikes it through the shade, With time-stained blazes on the thronging trunks Hacked either hand. Within the densest spot, A pine has stretched its giant barricade, Bulging with knots and forked with splintered twigs, The shroud-like moss o'ermantling; as it lies So motionless, so powerless in decay, I start to think its shattered summit once Flaunted its daring challenge to the storm, And told its fall in thunder. Still the wreck Hath pleasant uses; its high twining roots Are chambers for the squirrel, and its frame Keeps bare a stripe of earth strewn o'er with mast 230 THE FORSAKEN ROAD. From the white drift that blocks the opposite side, So that the tenants of the base might steal In the brief glimpses of the winter sun To find the scattered treasures. Onward still I trace the road; tall saplings in the midst, Then tawny grain-cracked fragments crumbling fine As my foot sinks within them; then a mound Of the sweet, low-stemmed wintergreen; a bridge Of logs then lying crosswise o'er a stream, Gaping with chasms and tottering dank with age,A frail support; until the stone-piled wall Cuts sharp across, and smiling farm-fields hide All traces of the pathway. As I tread The lonely road, now scaring with my steps The whizzing partridge, hushing with my form The thrasher's song, and baring with my knife The darkened hack o'erlaid with bark and rings That years have circled, I give rein to thought, And images throng round me. First the deer Seeking the lick, leaves prints; the midnight wolf Scenting his prey, tramps o'er; the red-man fierce, Treads in the faint but noted marks, lest moss And mould should show his trail. In after years His compass the surveyor sets, and carves Rude letters on the trees that, gifted thus With language, tell the windings of the way. And then the emigrant's huge wagon-tent Gleams white between the trunks, with household goods THE FORSAKEN ROAD. 231 Piled in and dangling round; and midst them grouped Childhood and matron age, the flock and herd Straggling behind, the patriarch and his sons Trampling before with axes, hewing wide The underbrush, and bridging o'er the streams, And kindling in the dell, when frowns the night, Their bivouac-flame for slumber. Then with toil The settler trudges o'er, his shoulders bent Beneath his burden, from the distant mill, To feed his famishing children. And as Time Smooths the rough clearing to the smiling field, The heavy wagon jolts across the roots To the far market, and the tardy wheel Therefrom bears loads of rustic merchandise. And then as scattered walls of logs are merged Into thick village roofs, the forest road Is left, for the smooth spacious thoroughfare Linking the hamlet to the river-side. How like this lonely road, the track of life! Wild passions rage along the path of youth Till Reason's compass points the devious way. Determination follows: hewing down The barriers with the edge of energy, Bridging o'er fortune's many adverse streams, And lighting sorrow's frequent night with flame Of solace till the morrow. Trials come: Our hearts are strong with fortitude, and still We tread beneath the burdens of our care, For those we love are cherished. Then as home 232 THE FORSAKEN ROAD. Brightens to comfort, in our daily path We reap reward of hardship; and as joys Cluster around us, the smooth, easy course Of peaceful being leads us to the grave; And the rough early road is shunned, for Time To shroud its varied surface from our thoughts; With proud Ambition lying prone across, A dead and shattered wreck; yet sheltering close, (Its fragments turn'd by dire experience To holier use than when it stood erect,) By stern remembrance of its miseries, Its wrestling warfare and its rending fall, Home feelings, and the gentle ties of love, From perishing in the snow-drifts of the world. HOME. HO3E of the soul! thy light appears A star to guide man's gloomy way, When, pilgrim in this waste of years, His faltering step is turned astray; Hope lends her pinions to his feet, Faith sheds its balm within lis breast, And tireless, on he speeds to greetPrize of his toils- the goal of rest. Darkly the night hath frowned on high, Roughly.the path before hath spread, And the fierce tempest, sweeping by, Hath beat upon the wanderer's head. But through the night streams, pure and warm Upon the path, a pointing ray; A hand is with him in the storm, To guide and guard,- his strength and stay. Oh who would linger here, when Home Hath bliss that fancy never drew'! Oh why should footstep ever roam, When heaven shines o'er our mental view! 234 HOME. Home, glorious Home! earth's darkest sky And stormiest path we calmly brave, For the bright wafting wings that lie In waiting for us at the grave. MOONLIGHT. FROM her blue sky-throned height The moon looks down upon the silent scene, Changing the gloom of night To sparkling silver, with her magic sheen. A solitary cloud Steals o'er her orb, which paints a halo there; On floats the transient shroud, Curls by that star-gem, and dissolves in air. Yon lofty mountain-pile Spreads a vast shadow on the glittering ground, Its summit like an isle Looming o'er billowy vapors wreathed around. Within the templed wood I wander lone; sublimely still it stands Enshrined to solitude,A green majestic fane -" not made with hands." There frowns Night's blackest hue; And there a gleam is shot along the grass, 236 MOONLIGHT. Seeming, to Fancy's view, Spread for the fairies of the spot to pass. Moonlight! it hath a spell Like music sweet and low, - of feelings deep, Of joys too bright to dwell, And- thoughts that come and sadden till we weep. And blest, oh blest those tears! The present's stern realities depart; And other, happier years Crowd, with their sweet old memories, to the heart. The wakened, lifted soul Draws nearer to that heaven we view afar; More brightly shines the goal, - A ray shoots downward from our native star. The cedar's pillared shade Streaks the wild path; and steeped in lustrous gloss, Where spreads yon dewy glade, Gleam on my eye the thickets, grass, and moss. My grateful brow I bare To the soft fragrant wind-kiss; in thy sight The darkness of despair Brightens to hope, 0 pure and holy Night! These silvered leaves and flowers, Yon rich broad sky, God's mighty banner spread, MOONLIGHT. 237 Mountain and forest-bowers, - A sacred awe upon my spirit shed. One prayer, as low I kneel, That when Death's night succeeds Life's stormy day, My sin-freed soul may feel A heaven-sent calmness as it glides away. THE OLD BRIDGE. THROUGH a lone landscape creeps a marshy stream; Dead trees have fallen across, and withered twigs Float on its stealing surface; where it shrinks In narrowest line, the fragments of a bridge Still stretch, though in decay. Its platform once Of lopped pine saplings, two hewed trunks sustained. But now the point of one foundation-log Slants deep within the mire, and not a trace Is witnessed of the causeway. When the bridge Lay in its perfect shape, foot, hoof, and wheel Passed o'er its sturdy frame; the forest twined Its leafy bowers around, and through its vault The bright bank-brimming streamlet merrily danced. But the keen axe has swept its way amid The woodlands, leaving here and there a tree; And summer suns have drunk the streamlet's fount, Until the waters filter through a marsh Where the bridge-remnants rest mid pools of slime, Grass tufts like streaming hair, and sedges green Pointing like daggers. But the ruin still Shows life and beauty round it, and itself Forms to the eye a picture. Timid Spring THE OLD BRIDGE. 239 Smiles with her violet eyes from mossy nooks, And on its taper stem the lily hangs Its snowy bell, rich tongued with downy gold. The chirping snipe alights and balances Its gray-white shape; the woodcock darts in line Upward at morn, but drops again at eve To feed upon the ooze below the logs. One mighty pine, amid the straggling trees, Lifts its unchanging pyramid to heaven; And when the sun is slant upon the scene, The moss that clothes the fragments of the bridge Glows like green velvet; the pine-top is bathed In golden lustre, while the streaming light, Touching the remnants, makes a broad, bright track Between them, and the sunset portals spread As though to let the eye look through to heaven. An emblem art thou, rude and mouldered wreck! Of Age decayed and tottering. Strong in youth Man bears his burdens; Life's green objects stand In myriads round him, and his feelings glide In pure unwasted brightness through his breast. But Time's hand grasps his form; it, shatter'd, sinks: Keen disappointment strikes the objects down Until they lie in wrecks; his feelings shrink Beneath the glare of fierce reality, Until they creep amidst the slime and weeds Of craft and selfishness; with broken frame, Age rests then in the mire of slow decay. But he is not forsaken: Childhood smiles, 240 THE OLD BRIDGE. Brightening his weary hours with merry looks; Affection hangs above his couch of pain, — A human blossom; volatile Youth draws near, Pleased with his presence; Ardor oft forsakes His counsel, soars aloft, but comes again To learn new wisdom, ere he wings afresh. Mid the few scattered objects left to him, One changeless hope looks upward to the sky. And as Life's sun slants low, it touches him With sanctity, illumes the towering hope To more resplendent light, and makes the space That separates from the portals of the grave A golden pathway between him and heaven. THE AMBUSH. OLD winding roads are frequent in the woods, By the surveyor opened years ago, When through the depths he led his trampling band Startling the crouched deer from the underbrush, With unknown shouts and axe-blows. Left again To solitude, soon Nature touches in Picturesque graces; hiding, here, with moss The wheel-track; blocking up the vista, there, In bushes; darkening with her soft, cool tints The notches on the trees and hatchet-cuts Upon the stooping limbs; across the trail Twisting, in wreaths, the pine's enormous roots, And twining, like a bower, the limbs above. Now skirts she the faint path with fringes deep Of thicket, where the checkered partridge hides Its downy brood, and whence, with drooping wing, It limps to lure away the hunter's foot Approaching its low cradle; now she coats The hollow, stripped by the surveyor's band, To pitch their tents at night, with pleasant grass, So that the doe, its slim fawn by its side, Among the fire-flies in the twilight feeds; And now she hurls some hemlock o'er the track, VO, I. 16 242 THE AMBUSH. Splitting its trunk that in the frost and rain Asunder falls and melts into a line Of umber dust. It was a summer eve. Through the dark leaves, the low descending sun Glowed like a spot of splendor from the shade Of Rembrandt's canvas. In the wildest part Of the wild road, where streaks of ruby haze Were quivering, suddenly appeared a form From the thick woods. His brow was stern and fierce, And his keen eye was like a burning coal. He bore a rifle, and within his belt Glittered a knife. He bent his head aside And listened breathlessly. The sunset breeze Rising and sinking fitfully like sighs Drawn by the forest and the twittering birds, Alone were heard. He stooped his ear to earth, Then starting up, with one quick bound he scaled The prostrate body of a pine that lay Like a low wall along the ancient road Plumed with dense blackberry vines and crouched below. Once more the usual quiet settled down. The thrashers which had hushed their flutes when steps Woke the green solitude, again perched near And answered one another; from his grot Again the squirrel glided in quick search For the brown butternut, and even the fox P eered with his sloping snout and glittering eye iF om his dark den. The snapping of a twig THE AMBUSH. 243 Broke on the air at length, and, treading swift, A hunter, with his rifle at his side, Strode by the pine-trunk. As he passed a shot Rang from the covert. Up the hunter leaped, Then headlong fell, with quivering limbs and blood Reddening the earth. The murderer from his lair Sprang with a savage yell and pointed knife, And bent above the dying. In his look Glared fiend-like hate and gratified revenge. He stamped his foot upon the form that writhed Amid its gore, then spurned it with wild strength Over and over, laughed in horrid joy At every hollow groan, while broken words Of some foul wrong hissed fiercely through his teeth Until the wretched victim gasped and died. Then, dragging through the brown and mouldering leaves The lifeless shape, he cast it in a pit Hollowed by Nature near the ancient road, Filled it with branches, and with fearful smile Left the wild scene to all its sweet repose. NIGHT IN THE WILDERNESS. THE sunset Angel lights the leaves, Here, casts his wing an upward glow, And there, his slanting finger weaves Bright net-work on the moss below. Amid the pine, now fading dim, The wild-bird trills its vesper hymn, And from the arbored shade Whose cool green gloom had roofed the heat, The red-deer glides with timid feet To feed upon the glade. Far down, the brindled porcupine Within his shelving cave has shrunk, And, darting in an arrowy line The wild-bee seeks its hollow trunk. Each songster couched within its nest, Is softly twittering into rest; Silent the partridge-drum; The frog-marsh echoes harsh and loud, And from it the mosquito-cloud Streams with its constant hum. NIGHT IN THE WILDERNESS. 245 Along the western mountain's brow The golden rim has passed away, And a large star is glittering now Out from the sheet of pearly gray; Below, the woods are wrapped in gloom; The cedar lifts its sombre plume, The beech is one dark mass; And blackness, thick and murky, lies Where lately glowed the blended dies Of blossom, leaf, and grass. But the wild forest is awake: The gray-owl sends his startling whoop, And frequent long-drawn howls outbreak As swiftly scours the wolfish troop; And now and then the panther's yell Pierces the air with long keen swell So full of threatening doom, The hunter by his watch-fire's gleam, Starts, with his rifle, from his dream, And shudders at the gloom. But now the leafy summits traced Against the spangled dome of sky, With faint and glimmering threads are laced, And softer purple glows on high; The east arch kindles pure and bright, While a huge globe of blood-red light Through the tinged branches glares, Till o'er the wood-tops climbs the moon, 246 NIGHT IN THE WILDERNESS. And earth in all the pomp of June, Her dreamy splendor wears. Diamonds are scattered o'er the ground, Arrows are glittering in the sprays, And on yon rippling stream is wound A shifting web of sparkling blaze; The trunks are streaked with pearly gleams, And every leaf carved silver seems, Till column, roof, and wall Of myriad sylvan temples, rear Their graceful shapes distinct and clear Below this gorgeous pall. The shouting owl has sought his den, Wolf-howl and panther-shriek are still; Gayly the hunter leaves the glen For his lone cabin on the hill. He notes with smiles the shy raccoon Dipping his corn-ear where the moon Has bathed the stream with light, And sometimes, as his footsteps crush Dry leaf and twig, he hears a rush, And antlers dart from sight. The moonlight fades, dawn struggles gray, Tree-tops in golden light are glossed, A robin whistles,-soon his lay In myriad chorus-strains is lost: The damp wind's breath of sassafras NIGHT IN THE WILDERNESS. 247 Lifts to the boughs,-stoops to the grass,All things are fair and gay; Night with her sights and sounds is flown, And with attendants of his own Bright smiles the Summer Day. THE FIRST VIOLET. WARM rains and fanning winds; the snow-drifts melt Into swift rivulets, and the forest floor Shows its leaf-carpet, while the roots again Are seen, thick velveted with moss; above, Branches are studded with their bursting buds, Below, green plants are springing; from her sleep Nature has wakened, and laughs out with joy. The maple has not reddened, nor the beech Plumed its slight sprays; but from the earth the fern Thrusts its green, close-curled wheel, the downy sprout Its two leaves, and the tassels of the birch Are lengthening their brown links. From spot to spot The merry carol of the bluebird sounds, The gay-winged messenger the Spring sends out To tell us of her coming. Wandering on, A tiny blossom nestling in the moss Gladdens the eye,-the little violet, Pencilled with purple on one snowy leaf, And breathing its light fragrance on the air. It starts at the first summoning of Spring, And laying its slight delicate ear to earth, Listens for her approaching tread, and then, THE FIRST VIOLET. 249 As the South tells her breath, and brown gaunt trees Catch the first gleaming of her emerald robe, It calls upon the wind-flower to arise, And the stream-loving cowslip: As the leaves Then look from out their prisons, and the grass Shoots from the hill-slopes, and the cherry.shows Its mass of snowy blossoms, the sweet thing (Like modest merit in this thankless world) Hides its meek head mid countless throngs of flowers. Come to the forest, bright one! and I'11 show How Nature can be like thy lovely self. Pleasure and happiness and blessed hope Are now in all her teachings: I will cull This little violet, emblem of thyself In thy fresh spring of life, and all the grace Of thy bright girlhood, when the future seems A glorious Eden with no gloom to dim. These snowy leaves are like thy stainless brow, Which sorrow has not paled, nor care impressed; These purple streaks within this fairy cup, Pencilled so lightly and so delicate, Are like the fringes of thy sweet dark eye; And the soft perfume of this bee-sought shrine, Like the rich breathing of thy ruby lips. Yon pearly cloud amid the stainless blue, Is like thy heart in its pure, holy sleep,No passion ruffling, writhing in no grief, But fancying the world is like that sky. 260 THE FIRST VIOLET. So be it ever, bright one; may the sword Of thy good angel guard thy paradise, And life glide on, like music, to its close. We will not wander far, for soon the cloud Rent from stern Winter's mantle in his flight, Will send its cold, bleak wind, and rain and sleet. But when the sun grows warmer, and the grass Is thick upon the glades, and myriad flowers Make carpets for the fairies; when the winds Are scented, and the glorious sunsets spread Their crimson mantles, edged with burnished gold, And when the night is molten with the moon; And all is blessed peace, I'11 teach thee then Nature's most high and holy mysteries. She is a harp, whose strings are intertwined Within our hearts, which when we touch them, yield Sweet, solemn music, making pure our thoughts,Hushing wild passion's turbulence to peace,Soothing our sorrows, and restoring hope, And guiding us, with gentle hand, to heaven. JUNE. THE loveliest of the -seasons, radiant June, Gladdens us with her presence; tardy Spring Timidly glanced upon the sky and earth That softened and grew green beneath her eye. The hoarse blast ceased, and sweet the gentle South Fanned the young blossoms, and the downy buds, Those fairy cradles of the flowers and leaves: And mid the melody of leaping streams The birds made warbling music. Then the skirts Of WVinter's vanishing robe swept o'er again: The black car of the tempest rolled on high, The bluebird ceased its music, and the bee, Lured by the transient sunshine to dart forth With its rich hum, shrank back into its cell. But the unceasing change in Nature's breast Was working, and the kindly elements Were nursing the pent principle of life To greater strength and power, until it burst Upon the wakened earth in leaves and flowers. Summer hath bounded on us: loveliest sights And sweetest.sounds are echoing, smiling round; 252 JUNE. The chestnut shows, amid its dark green leaves, Its golden strings; the basswood shines in white; And the slow locust opens to the sun Its pea-bloom shapes of blossoms. Where the wood Arches its emerald depths, the mocking-bird Mingles its mimic tones; the robin hears His warble echoed from the neighboring bush; The wren, shrill chattering, pauses, as its notes Are doubled, and the russet ground-bird lifts Its tiny foot, and shoots its bead-like eye Around to see who mocks its light quick chirp. On the hot sunny hill-sides, bristling, hangs In branching drops, the dimpled strawberry Through the short, weedy grass. The meadow shows Its robe of purple clover, spangled o'er With golden buttercups and daisy-stars And dandelion-globes of silver down. Beside yon pool that sleeps beneath a roof Of blended branches, gemmed with ivy-urns And laurel-chalices, the angler plies His patient sport, and where the stream expands, Fringed with thick alders, through the pasture-field, In the cool crystal stands the toil-worn ox, While the prone sheep upon the highest ledge Pant wearily beneath the scorching sun. A gray haze mantles round the mountain's brow, And leaden streaks athwart the inky- cloud JUNE. 253 Proclaim the shower afar: the sky grows dim And threadlike sprinkles glimmer in the air With murmurings like a shell's. The haze moves on, And soon the dense dark rain-sheets deluge earth, Sounding most pleasant music. Branches dance, Grass quivers, blossoms bow, while streams cast up White leaping bubbles as the large drops beat Upon their shaking bosoms: then a gleam Of sunshine like a golden arrow shoots Across the clouds that in huge fragments part, Leaving white edges widening till they show Glimpses of azure: silvery floating veils Melt, and the naked sky is smiling o'er; And as the black mass piles the frowning East, The rainbow springs with all its glorious hues, Its broad bright bases staining seemingly Mountain or tree or cloud they rest upon; The landscape in the slant rays of the sun Sparkles with its innumerable gems, As though a flood of silver had been poured Molten upon it. Now the West is made One mighty opal by the sunset's pomp; Tint follows tint, until the last bright ray Fades from the mountain, and a softened light Proclaims that Day has fled and Eve has come. OBSERVATION. NATURE is full to overflow of charms, For those that seek her with a searching mind And the heart-portals open. Rude and lone May seem the spot, but the instructed eye And ear ne'er fail to find what wakens thought And stirs emotion. Let us thread our way Through these close streets. A glance of sunshine paints A golden track athwart this naked field And up that knoll of pines. We tread along, Up-clamber and descend. We find a chasm Such as a torrent makes- a basin scooped Like a dried pool within, and here we pause. An elm is slanting o'er, its wreathing roots Scarce holding to the banks; beneath the bulge Of its broad base, a little mined-out nook. Pebbles and sharp-edged stones are scattered round; A pine above has shed its dry dead mass Of fibres; here and there a cone is dropped With horny wide-spread edges. Single plumes Of the familiar brake, and blades of grass Have struggled from the earth. Within the nook OBSER VA TION. 255 Gleams a small coat of moss, and midway up Upon a shelf of rock, a lichen-tuft. There is no trace of beauty in the spot, Naught, it would seem, to draw a glance or rouse A feeling; yea, the foot might pass it by E'en in close search of objects, unobserved. But let us rest awhile upon this bank. Listen! a murmuring sound arises up;'T is the commune of Nature-the low talk She holds perpetually with herself. Let the ear separate the blended tones, An orchestra of sounds! within the nook A trill with pauses; on the rocky shelf A light swift tick-tick; in the brake and grass A merry strain; and, mingling all, a hum As if the pine were breathing. Now cast round A scanning eye. This withered pine-tuft hold Between you and the streak of mellow light That like a slanting shaft of quivering motes Glances yon opening through; five bars of gold Joined at the base. Yon dark unsightly cone Lift to the sun: what a rich hue of brown, How sharp and delicate each oval edge! Pick up that withered elm-leaf from the nook Cast there by Autumn's blast: how beautiful Those branching arteries! what myriad veins! Yea, the whole leaf seems but a woven web Of arteries and veins. Pluck yon tall brake: A fairy chisel has been here at work, 256 OBSER VA TION. Tracing exquisite beauty; waving lines, Scallopings, dottings! perfect, wonderful! Tear from that coat of moss a single branch; A mimic pine-tree bristling o'er with fringe. Sweep from the shelf the lichen; see this stem! A pillar of pale green with crimson balls Thick on its summit. Mark! the very stones Seem sown with glittering gems: the pebbles smooth And polished, have their light gray tint o'erstreaked And shaded with rich varying hues. 0 Thou, Parent of Nature! awful Deity! The earth is but a dot among the throngs Of thy creation, yet in love hast Thou Set round the swarming'insects of this earth, The signs that tell of Thee. The most minute Are eloquent as the greatest. Thou hast given An ear to hear, an eye to see, a mind To understand; and yet the plainest things, Those that are showered around us, we pass by Unheeding; ear and eye and mind made dull By objects mean and worldly. Oh that we Would see the loveliness of Nature, hear Her solemn harmony, and comprehend The meanings that she utters. Constantly Proclaim those meanings deepest wisdom forth; Wisdom, that but applied to daily life, Would make the beings that now grope their way In gloom along a tangled narrow path, Wiser and happier. OBSER VA TION. 257 And oh! most of all Those meanings point to Thee, eternal God, Thee the Omniscient —the Omnipotent, The Fount and Ocean of all earthly things. VOL. i. 17 THE LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS. I DARE not whisper what I feel for thee, But I will let the flowers, upon whose leaves Hath Love its language written, plead my suit; Then listen, lovely lady. First, I send The rose of hundred leaves, ambassador. The amaryllis next —an emblem, bright And beauteous, of thyself; interpreter Of my own thoughts, the cedar; then for thee The pure white lily, for myself the pink Red as the sky at sunset; mignonette For thee, for me the bay-leaf; the green fern For thee, the oak-geranium for myself; The harebell next, another emblem sweet Of thee, the currant for myself; again The Austrian rose that breathes of thee such truth, The jonquil whispering timidly for me. The silver daisy and the jasmine wreathed, Emblems again of thee; and for myself, When the swift hours are warning me to leave, I send the thyme to whisper thee the cause; The orange-blossom next, more truth of thee, With the rich musk-rose to complete the wreath. Then, oh then, clustered with my hopes and fears, THE LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS. 259 Warm from repeated pressures to my heart, And trembling with its beatings, close entwined I give the myrtle's green and polished leaves With the rose-hued chrysanthemum. With pride I place thy wreath upon thy radiant brow, And mine, with the red tulip in its midst, I lay in deepest reverence at thy feet. MUSINGS. ONCE only have I met thee; once have heard The soft and gentle music of thy voice And gazed upon thy beauty; yet my heart Is brightened with thy image, as the sky Is kindled by the moonlight. Memory oft Calls from the past that hour of magic spell, And I am wrapped in day-dreams; on my ear The warble of thy laugh falls clear and sweet, Charming away the sorrow of my thoughts; Thy form then glides before me with the grace That fancy gives to angels, and I seem Again within thy presence, and am blest. I know it is in vain. I know thou art To me as yon fair moon that dwells in heaven. Yet often in my solitary walks I take thee from my heart where thou art hid, An idol in its shrine, and hold thee up Before my mental vision. Brightness streams Around me, and my soul is wrapped in bliss. Fair forms throng round me, but I heed them not, For thou art absent. Sweet looks glance around, But thy soft, soul-lit, spiritual eye MUSINGS. 261 Beams not among them, and thy fairy feet, Moving in billowy lightness, pass not there. Often when night is clustered with her stars, Calling to thought, till, tired and sick at heart, My head has sought its pillow, in sweet dreams Thou comest to me. Then, entranced, I hear Thy low rich tones of bee-like melody. Thou seemest a pure spirit fresh from heaven, With all its glory round thee, and I bend In adoration blent with breathless awe. The love I bore to Nature, and which glowed Within me like a passion, has grown cold, For every thought is thine. I feel not now The deep delight I once felt, as I see The sunshine showering gold upon the leaves, The shadows dancing on the pleasant grass, The purple mistiness of mountain-tops, And the green gloom of valleys. Far away, My pilgrim-heart is wandering to its shrine, Laden with incense-offerings unto thee. THE CAPTIVE. THE tempest of midnight shrieked loud through the sky, Where the black shapes of clouds hurried torrent-like by; And the moon struggled on through those surges of air, Now seen, and now lost, in the hurricane there. But forms in the forest trod silent and fast, The darkness they sought, and wished louder the blast, For the foe was before, and though shrouded in night, Still keen ears and eyes watched each sound and each sight. The hand grasped the hatchet- the belt bore the knife, The tribe's sternest warriors were armed for the strife, For their chief on his war-path had passed from the lake, And, entrapped in the ambush, was kept for the stake. And proud was that chief, though the fagots were piled, And fierce eyes were gleaming, and curses were wild, THE CAPTIVE. 263 Though the knife gashed still wider wounds bleeding and fresh, And the red brand of torture hissed hot in his flesh. Did he think of his lodge in the valley that stood? Of the lake whose blue eye shone through fringes of wood? Of his bride who was weeping with terror and woe? No! he thought but of taunting and mocking his foe. " How oft have ye trembled and crouched like the deer, At the sweep of my hatchet and dart of my spear! Give me back but that spear and that hatchet, again Will the blood of your bravest be sprinkled like rain.. "The scalp of thy father has dried in my smoke, I seized thy young brother, his death-doom I spoke, And my war-whoop was loud on the trail, when you fled, And the earth of your village was strewed with your dead." Their yells drowned his song, and the torch was applied, And a faint curl of flame caught the pile at his side, But louder the strain waxed, and fiercer the eye, As he called on their young men to teach them to die. 264 THE CAPTIVE. But hark! from the forest's tempestuous gloom, Shrill pealing from out the short hush of its boom, Like shrieks of starved eagles, burst war-whoops, and fast Whizzed thick clouds of arrows like hail on the blast. With a leap like the panther's, the chieftain has sprung, From his limbs are the bonds in the red fagots flung, His blood-dripping hatchet a pathway has hewed, And around him like leaves are his enemies strewed. In its purple and gold, rose the morn in the east, And lighted the vulture and wolf to the feast, And shone on that lake where in victory's pride, The chief hailed his village, his tribe, and his bride. THE ALBANY RURAL CEMETERY. WHEN life's last breath has faintly ebbed away, And naught is left but cold unconscious clay, Still doth Affection bend in anguish deep, O'er the pale brow, to fondly gaze and weep. What though the soul hath soared in chainless flight; Round the spurned frame still plays a sacred light, A hallowed radiance never to depart, Poured from its solemn source, the stricken heart. Not to the air should then be given the dead, Not to the flame, nor yet cold ocean's bed, But to the earth,- the earth from whence it rose, There should the frame be left to its repose. There our great mother guards her holy trust, Spreads her green mantle o'er the sleeping dust; There glows the sunshine-there the branches wave, And birds yield song, flowers fragrance round the grave. There oft to hold communion do we stray, There droops our mourning memory when away, And e'en when years have passed, our homeward feet Seek first with eager haste that spot to greet; And the fond hope lives ever in our breast 266 THE ALBANY RURAL CEMETERY. When death, too, claims us, there our dust shall rest. All these fair grounds with lavish beauties spread, Nature's sweet charms - we.yield them to the dead; Those swelling uplands whence the raptured sight Drinks in the landscape smiling rich and bright, Woodlands and meadows, trees and roofs and rills, The glittering river and the fronting hills; That nestling dell with bowery limbs o'erhead, And this its brother opening to the tread, Each with its naiad tripping low along, Striving to hide but freely offering song; These old deep woods where Nature wild and rude Has built a throne for musing solitude, Where sunshine scarce finds way to shrub and moss, And lies the fractured trunk the earth across; These winding paths that lead the wandering feet Through minster aisles and arbors dim and sweet; To soothe thy discord into harmony, O solemn, solemn Death, we dedicate to thee. Here will his steps the mourning husband bend With sympathizing Nature for his friend; In the low murmur of the pine he'11 hear The voice that once was music to his ear; In the light waving of the bough will view The form that sunshine once around him threw. As the lone mother threads each leafy bower, Her infant's looks will smile from every flower, Its laugh will echo in the warbling glee Of every bird that flits from tree to tree; THE ALBANY RURAL CEMETERY. 267 In the dead trunk laid prostrate by the storm, The child will see its perished parent's form, And in the sighing of the evening breath Will hear those faltering tones late hushed in death. Through these branched paths will Contemplation wind, And stamp wise Nature's teachings on his mind; As the white grave-stones glimmer to his eye, A solemn voice will thrill him, " Th1ou must die;" When Autumn's tints are glittering in the air, That voice will whisper to his soul, "Prepare;" When Winter's snows are spread o'er knoll and dell, "Oh this is death," that solemn voice will swell; But when with Spring, streams leap and blossoms wave, " Hope, Christian, hope,"'t will say, there's life beyond the grave." THE REVENGE. THE sunset poured among the crowded woods In golden beauty, drenching them with light. Long gleams of lustre lay upon the grass Of a small valley-opening dropped with trees. A streak of water bickered amid shrubs Across the hollow, noiseless as a pulse, And crept beneath a spreading alder-bush. A holy silence brooded o'er the spot, Save the scarce audible hum the forest yields Even in deepest quiet. But the leaves That spread their tawny carpet o'er the earth Crackled; two forms glanced past the trunks whose throngs Pillared the depths, and stepped within the dell. Beside the rill they kneeled and drank, then threw Their lengths upon the sward. The dark red skin, High cheeks, and ebon eyes of one proclaimed His Indian blood; the other, bronzed and wild, Yet showed the white man's lineage. Both were garbed Like hunters, with the rifle, pouch, and knife. They talked with rapid gestures, merry laughs Frequent from each, with now and then a swell THE REVENGE. 269 Of joyous song. At length their tones waxed loud, The song and laughter ceased, their brows grew dark, Abrupt and fierce their gestures, and their eyes Devoured each other. Quick as thought, at length, The white man darted on the Indian's breast A giant blow. The savage started up, His rifle lay upon the grass, but keen Flashed in his grasp his knife; the wounded wolf Springs not more fiercely at its foe, than he On the white hunter; but the latter stood With his long rifle aimed. One moment glared The Indian at his comrade, then his face Broke into one bright smile; he sheathed his knife, Pressed.his dark hand an instant on his heart, And then extended it with dignity Towards his companion, who, with honest warmth Grasped it with words of pardon. Lifting then Their rifles to their shoulders, through the cleft In the encircling boughs, where went their path They left the sylvan spot. The twilight soft Trembled within the myriad forest-vaults Although the hemlock-spires and maple-domes Were burnished with rich glow. That passed away, And all looked cold. The outlines of the trunks Were shaded out, until long streaks of black On lighter gloom alone told where they stood. At length they reached a cabin, scarce discerned Amidst a thicket. The long August drought Had dried the saplings clustered round, and seared The dense vines mantled o'er it, as though flame 270 THE REVENGE. Had scorched them. From its leathern hinges fallen The door lay buried in the grass and fern Of the luxuriant forest. Night was now Fast closing, and the wearied hunters passed Within the cabin. Half the barken roof Away had rotted, and the autumn wind Had sown a seed that now a sapling stood Where once the hearth-fire glowed. Beside the stem Upon a mound of moss, the hunters stretched Their limbs for slumber. Onward rolled the hours, And midnight came. The long-risen spotted moon Poured its delicious light upon the woods, Piercing with silver glance the aisles and vaults Of the magnificent temple reared by God For Solitude to yield Him ceaselessly Incense from leaves and flowers, and upward roll Grand crashing anthems of the mighty winds. One ray streamed broad within the ruined hut, And rested on the hunters. The smooth trunk Of the young tree within the lustrous light Shone like a shaft of pearl. The ray displayed The Indian stealing from his comrade's side, With motion like the gliding of a snake. Undoing then his belt, he crept again Close to the prostrate form, and with quick strength Tight lashed him to the sapling. From his sleep Startled so suddenly, the hunter gazed Wildly around, then strove to break away; In vain, his pinioned arms and breast were bound As though in iron fetters to the tree. THE REVENGE. 271 He shouted to the Indian, but the click Of flint on steel alone was heard without. Just then a crimson streak shot brightly up Athwart the door-space, as the lightning darts Along the cloud; a crackling filled his ears, And a shrill whoop pealed horrid on the air. Again he strove to burst his bonds, the blood Froze in his veins, his hair crept, and his heart Swooned sick within him. Once more shouted heAgain the whoop. The door-space was one glow; The crevices were red, and tongues of flame Shot through the smoke that poured within the hut. "My God, the blow! the blow!" the sapling shook With his convulsive strength in efforts vain. The Indian stood without, a fiendish smile Writhing his lip, fierce triumph on his brow. Luridly leaped the avenging flames to heaven; Night veiled her soft pure eye; the silvery blue Was blotted out. Deep roared the raging fire, And blending with it, piercing shriek on shriek Pealed from the burning hut. The sapling flashed In flame, and now and then quick tremblings shook Its shape, as if wild strength were there at work. At each shrill shriek, each tremor of the tree, The Indian whooped, more glaring waxed his eye, And his grim smile more fiendlike; but at length Tottered the walls and sank; more fiercely sprang The greedy element; it seemed as though The fragments of the hut were swallowed up In the quick crackling leap on high, so soon 272 THE REVENGE. They melted in the furnace roaring there. No longer pealed the screams, and with quick hand The Indian grasped some ashes at his feet, Brushed them across his breast, and with a look Of triumph left the spot of his revenge. INDIAN SUMMER. How quietly the year, Beneath this soft-eyed season's gentle sway, Falls in its full maturity away On winter's frozen bier! Like sunset gathering to its twilight close, Or old age sinking to its last repose. When first broke morning's light, Volumes of fog a feathery ocean rolled, The woods loomed glimmering from the misty fold, Dimly the mountain's height Seemed struggling in the thick and mantling screen, And the bird sang and streamlet played unseen. The mist has cleared away; O'erhead the mild sun glows, a reddened ball, And on the earth his placid glances fall, While tranquil, meek, and gray, The sky spreads, shaded with its fleece of cloud, And azure glimpses breaking from the shroud. The hill slopes soft and calm, The fields still basking in the noontide light, VOL. I. 18 274 INDIAN SUMMER. All seem my wandering footsteps to invite; And with the south-wind's balm Fanning in pure fresh kisses on my brow, My paths is mid their haunts of quiet now. Across the meadow sear, And up the mount-side where the sumachs spread Their downy branches tipped with clusters red, And what a sight is here! Arched but by sky and smiling in the ray Of the warm quiet Indian Summer day! The wood-spots dark and deep, The upland vista, and the leaning hill, The lake below, pure polished as a rill, The sky in peaceful sleep, The far-off mountains, like piled smoke-wreaths bright, And valleys melting in rich purple light. Late glowed a different scene; When the chill air had sent its frosty showers, The forests, burst to myriad gorgeous flowers, Changed from their summer green, The blue morn showed; while far and wide a blaze Of differing splendor met the wondering gaze. Within the sunny air The foliage glittered to the wind's soft sigh, Shone the lake's bosom like a sunset sky, Beneath the glories there; INDIAN SUMMER. 275 And where the mountains fired the heavens, it seemed As though gigantic piles of jewels beamed. And in the rainbow woods, Here, was a fairy canopy unrolled Of sumptuous crimson blent with brilliant gold, There, the gemmed solitudes Formed purple arches, bowers of every dye, With opals showered on opals to the sky. The storm then gathered o'er With its chill rain, and with its rushing blast, Upon the gusts their robes the mountains cast, The wild lake sent its roar, The pine hissed fiercely, and the forests woke Their thunderings as the wind-surge on them broke. But like an infant's rest, Field, valley, hill, and wood, seem dreaming now In a light glimmering film of purple glow, And on the lake's smooth breast The mist-wreaths sleep, or slowly curl across As the breeze sportive darkens o'er its gloss. With murmurs like a flute, The streamlet glitters through the alder-sprays In meteor sparkles or in broken rays, Then on its ripples shoot, In braided gushes, bending the long grass And green fern-fringes bathed within their glass. 276 INDIAN SUMMER. Along the forest way I tread; the soft wind from the pine creeps down And rustles in the beechen thicket brown, Then whirls in eddying play The withered leaves strown idly, rattling fast, As showering falls the ripened sylvan mast. The deer glides shadowy by; The rabbit springs before me winged with dread, The squirrel leaves the strewed nuts where it fed AVith a low chirping cry, And the quick flicker like a checkered speck, Climbs the mossed oak and taps with darting neck. The air, how calm and still! Each gentle sound comes sweetly to my ear; The falling nut, the bee-wing's music near, The purling of the rill, The chirp of bird, the sighing of the breeze, And the far axe-blow echoing through the trees. With what a feeling deep Does Nature speak to us! Oh, how divine The flame that glows on her eternal shrine! What knowledge can we reap From her great pages if we read aright! Through her God shows His wisdom and His might. The visions of our youth! Bright as the autumn foliage are they found, INDIAN S UIM ER. 2 Robed in their glittering rainbows, all around, Radiant in seeming truth, Luring us onward, with their treacherous glow, And brightening lovelier swifter as they go. Then comes the threatening cloud; Despair seems blackening in our adverse sky, Frail as the leaves our brilliant visions die, And where once brightly glowed Fancy's enchanted Eden, naught appears But a wide waste of sorrow and of tears. But when our youth is past, With its vain visions and its storms, serene As yon mild sky, and peaceful as this scene, Contentment smiles at last Upon our way, and glorious hopes are given To light our path, whose native home is heaven. THE SEAT IN THE ROCK. A RUDE, wild place. The long and narrow ridge Ends in a rugged precipice of rock; A slope between it and a shallow pond Bristling with withered hemlocks and with stumps O'erspotted. A faint narrow road winds by, Here to the village- there, amidst the woods Bordered by laurel-thickets, to a glade. A jutting of the rock has formed a nook Along its base. A cedar's giant trunk, Dead, barkless, and stained black in spots by fire, From the high bank above has pitched, and lies With base upon the summit of the rock, And fractured head upon the bank below, A slanting ladder; and within a cleft O'er a huge bulge upon the rugged wall, Are birchen bushes, like green hanging plumes In a gigantic helmet. At one spot Within the nook, the back is hollowed out, Shaping a seat. Naught is there to declare Whether by freak of Nature or by man, This shelf was scooped. Upon the fissured sides, And the smooth slate that, laid in scales, compose This little terrace, names and letters rude THE SEA T IN THE ROCK'. 279 Are graven. With the massive roof above Spotted by lichen-scales, and looking out On the grim pond, with its deep background woods, Here have I sat in summer afternoons, Watching the long, slim shadows of the trees Slow creeping towards me, the rich haloed sun Melting the outlines of the forest-tops, Where it impended. In the hours of Spring, When the damp softened atmosphere proclaimed The coming rain to beat the frost from out The torpid earth, so that its lap might smile Again with flowers, here likewise have I sat And listened to the voices of the pond, Those surest prophecies of warmer hours, Ringing like myriad tiny silver bells Cheerfully on the ear. Bright day-dreams oft Have hovered o'er me in this lonely place, And though its homely features might attract Few to bestow a thought, yet Memory twines Her fibres round it. Ruthless Time hath driven The fairy dreams away, but still the spot Is hallowed where they brightened. Strange, most strange, The power of Memory! with her kindling touch, From the dim paintings of the past she brings The golden tints in added brilliancy, But leaves the shadows to their dusky rest, Strange, strange her power! the porch of home, though: rude, 280 THE SEAT IN THE ROCK. Is twined with fadeless roses; all its scenes Are full of echoes wakened by her spell. The trees have voices and the streams have songs, And even the air seems gifted with a sound Like a low wind with pleasure in its moan. No tone that ever struck upon her ear Is lost: no scene that ever met her eye Can fade. The discords of this jarring world May hush the tone, its change o'erlay the scene, But still within her essence and upon, It vibrates and is graven, and at last, In some great self-convulsion, or in hours We dream not of, will echo in the mind, And stand revealed before its opened eye. MiONGAUP FALLS.1 THE heat spreads a pale shining glaze o'er the sky, Like piles of carved brass, the clouds motionless lie; The west hath not sent yet its soft kissing breeze To stir the close air, or wake life in the trees; With dull, weighty languor the frame is oppressed, The shades dropped around bring no coolness or rest; As we pant under shelter or melt in the glow Our minds wander off to the regions of snow; The cold, polished ice spreads its plain to our feet, We skim in the keen wind rejoicing and fleet. Then other sweet visions glide, changing the scene, — The dim, vaulted forests, with twilights of green; The stream dancing onward delicious and cool, Here foaming a torrent, there coiling a pool; The cavern with fresh dripping moss spotted o'er, And water-drops tinkling like bells on the floor; Hurrah, a thought strikes us! shake languor away! The Falls of Mongaup will we visit to-day! The rough springless wagon —two steeds under rein, The harness eked out of rope, leather, and chain — 1 These falls are in a wild and romantic stream called the Mongaup, in Sullivan County, State of New York. 282 MONGA UP FALLS. Creak up to the inn -porch; - we wheel from the spot, One horse in a canter, and one on a trot; Along the broad turnpike we clatter and shake, Like a hail-storm, with clouds of thick dust in our wake; We clamber the hill, round the corner we tear, Two wheels slanted downward, and two in the air. Still plies the whip fiercely, our balance we find, We dash down the slope with the speed of the wind; The fences of serpentlike pine-roots we pass, Scathed stump-spotted clearings and patches of grass, With low crouching cabins of logs chinked with clay, Long well-sweep, and wood-pile, and brown stack of hay. The dark welcome forests spread round and on high; The road winds in shadow with glimpses of sky; Our steeds strike their hoofs on roots pared to a coil, Our hubs graze the trees, from the banks plough the soil; Like opposite cannon, logs point from the shade Where once the prone pine its huge rampart had laid; A branch now inclines its green archway so low We stoop to avoid in our faces the blow; We struggle through hollows, roll smooth over moss, And jolt over logs the swamp-streamlet across, Where we scare up the woodcock, quick catching a look Of the rich-tinted sheldrake swift seeking his nook; Then upward we labor; the steep ridge we crown, MONGA UP FALLS. 283 Either side on the tops of tall trees looking down, Our course alone pointed by time-blackened hacks The pioneer-settler has marked with his axe. That rustle! joy, joy!'t is the breeze moist and sweet, Oh how the leaves dance its glad presence to greet! It glides with smooth balm o'er our heat-beaded skin, Each pulse feels its soothing- each breath draws it in, It stirs the wet hair from our brows with its kiss, And we yield in delight to the delicate bliss; The aspens shake loosely like fountains in play, The maples quick change their green colors to gray, The hemlocks give murmurs like millions of bees, There is patter like rain in the slight birchen trees; Wherever those pinions are fanning their flight There coolness and music-there life and delight. We leave the wood-shadows, dark, breezy, and sweet; Again, like a burning-glass, beats down the heat; The low-gabled school-house we pass on our way, The white-headed urchins shrill shouting in play; The road down the hill by a torrent seems rent, Loose stones and deep gullies- a break-neck descent We glide o'er the flat, round the angle we spin, And halt, with a shout, at the Forestburgh Inn. In a room lined with benches, and sprinkled with sand, At a picketed nook, the boys clamorous stand, Where bottles and glasses and rolls of cigars Show tempting behind the half-sweep of the bars; 284 MAONGA UP FALLS. We seek then the parlor-rag-carpet on floor, A wild staring sampler framed over the door, Chairs yellow and bright, wooden clock ticking loud, A mirror, whose gilding baize wraps in a shroud, Brown hangings of paper the windows that screen, And hearth filled with plumes of asparagus green. The girls there await us; our path we commence Through crimson-stemmed buckwheat, o'er rough clearing fence; The "barrens " spread round us, a shrubby pine growth With dwarfed sneaking hemlocks thin sprinkled, as loath To show their thin faces, and gaunt trees with locks Of gray brittle moss, and earth scattered with rocks. Yet paths branch all over the cattle have trod, The ground-pine o'ertwining its thick fringing sod, The low whortleberries! what thousands we view, In large tempting clusters of light misty blue! As round them we gather and cull with delight A sound stops the mirth, pales the cheek with affright, A quick whizzing sound, like the wings of a bee Shrill singing in efforts from toils to be free;, The rattlesnake! back, back- the rattlesnake! look At his coil of fierce wrath in yon bough-shadowed nook! His eyes flash in sparkles - his tongue quivers red, The brown turns to bronze as he arches his head; Back - back, still his warning the dread reptile gives, The post he has taken he holds while he lives; High shakes he his rattles with venomous strength, Keep back, and no danger - he darts but his length! A stone whizzes at him-he writhes at the blow, MONGAUP FALLS. 285 More fierce is his rattle, more vivid his glow, His eyes flash more luridly-swifter his tongue — See, see, from his coil the fierce demon has sprung! But another jagged missile is hurled on his head, Down crushing its terror - his being is sped. We come to a hill, once with trees plumaged o'er, But a whirlwind has struck it —its pride is no more. Strewed round, like the straw that the reaper disdains, In a wild tangled mass lie the forest remains; Forked roots with the soil their tough fibres had grasped, Boughs twisted in boughs they in falling had clasped, Trunks lying on trunks in strange mazes, but through The path turns and winds like a labyrinth-clew, Till we reach a great hemlock, its body stretched prone Down the slope of the hill it once claimed for its throne; Along its rough surface we tread as a bridge, And leave the drear wind-fall, with joy, on its ridge. The forest spreads over its ceiling of green, We thread its dim aisles, its high columns between; The wintergreens show, lying low at our tracks, Their balls, as though moulded of pure snowy wax; The mallows, in clumps spotted over the grass, Their cheeses encased in their drawn sacks, we pass; Its scarf of rich pink the wild rose-bush displays, A canopy fit for the dance of the fays; On its slim pillared stem hangs the sunflower's crown, Points of delicate gold round a bosom of brown; 286 MONGA UP FALLS. We strip the red beads from the sorrel, and shake The down from the rich tawny plumes of the brake; We part with soft click the smooth joints of the rush, To scent their strong fragrance the mint-leaves we crush, While the blackberry's beehive-shaped fruitage of jet Juts cluster'd in brambles twined round like a net. But on! for a low steady murmur is heard, Like the pine when its plumes by soft breathings are stirred; Then deeper and sterher, as onward we wend, Like the pine when the breeze makes its pyramid bend, Then swelled to an air-shaking, nerve-thrilling roar, Like a forest of pines when the blast tramples o'er. We haste down the steep in the serpent-like path, Still louder the torrent's stern, breath-taking wrath, Till we pause at the brink of a pool dark as night, And scattered with slow circling spangles of white. A deep gorge winds upward, and forth with a bound The cataract's pitch shakes its thunder around; It comes from its shadowed and prison-like glen With a leap and a roar, like a lion from den; Wild fir-trees, contorted as fixed in some spasm, And tall bristling pines adding gloom to the chasm, One grim mass of gloom, webbed below with a screen, The cataract casting white flashes between, As though a mad monster in torments beneath Were now and then grasping the boughs with his teeth. MONGA UP FALLS. 287 Around the black pool spread the thickets, and push Their skirts in the water, of sapling and bush. In June, the dense laurels that shadow the brink Are covered with beautiful clusters of pink; But now, in the sun their long leaves to the sight Glint from their green polish swift glances of light. Our party has spread into groups scattered round, Some listening intent to the cataract's sound; Some swinging on grape-vines slung loose between trees, Their foreheads fanned cool in the play of the breeze; Some kneeling where up peers a fountain of glass, Like an eye of soft gray, through its lashes of grass; While some climb the platform o'erjutting, where sweep The torrent's white plunges, bold leap upon leap, First winding, then bounding, once more and once more, Till each voice is blent in one agony-roar. We all are now seated on grass green and cool, In a thicket whence glimpses are caught of the pool; At the height of our gladness, one points at the screen, Where a space of the foam-jewelled basin is seen; With still, cautious hand we our net-work divide; Leaves shake oh the basin's fringed opposite side; Two antlers are thrust forth -out stretches a head A deer steals to view with slow hesitant tread; Each side he inclines a neck graceful and slim, 288 M1 ONGA UP FALLS. Then stoops his proud forehead, advances a limb; Draws in the clear water, moves on as he drinks, Now the flood laves his sides; ha! he flounders, he sinks! He rises, and, snorting, strikes out with his feet, And, bubbles round boiling, plies swift through the sheet, With antlers on shoulder, and nose in the air, He comes, the bright creature! in line with our lair; He touches the bank, it is scaled with a bound, A shake flings the glancing drops showering around, Then catching quick sight of an ill-shrouded face, A brown shooting streak for an instant we trace; The next, the close forest conceals him, and deep Each breathes a long sigh, as just wakened from sleep. Now some all the arts of the angler employ, The keen-sighted, quick-hearing trout to decoy: A bright mimic fly skims the surface, but no! Naught rises; we have but our pains for the throw; A worm up and down next moves gently, alas! Not a jerk to the rod, not a break on the glass, Yet air-bells burst round us, and leapings are heard, Except where our lines are, the whole pool is stirred; But here comes a butterfly! follow his skim, We'11 warrant a trout makes a dash now at him; Confound our ill-luck! Yes, a. loud-ringing splash; A splendid two-pounder is up like a flash, His spots fairly gleamed in his leap to the air; Enough! and our rods are thrown by in despair. MONGA UP FALLS. 289 Meanwhile a rude platform our comrades have made, Of logs wedged together, boards over them laid; It floats by the pool-side; hurrah, boys, a raft! We'11 enjoy a short trip on our light buoyant craft. The girls shrink, but yield; we all crowd on its floor; Still it swims to our weight - we then push from the shore; We pole through the water, and drive as we go, From his sun-bask, the sheathed snapping-turtle below. Our goal is the cataract's foot; and our ear Is filled with the roaring, more loud as more near. A glance of the sun the white torrent has kissed, And see! a rich rainbow is spanned o'er the mist; The flood seems as fierce springing at us, then lost In a high foaming hillock convulsively tossed. Approaching too close, the raft dips in the mound, Like a fear-maddened steed the frail thing gives a bound, But the impetus sends us from danger away Unharmed, save a quick, drenching bath of the spray; And back safe we glide, though in loudest complaint The girls all declare they are ready to faint. We touch the green marge; hark! a shriek shrill and loud, A bird with huge wings, like a fragment of cloud, Shoots swift from the gorge, sweeps around, then on high Cleaves his way, till he seems a dim spot in the sky; Then, stooping in circles, contracting his rings, He swoops to a pine-top, and settles his wings; VOI,. 1. 19 290 MONGAUP FALLS. An eagle, an eagle! how regal his form! He seems fit to revel in sunshine and storm! What' terrible talons, what strength in that beak! His red rolling eye-balls, the proud monarch speak; He casts looks superb and majestical down, His pine for a throne, and his crest for a crown; He stirs not a feather, though whoopings arise, But still flings below mute contempt at our cries; A branch is hurled upward, whirls near him but vain, He looks down his eloquent, glorious disdain, Till he chooses to spread his broad pinions of gray, And launch in majestic, slow motion away. SCIENCE. SCIENCE! Explorer, Teacher, Seer sublime! Thy path, the Universe —thine empire, Time! At thy grand look, the startled darkness flies, And living splendors kindle earth and skies. It is not thine to spread poetic wing And o'er dull earth the tints of fancy fling. Not thine with inward shaping fire to call The breathing figure from its marble thrall, Not thine to waken on the canvas, hues, Sister to those imperial Autumn strews; Thine not the charm, with Music's magic shell, Around the soul to weave delicious spell. No! it is thine the loftiest heavens to sweep, Pierce the red terrors of the central deep, Drag from its depths the shrinking, struggling star, And chain it captive to thy conquering car; Then trace, with lowliest eye and subtlest art, Life's fairy process in the floweret's heart. Thine, to unloose the sky's entangled maze, And bid it range in order to thy gaze - Where the sun mantles his majestic frame 292 SCIENCE. In his terrific atmosphere of flame; Where loveliest Luna sheds on all below The streaming silence of her silver snow; Where mourn the Pleiades their sister light For long, long ages stricken from their sight; Star of the North, where thou, with faithful sway, Leads the lone sailor on his surging way! Where seas of nebulae are faintly tracedWithin whose haze are Virgo's wings embracedAnd where again they stretch their surges dim Till in the depths the glittering Fishes swim; TWhere Aldebaran flames with crimson hue, And Lyra sparkles in her lovely blue; Where in the Cygnet stood the star whose ray Flashed into scarlet —paled - then died away; Where sovereign Sirius shows his splendid gleam; Double Al Geiba's gold and emerald beam; Where Argo skims the ethereal ocean's brow With Markeb's torchlight pouring from its prow; Where, bowing grandly to the passing hours, The Southern Cross its gorgeous radiance showers,1 1" In the Spanish settlements of tropical America, the first settlers were accustomed, even as is now done, to use, as a celestial clock, the Southern Cross, calculating the hours from its inclined or vertical position. - Humboldt's Cosmos. " It is a timepiece which advances very regularly nearly four minutes a day, and no other group of stars affords to the naked eye an observation of time so easily made. How often have we heard our guides exclaim in the savannahs of Venezuela, or in the desert extending from Lima to Truxillo,'Midnight is past, the Cross begins to bend! "Humboldt's Travels. SCIENCE. 293 Whose holy lights, in Dante's mystic line, With Prudence, Justice, Strength, and Temperance shine; With the alternate orbs- the Polar Three - Blazing abroad Faith, Hope, and CharityThe first loud launching its proud chant afar, " Here we are Nymphs, but each in heaven a star!" Types of the seven great virtues - guides on earthBut angels still in realms that saw their birth;1 Ilo mi volsi. a man destra e posi mente All'altro polo, e vidi quattro stelle Non viste mai fuor ch'alla prima gente." Purgatorio 1, v. 22-24. Humboldt in a note to his Cosmos says: " I have elsewhere attempted to dispel the doubts which several distinguished commentators of Dante have advanced in modern times respecting the' quattro stelle.' To take his problem in all its completeness we must compare the passage,' Io mi volsi,' &c., with the other passages: Purg. 1., v. 37; viii. v. 85-93; xxix. v. 121; xxx. v. 97; xxxi. v. 106, and Inf., xxvi. v. 117 and 127. The Milanese astronomer, De Cesaris, considers the three'facelle' ('Di che ill polo di qui tutto quanto arde,' and which set when the four stars of the Cross rise) to be Canopus, Achernar, and Fomalhaut. I have endeavored to solve these difficulties by the following considerations. The philosophical and religious mysticism which penetrates and vivifies the grand composition of Dante, assigns to all objects, besides their real or material existence an ideal one. It seems almost as if we beheld two worlds reflected in one another. The four stars represent in their moral order the cardinal virtues, prudence, justice, strength, and temperance; and they therefore merit the name of the holy lights,' luci sante.' The three stars which light the pole represent the theological virtues, faith, hope, and charity. The first of these beings themselves reveals their double nature, chanting,'Here we are nymphs, in heaven we are stars;' noi sem qui ninfe, e nel cielo semo stelle. In the land of truth, in the terrestrial paradise, there are seven nymphs. In cerchio faceran di se claustro le sette ninfe. This is the union of all the cardinal and theological virtues. Under these mystic 294 SCIENCE. Where the vast serpent's convolutions roll; Where the black stars crawl, weird-like, round the pole;l Where, through the orbless deserts there outspread,2 Sufi's White Ox and lowlier brother tread;8 Where, smoothed by distance to one boundless ray Of shining sun-dust, rolls the Milky Way;The whole vast Universe, in sovereign thrall, Marching around one central World of all!4 Oh Tropic heavens, last born and issuing forth In golden mail for conquest of the North! The first time dawning on the Brahmin's eye In thy strange splendors, from his colder sky! forms we can scarcely recognize the real objects of the firmament separated from each other, according to the eternal laws of the celestial mechanism. The ideal world is a free creation of the soul, the product of poetic inspiration." -Examen Crit., t. iv., pp. 324-332. 1 " The Black Specks which attracted the attention of Portuguese and Spanish pilots as early as the close of the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth centuries, circle round the southern pole opposite to the Magellanic Light-clouds, although at a greater distance from it." - Cosmos. 2 " The larger of the two Magellanic clouds which circle round the starless, desert pole of the south." &c., &c. -Cosmos. 3 The larger Magellanic cloud was noticed first under the name of the White Ox by Abderrahman Sufi, an Arabian astronomer, who wrote in the middle of the tenth century. 4 Supposed to be in or near Alcyone in the centre of the Pleiades. It is also supposed that the light from Alcyone takes 500 years in passing to the earth. 5 "In a fine. episode to the Ramayana, the oldest heroic poem of Indian antiquity, the stars in the vicinity of the south pole are declared, SCIENCE. 295 Oh Tropic heavens! what pomp superb is thine! Man, peal thy loftiest hymn at God's sublimest shrine! And thou whole Universe, thy Balance hung On the Equator! can the feeble tongue Thy glories tell? No! reason, fancy prone, Awed into naught we sink at His Almighty Throne! How grand to dwell in Saturn, and behold Those rings of glittering hues around him rolled; Drink, in far Uranus, with dazzled eye, The pomp of moons that crowns his stately sky; Dash with the Comet darting on his flight, Through all the beauty, majesty of light; Past, where winged Perseus wields aloft his brand;: The star where points Andromeda her hand; Past sceptred Cepheus, o'er the Cygnet's wings; Where shows the Harp its many colored strings; Whirl by Bootes hounding on the Bear; Round the grim Lions, round the Hydra's lair; O'er Argo's deck —thence, mark, across the field, for a singular reason, to have been more recently created than thenorthern. When Brahminical Indians were emigrating from the northwest to the countries around the Ganges, from the 30th degree of north latitude to the lands of the tropics, where they subjected the original inhabitants to their dominion, they saw unknown stars rising above the horizon as they advanced towards Ceylon. In accordance with ancient practice, they combined these stars into new constellations. A bold fiction represented the later-seen stars as having been subsequently created by the miraculous power of Visvamitra, who threatened "the ancient gods that he would overcome the northern. hemisphere, with his more richly starred southern hemisphere." — Cosmos, note. 296 SCIENCE. The rich stars flashing in the Centaur's shield; Thence where the Carrier holds his spangled urn, Where in Orion's belt the diamonds burn; Then, the all-conquering sun approaching nigh, Feel his keen fire upon the withering eye; Then, shooting madly from that scorching blaze, Behold him shrink at last, a point upon the gaze. Next to plunge downward from some shuddering height, Down through the worlds in fierce and breathless flight, Down, down, through dizzy depths, to other realms, Whose very thought the reason overwhelmsThen up the same stupendous height to scale Where Fancy's lightning wings in staggering terrors fail. Thou claim'st the soft Zodiacal,1 whose gold Owns the free Ring in neighboring ether rolled; The wondrous region of the meteor-spray, And where the rich Auroral splendors play; The slumbering clouds that silver summer's air, Or, with dread threatening, grimly blacken there; The dry Harmattan, in its misty flight, 1 "We may with no inconsiderable degree of probability, include within the domain of our sum, in the immediate sphere of its central force, a rotating ring of vaporous matter, lying probably between the orbits of Venus and Mars, but certainly beyond that of the Earth, which appears to us in a pyramidal form, and is known as the Zodiacal Light." - Cosmos. SCIENCE. 297 Blinding the sun and changing all to white; The Stream that, rolling from its mystic source, Breathes its own climate in its wandering course; The strange Magnetic currents of the globe; Its life-sustaining atmospheric robe; The drear Eclipse - the boiling Thermal flood; Java's death-valley; Morat's lake of blood; The Caspian's burning shore; the ceaseless fire The Parsee worshipped on his mountain pyre; The moon's gray earth-light; Twilight's lingering gleam; The weed-twined fields that o'er the ocean stream; The feathery flake; the rainbow's lovely hues; The gloomy frost-smoke; the condensing dews; The deadly Earthquake writhing on its path; The fierce Volcano bursting in its wrath; The welcome west-wind's sweet, caressing breath; The mad Tornado whirling forth in death; The Maelstrom lurking with its grasping grave; The trampling Spout - that link of cloud and wave; The Ocean's western march - its ebb and flow; The Earth's mysterious self-existent glow; The Phantom Vessel glimmering in the sky; The Brocken's Spectre, darkly reared on high; The crimson snow that fringes Arctic ice; The weird Parhelion's beautiful device; The wizard ball that dances on the mast; The fiery surges by the prow upcast; Locked icebergs splintering through the awful night; And quenchless midnight suns with their wild scarlet light. 298 SCIENCE. Summits whose flint frowns back the smiling Spring, Where dies the moss, and cowers the Condor's wing; Slopes, where the avalanche its ambush takes, Bursts at a breath, and down in thunder breaks; Gulfs, where from year to year the glacier creeps; Cloud-piercing crags' the chamois only leaps; Mountains whose thawless snows sublimely rise In peaks, like Titans, challenging the skies, Where the blood pauses in the' blasting air, Dauntless treads Science, searching, conquering there. In grassy holows where the leafy play Weaves light and shadow from the golden day, Where birds sing sweetly, and the' diamond dew Is sipped by winds from blooms of every hue, There Science lingers through, the hastening hours, Delving the soils and bending o'er the flowers. By streams that bicker in their meteor pass, Where scaly glitterings streak the silvery glass, There Science ponders; and where ledges rise In varying strata, decked in differing dies, There the light tapping of her hammer calls The tiptoe echoes from the loosening walls;She parts the seam.- she chains her thoughtful sight On marks that show. Time's unrecorded flight. Where the grand billow, crumbling from its comb, With low, rich rumble, swings away in foam, There Science strays through. weed anrd shell that fringe The gleaming strand in many a rainbow tinge; SCIENCE. 299 Sweeps o'er the ocean in the tempest's face, The surge to measure, and the currents trace; Notes where the Trades soft winnow o'er the tide, Bearing the bark in undulating glide, And where the black-Typhoon bursts red with wrath, Tearing the wreck it tramples in its path; Fathoms, where countless periods have spread o'er With dead, the deep sea's ever-growing floor; Shows how the insect, by instinctive call, Branches and dies - himself his flinty wall;Lifting the continents -the dotting isles That dimple ocean with a thousand smiles. Where, up from rocky, sunless depths, are cast God's written histories of the ages past,Prints, that proclaim where once the monster strode, Or swept on wings that darkened where they rode; Signs, that display when slow progressive earth Called the broad bannery coal-fern into birth, Whelmed it in gloom, whence, true to Nature's plan, Wakening in stone, it gave itself to manThere Science pierces - there her ken perceives The world's true records graved on deathless leaves; Builds from a scale - a foot - complete the frame, And even the era shows to which its life holds claim. Glance o'er the earth - its human movements scan, And thou, 0 Science! still art guide to man! Thine is the finger, faithful through the dark, O'er trackless wastes, to point the trusting bark; Thine is the beacon blazing o'er the spray 800 SCIENCE. To warn the wanderer of the storm away; Thine is the tube that, like the prophet's eye, Pierces to scenes no other can descry; Thine is the Engine's calculating brain, That o'er the Numeral Kingdom wields domain; Thine the witch glass that shows how wondrous rife The tiniest globule teems with darting life; Thine, the light globe that navigates the air, With flight earth-dwindling - o'er the thunder's lair; Thine, the slight rod whose points the lightnings greet, And draw their terrors harmless at the feet; Thine, the grand pile that shoots the electric stream; Thine, that illumes vast cities with its gleam; Thine, the untiring, space-devouring car; Thine, the strange spark that flashes thought afar; Thine, the sun's pencil on the crystal pressed; And thine the wafting breath o'er ocean's conquered breast. Thine the great oak that sees slow ages pass; The little violet dying with the grass; The myriad tribes of air and earth and sea, Roamers at will, yet subject all to thee! The lofty eagle revelling in his might, Seeking the sun in proud, unfaltering flight: The lowly humming-bird - the feathery gem - Flecking with opals every fragrant stem; The fire-eyed lion filling with his fear The sands, as if the fierce Simoom were near; The velvet tiger of soft Ceylon's isle; SCIENCE. 301 The slippery snake where Plata's blossoms smile; The mighty whale whose ponderous gambol shocks The deep, till, like a cork, the tall ship rocks; The bubble nautilus, that spreads its sail Of fairy purple, to the favoring gale. Long shall full memory hold the scenes where late The sons of Science met for high debate! How on the mountain-tops of thought they strayed, And trophies, torn from those dim heights, displayed 1 Then, how, beneath the tent's o'ersweeping cloud,2 They showered their jewels to the raptured crowd! And last, how thrilled the throng - one beating heart To the great Orator's resistless art! Lighting the reason with his learning's ray, Dazzling the fancy with his sunny play, Charming —convincing - till his lofty theme Became by day the thought —by night the dream.3 Reared by munificence transcending praise Which DUDLEY'S name bears down to future days, The gift of her who still survives to wear That name thus honored by her tender care, For whom green wreaths will Science ever twine, Due to her offering at a blended shrine, 1 The Scientific Convention held at Albany, N. Y., in August, 1856. 2 Inauguration of the Dudley Observatory, August 28, 1860. 8 Edward Everett. 802 SCIENCE. The graceful temple of the sky has birth To scan its realms and draw them down to earth. Proud to all future, may the structure stand - Knowledge, in radiant streams, diffusing o'er the land!1 1 Dudley Observatory, Albany, N. Y. END OF VOL. Io