Poems: Descriptive, Dramatic, Legendary and Contemplative, by William Gilmore Simms, Esq. In Two Volumes: Vol. II. I. Southern Passages and Pictures; II. Historical and Dramatic Sketches; III. Scripture Legends; IV. Francesca Da Rimini:
Electronic Edition.
Simms, William Gilmore, 1806-1870.
Funding from the University of North Carolina Library supported the electronic publication of this title.
Text transcribed by
Apex Data Services, Inc.
Images scanned by
Brian Deitz
Text encoded by
Apex Data Services, Inc., and Sarah Ficke
First edition, 2006
ca. 620K
University Library, UNC-Chapel Hill
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill,
2006.
© This work is the property of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. It may be used freely by individuals for research, teaching and personal use as long as this statement of availability is included in the text.
Source Description:
(title page) Poems: Descriptive, Dramatic, Legendary and Contemplative, by William Gilmore Simms, Esq. In Two Volumes: Vol. II. I. Southern Passages and Pictures; II. Historical and Dramatic Sketches; III. Scripture Legends; IV. Francesca Da Rimini
(spine) Simms' Poetical Works Vol. II.
Simms, William Gilmore, 1806-1870.
[5], 6-360, [361-372] p.
Charleston, S. C.
Published By John Russell
1853
Call number PS2845 .P6 1853 (Rare Book Collection, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)
The electronic edition is a part of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill digital library, Documenting the American South.
The text has been entered using double-keying and verified against the original.
The text has been encoded using the recommendations for Level 4 of the TEI in Libraries Guidelines.
Original grammar, punctuation, and spelling have been preserved. Encountered typographical errors have been preserved, and appear in red type.
All footnotes are moved to the end of line groups in which the reference occurs. In certain cases, footnotes do not appear with their references on the same page.
Any hyphens occurring in line breaks have been removed, and the trailing part of a word has been joined to the preceding line.
All quotation marks, em dashes and ampersand have been transcribed as entity references.
All double right and left quotation marks are encoded as " and " respectively.
All single right and left quotation marks are encoded as ' and ' respectively.
All em dashes are encoded as --
Indentation in lines has not been preserved.
Running titles have not been preserved.
Library of Congress Subject Headings
Languages Used:
- English
- French
- Italian
LC Subject Headings:
Revision History:
- 2006-,
Celine Noel and Wanda Gunther
revised TEIHeader and created catalog record for the electronic edition.
-
2006-03-10,
Sarah Ficke
finished TEI-conformant encoding and final proofing.
-
2005-02-10,
Sarah Ficke
finished TEI/SGML encoding
- 2004-07-19,
Apex Data Services, Inc.
finished transcribing the text.
[Cover Image]
[Spine Image]
[Title Page Image]
[Title Page Verso Image]
POEMS
DESCRIPTIVE, DRAMATIC, LEGENDARY
AND
CONTEMPLATIVE
BY
WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS, ESQ.
IN TWO VOLUMES
VOL. II.
I. SOUTHERN PASSAGES AND PICTURES
II. HISTORICAL AND DRAMATIC SKETCHES
III. SCRIPTURE LEGENDS
IV. FRANCESCA DA RIMINI
CHARLESTON, S. C.
PUBLISHED BY JOHN RUSSELL
1853
Page verso
ENTERED, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1853,
By W. GILMORE SIMMS.
in the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Southern District of New York.
Page 5
SOUTHERN PASSAGES AND PICTURES.
FLIGHT TO NATURE.
SICK of the crowd, the toil, the strife,
Sweet Nature, how I turn to thee,
Seeking for renovated life,
By brawling brook and shady tree!
I knew thy rocks had spells of old,
To soothe the wanderer's woe to calm,
And in thy waters, clear and cold,
My fev'rish brow would seek for balm.
I've bent beneath thy ancient oak,
And sought for slumber in its shade,
And, as the clouds above me broke,
I dream'd to find the boon I pray'd;
For light--a blessed light--was given,
Wide streaming round me from above,
And in the deep, deep vaults of heaven,
There shone, methought, a look of love.
And, through the long, long summer hours,
When every bird had won its wing,
How sweet to think, amidst thy flowers,
That youth might yet renew its spring;--
Page 6
That sacred season of the heart,
When every pulse with hope is strong,
And, still untaught by selfish art,
Truth fears no guile, and love no wrong.
And who, but nature's self, could yield
The blessing in the prayer I made,
Throned in her realm of wood and field,
Of rocky realm and haunted shade?
Who, but that magic queen, whose sway
Drives winter from his path of strife,
Whilst all her thousand fingers play,
With bud and bird, in games of life!
With these a kindred life I ask,--
Not wealth that mortals vainly seek;
But, in heaven's sunshine let me bask,
My heart as glowing as my cheek;--
An idle heart, that would not heed
That chiding voice, when duty comes,
To drag the soul, but freshly freed,
Back to cold toils and weary glooms.
No lure she finds in mortal schemes,
Which wiser fancies still reprove,--
Far happier in her woodland dreams,
With one sweet teacher, taught by love!
Thou, Nature, that magician be,
Restore each dream that taught the boy,
That warm'd his hope, that made him free,
While wisdom took the shape of joy;
Page 7
And I will bless thee with a song,
As fond as hers, that idle bird,
That sings above me all day long,
As if she knew I watch'd and heard.
THE BROOKLET.
A LITTLE farther on there is a brook,
Where the breeze loiters ever. The great oaks
Have roof'd it with their arms and affluent leaves,
So that the sunbeam rifles not its fount,
While the shade cools it. You may hear it now,
A low faint murmur, as through pebbly paths,
In soft and sinuous progress it flows on,
In streams that make division as they go,
Still parting, still uniting, in one song,
The sweetest mortals know, of constancy.
Thither, ah, thither, if thy heart be sad!--
That song will bring thee solace. Or, if hope
That may not yet find name for what it seeks,
Inspires thee with a dream whose essence brings
Fruition in its keeping,--still, the strain
That's murmur'd by yon brooklet, is the best,--
Having a voice for fancy at its birth,
That keeps it wakeful on its own sweet wings.
And thou wilt gather, for whatever mood
That makes thee fond or thoughtful, a sweet tone
Beguiling thy best sympathies, and still
Leaving in thy keeping, as thou seek'st thy home,
A kindlier sense of what is in thy path.
Page 8
Beside these banks, through the whole livelong day,
Ere yet I noted much the flight of time,
And knew him but in ballad books and songs,
Nor cared to know him better,--I have lain,
Nursing delicious reveries that made
All being but a circle of bright flowers,
With love the centre, sov'ran of that realm,
And I a happy inmate, with the rest.
There, with sweet thoughts, all liquid like the stream
That still inspired their progress, clear and bright,
I lay as one who slept, through happy hours,
Unvex'd by din of duty, unrebuked
By chiding counsellor to youthful cares,
That ever seeks to plant on boyish brow
The winter that has silver'd all its own.
And thus, in long delight, with the rapt soul
Shaping its own elysium of the peace
That harbor'd in the solitude, the eye
Grew momently familiar with sweet forms,
That offer'd to the genius of the place,
Making all consecrate to gentleness.
How came the thrush to whistle as he drank,
Heeding not me, and darting through the copse,
Only to bring his loved one on his wing,
To gather like refreshment? Squirrels dropt
Their nuts adown the bankside where I lay,
And, leaping to recover them, ere yet
They rolled into the brooklet and away,
Swept over me, and with fantastic play
Drew up the feathery brush above their heads,--
And their gray orbs, with bright intelligence,
Cast round them, while from hand to hand they frisk'd
The prize, which none might covet but to feed
Such nimble harlequins. The dove at noon
Page 9
Couch'd in thick bristly covering of the pine,
Sought here its sweet siesta, wooing sleep,
By plaintive iteration of sad notes,
That might be still a sensible happiness:--
And sometimes, meek intruder on my realm,
Through yonder thick emerging, half in light
And half in shadow, stole the timid fawn,
That came down to the basin's edge to drink,
Now lapping, and now turning to the bank,
Cropping the young blade of the coming spring
And heedless, as I lay along unstirr'd,
Of any stranger--sauntering through the shade,
Even where I crouch'd,--having a quiet mood,
And not disturbing, while beholding mine.
Thou smil'st; and on thy lip the speaking thought
Looks still like censure--deems my hours misspent,
And saddens into warning. A shrewd thought,
I will not combat with an argument,
But leave the worldly policy to boast,
That such an errantry as this life of mine,
Hath found its fit sarcasm, well rebuked.
And yet there is a something in the life
Thou mock'st, as idle still and profligate,
Something to life compensative, and dear
To feelings that are fashion'd not by man.
Ah! the delicious sadness of the hours,
Spent by this brooklet--ah! the dreams they brought,
Of other hopes and beings--the sweet truths,
That still subdued the heart to patientness,
And made all flexible in the youthful will,
That else had been most passionate and rash.
I know the toils that gather on my path,
And I will grapple them with a strength that shows
Page 10
A love for the encounter, not the less
For hours thus wasted in the solitude,
And fancies born of dreams--and 'twill not more
Impair the resolute courage of my heart,
Wrestling with toil, in conflicts of the race,
If still, in pauses of the fight, I dream
Of this dear idlesse,--gazing on that brook
So sweet in shade, thus singing on its way,
Like some dear child, all thoughtless, as it goes
From shadow into sunlight and is lost.
SABBATH IN THE FOREST.
1. FREEDOM OF THE SABBATH.
LET us escape! This is our holiday--
God's day, devote to rest; and, through the wood
We'll wander, and, perchance, find heavenly food:
So, profitless, it shall not pass away.
'Tis life, but with sweet difference, methinks,
Here, in the forest;--from the crowd set free,
The spirit, like escaping song-bird, drinks
Fresh sense of music from its liberty.
Thoughts crowd about us with the trees--the shade
Holds teachers that await us: in our ear,
Unwonted, but sweet voices do we hear,
That with rare excellence of tongue persuade:
They do not chide our idlesse,--were content,
If all our walks were half so innocent.
Page 11
FLOWERS AND TREES.
MARCH is profuse in violets--at our feet
They cluster,--not in pride, but modesty;
The damsel pauses as she passes by,
Plucks them with smiles, and calls them very sweet.
But such beguile me not! The trees are mine,
These hoary-headed masters;--and I glide,
Humbled, beneath their unpresuming pride,
And wist not much what blossoms bud or shine.
I better love to see you grandsire oak,
Old Druid-patriarch, lone among his race,--
With blessing, out-stretch'd arms, as giving grace
When solemn rites are said, or bread is broke:
Decay is at his roots,--the storm has been
Among his limbs,--but the old top is green.
3. THE SAME SUBJECT.
THE pine with its green honors; cypress gray,
Bedded in waters; crimsoning with bloom
The maple, that, irreverently gay,
Too soon, methinks, throws off his winter gloom;
The red bud, lavish in its every spray,
Glowing with promise of the exulting spring;
And over all, the laurel, like some king,
Conscious of strength and stature, born for sway.
I care not for their species--never look
For class or order in pedantic book,--
Enough that I behold them--that they lead
To meek retreats of solitude and thought,
Declare me from the world's day-labors freed,
And bring me tidings books have never brought.
Page 12
4. RELIGIOUS MUSINGS.
THE mighty and the massy of the wood
Compel my worship: satisfied I lie,
With naught in sight but forest, earth, and sky,
And give sweet sustenance to precious mood!--
'Tis thus from visible but inanimate things,
We gather mortal reverence. They declare
In silence, a persuasion we must share,
Of hidden sources, spiritual springs,
Fountains of deep intelligence, and powers,
That man himself implores not; and I grow
From wonder into worship, as the show,
Majestic, but unvoiced, through noteless hours,
Imposes on my soul, with musings high,
That, like Jacob's Ladder, lifts them to the sky!
5. SOLACE OF THE WOODS.
WOODS, waters, have a charm to soothe the ear,
When common sounds have vex'd it. When the day
Grows sultry, and the crowd is in thy way,
And working in thy soul much coil and care--
Betake thee to the forests. In the shade
Of pines, and by the side of purling streams
That prattle all their secrets in their dreams,
Unconscious of a listener--unafraid--
Thy soul shall feel their freshening, and the truth
Of nature then, reviving in thy heart,
Shall bring thee the best feelings of thy youth,
When in all natural joys thy joy had part,
Ere lucre and the narrowing toils of trade
Had turn'd thee to the thing thou wast not made.
Page 13
6. POETRY OF THE FOREST.
THESE haunts are sacred,--for the vulgar mood
Loves not seclusion. Here the very day
Seems in a Sabbath dreaminess to brood:
The groves breathe slumber--the great tree-tops sway
Drowsily, with the idle-going wind;
And sweetest images before my mind
Persuade me into pleasure with their play.
Here, fancies of the present and the past
Delight to mingle, 'till the palpable seems
Inseparate from the glory in my dreams,
And golden with the halo round it cast;
Thus do I live with Rosalind, thus stray
With Jacques; and churning o'er some native rhyme,
Persuade myself it smacks of the old time.
THE LOST PLEIAD.
I.
NOT in the sky,
Where it was seen
So long in eminence of light serene,--
Nor on the white tops of the glistering wave,
Nor down, in mansions of the hidden deep,
Though beautiful in green
And crystal, its great caves of mystery,--
Shall the bright watcher have
Her place, and, as of old, high station keep!
Page 14
II.
Gone! gone!
Oh! never more, to cheer
The mariner, who holds his course alone
On the Atlantic, through the weary night,
When the stars turn to watchers, and do sleep,
Shall it again appear,
With the sweet-loving certainty of light,
Down shining on the shut eyes of the deep!
III.
The upward-looking shepherd on the hills
Of Chaldea, night-returning, with his flocks,
He wonders why his beauty doth not blaze,
Gladding his gaze,--
And, from his dreary watch along the rocks,
Guiding him homeward o'er the perilous ways!
How stands he waiting still, in a sad maze,
Much wondering, while the drowsy silence fills
The sorrowful vault!--how lingers, in the hope that night
May yet renew the expected and sweet light,
So natural to his sight!
IV.
And lone,
Where, at the first, in smiling love she shone,
Brood the once happy circle of bright stars:
How should they dream, until her fate was known,
That they were ever confiscate to death?
That dark oblivion the pure beauty mars,
And, like the earth, its common bloom and breath,
That they should fall from high;
Their lights grow blasted by a touch, and die,--
All their concerted springs of harmony
Snapt rudely, and the generous music gone!
Page 15
V.
Ah! still the strain
Of wailing sweetness fills the saddening sky;
The sister stars, lamenting in their pain
That one of the selectest ones must die,--
Must vanish, when most lovely, from the rest!
Alas! 'tis ever thus the destiny.
Even Rapture's song hath evermore a tone
Of wailing, as for bliss too quickly gone.
The hope most precious is the soonest lost,
The flower most sweet is first to feel the frost.
Are not all short-lived things the loveliest?
And, like the pale star, shooting down the sky,
Look they not ever brightest, as they fly
From the lone sphere they blest!
FIRST DAY OF SPRING.
OH! thou bright and beautiful day,
First bright day of the virgin spring,
Bringing the slumbering life into play,
Giving the leaping bird his wing.
Thou art round me now in all thy hues,
Thy robe of green, and thy scented sweets,
In thy bursting buds, in thy blessing dews,
In every form that my footstep meets.
I hear thy voice in the lark's clear note,
In the cricket's chirp at the evening hour;
In the zephyr's sighs that around me float,
In the breathing bud and the opening flower.
Page 16
I see thy forms o'er the parting earth,
In the tender shoots of the grassy blade,
In the thousand plants that spring to birth,
On the valley's side in the home of shade.
I feel thy promise in all my veins,
They bound with a feeling long suppress'd,
And, like a captive who breaks his chains,
Leap the glad hopes in my heaving breast.
There are life and joy in thy coming, Spring,
Thou hast no tidings of gloom and death,
But buds thou shakest from every wing,
And sweets thou breathest with every breath.
BALLAD.
BY the brooklet, grove and meadow,
Where together once we stray'd,
Do I wander, fond as ever,
Haunting still each secret shade;
And, that thus content I wander,
Where such precious joys were mine,
Do I know that thou art with me,
And my spirit walks with thine.
In the murmur of the brooklet,
Still thy well-known voice I hear,
And the whisper in the tree-top,
Tells me that thy form is near;
Page 17
Thou hast left me, at departing,
All that earth could never take,
And, still comforted, I wander
Through these shadows for thy sake.
Were I guilty of a passion
Which thy beauty could survive,
Still I feel thy gentle presence
Must the earthly fancy shrive;
And, discoursing with thy spirit,
Oh! I feel that earth has naught
To compensate the forgetting
Of the sweetness thou hast taught.
SONNET.--BY THE SWANANNOA.
Is it not lovely, while the day flows on
Like some unnoticed water through the vale,
Sun-sprinkled,--and, across the fields, a gale,
Ausonian, murmurs out an idle tale,
Of groves deserted late, but lately won?
How calm the silent mountains, that, around,
Bend their blue summits, as if group'd to hear
Some high ambassador from foreign ground,--
To hearken, and, most probably, confound!
While, leaping onward, with a voice of cheer,
Glad as some schoolboy ever on the bound,
The lively Swanannoa sparkles near;--
A flash and murmur mark him as he roves,
Now foaming white o'er rocks, now glimpsing soft through groves.
Page 18
TO TIME.
GRAY monarch of the waste of years,
Mine eyes have told thy steps in tears,
Yet yield I not to feeble fears,
In watching now thy flight:
The pangs that follow'd still thy blow
Have lost their edge with frequent woe,
And stronger must the courage grow
That's fed by constant fight.
The neck long used to weighty yoke,
The tree once shiver'd by the stroke,
The heart by frequent torture broke--
These fear no later blight.
Oh! mine hath been a mournful song,--
My neck hath felt the burden long,--
My tree was shiver'd,--weak and strong,
Beneath the bolt went down!--
The Fate that thus took early sway,
Hath spared of mine but little prey,
For old and young were torn away,
Ere manhood's wing had flown;--
I saw the noble sire, who stood
Majestic, as in crowded wood,
The pine--and after him, the brood,
All perish in thy frown.
So, count my hopes--so, tell my fears,
And ask what now this life endears,
To him who gave, with many tears,
Each blossom of his love;
Page 19
Whose store in heaven, so precious grown,
He counts each earthly moment flown,
As loss of something from his own,
In treasures shrined above.
Denied to seek--to see--his store,
Yet daily adding more and more,
Some precious plant, that, left before,
The spoiler rends at last.
Not hard the task to number now
The few that live to feel the blow;
The perish'd,--count them on my brow,
With white hairs overcast.
White hairs--while yet each limb is strong
To help the right and crush the wrong--
Ere youth, in manhood's struggling throng,
Had well begun his way:--
Thought premature, that still denied
The boy's exulting sports--the pride,
That, with the blood's unconscious tide,
Knows but to shout and play;
Youth, that in love's first gush was taught
To see his best affection brought
To tears, and woe, and death,--
While yet the fire was in his eye,
That told of passion's victory,
And, in his ear, the first sweet sigh,
From beauty's laboring breath.
And manhood now,--and loneliness,--
With, oh! how few to love and bless,
Save those who, in their dear duresse,
Look down from heaven's high towers;
The stately sire, the gentle dame,
Page 20
The maid who first awoke the flame,
That gave to both a mutual claim,
Soon forfeited, as ours--
And all those dearest buds of bloom,
That simply sought on earth a tomb,
From birth to death, with rapid doom,
A bird-flight wing'd for fate:
How thick the shafts!--how sure the aim!--
What other passion wouldst thou tame,
Oh! Time, within this heart of flame,
Elastic, not elate?
Is't pride?--methinks 'tis joy to bend;--
My foe--he can no more offend;--
My friend is false;--I love my friend;--
I love my foeman too!--
'Tis man I love;--nor him alone,
The brute, the bird,--its joy or moan,
Not heedless, to my heart hath gone--
I feel with all I view.
Wouldst have me worthy?--make me so,
By frequent bruise and overthrow;--
But spare on other hearts the blow,
Spare, from the cruel pang, the woe,
My innocent--my bright!
On me thy vengeance! 'Tis my crime
That needs the scourge, and, in my prime,
'Twere fruitful of improving time,
Thy hands should not be light.
I bend me willing to the thrall,
Whate'er the doom will bear it all,--
Drink of the bitter cup of gall,
Nor once complain of thee;
Page 21
Will poverty avail to chide,
Or sickness bend the soul of pride,
Or social scorn, still evil-eyed?--
Have, then, thy will of me!
But spare the woman and the child!--
Let me not see their features mild
Distorted,--hear their accents wild,
In agonizing pain--
Too much of this!--I thought me sure,
In frequent pang and loss before;--
I still have something to endure,--
And tremble, and--refrain!
On every shore they watch thy wing,--
To some the winter, some the spring,
Thou bring'st, or yet art doom'd to bring,
In rapid-rolling years:
How many seek thee, smiling now,
Who soon shall look with clouded brow,
Heart fill'd with bitter doubt and woe,
And eyes with gathering tears!--
But late, they fancied,--life's parade
Still moving on,--that, not a shade
Thou flung'st on bower and sunny glade,
In which they took delight:--
Sharp satirist--methinks I see
Thy glance in sternest mockery;--
They little think, not seeing thee,
How fatal is thy flight;--
What feathers grow beneath thy wing,
What darts--how poison'd--from what spring
Of sorrow, and how keen the sting,--
How cureless still the blight.
Page 22
Enough!--the cry has had its way,
As thou hast had!--'tis not the lay
Of vain complaint,--no idle play
Of fancy-dreaming care:
A mocking bitter like thine own,
Wells up from fountains, deep and lone,
Where sorrow, by sepulchral stone,
Sits watching thy career.
Thou'st mock'd my hope and dash'd my joy,
With keen rebuke and sad alloy--
The father, son--the man, the boy,
All, all! have felt the rod:--
Perchance, not all thy work in vain,
In softening soul, subduing brain,
If, suffering, I submit to pain,--
That minister of God.
THE TRAVELLER'S REST.
FOR hours we wander'd o'er the beaten track,
A dreary stretch of sand, that, in the blaze
Of noonday, seem'd to launch sharp arrows back,
As fiery as the sun's. Our weary steeds
Falter'd, with drooping heads, along the plain,
Looking from side to side most wistfully,
For shade and water. We could feel for them,
Having like thirst; and, in a desperate mood,
Gloomy with toil, and parching with the heat,
I had thrown down my burden by the way,
And slept, as man may never sleep but once,
Page 23
Yielding without a sigh,--so utterly
Had the strong will, beneath the oppressive care,
Fail'd of the needed energy for life,--
When, with a smile, the traveller by my side,
A veteran of the forest and true friend,
Whose memory I recall with many a tear,
Laid his rough hand most gently on mine own,
And said, in accents still encouraging:--
"Faint not,--a little farther we shall rest,
And find sufficient succor from repose,
For other travel: vigor will come back,
And sweet forgetfulness of all annoy,
With a siesta in the noontide hour,
Shelter'd by ample oaks. A little while
Will bring us to the sweetest spot in the woods,
Named aptly, 'Traveller's Rest.' There, we shall drink
Of the pure fountain, and beneath the shade
Of trees, that murmur lessons of content
To streams impatient as they glide from sight,
Forget the long day's weariness, o'er steppes
Of burning sand, with thirst that looks in vain
For the cool brooklet. All these paths I know
From frequent travail, when my pulse, like yours,
Beat with an ardor soon discomfited,
Unseason'd by endurance. Through a course
Of toil, I now can think upon with smiles,
Which brought but terror when I felt it first,
I grew profound in knowledge of the route,
Marking each wayside rock, each hill of clay,
Blazed shaft, or blighted thick, and forked tree,
With confidence familiar as you found
In bookish lore and company. Cheer up,
Page 24
Our pathway soon grows pleasant. We shall reach--
Note well how truly were my lessons conn'd,--
A little swell of earth, which, on these plains,
Looks proudly like a hill. This having pass'd,
The land sinks suddenly--the groves grow thick,
And, in the embrace of May, the giant wood
Puts on new glories. Shade from these will soothe
Thy overwearied spirit, and anon,
The broad blaze on the trunk of a dark pine
That strides out on the highway to our right,
Will guide us where, in woodland hollow, keeps
One lonely fountain; such as those of yore,
The ancient poets fabled as the home,
Each of its nymph; a nymph of chastity,
Whose duty yet is love. A thousand times,
When I was near exhausted as yourself,
That gash upon the pine-tree strengthen'd me,
As showing where the waters might be found,
Otherwise voiceless. Thanks to the rude man--
Rude in the manners of his forest life,
But frank and generous,--whose benevolent heart--
Good kernel in rough outside,--counsels him,
As in the ages of the Patriarch,
To make provision for the stranger's need.
His axe, whose keen edge blazons on the tree
Our pathway to the waters that refresh,
Was in that office consecrate, and made
Holier than knife, in hands of bearded priest,
That smote, in elder days, the innocent lamb,
In sacrifice to Heaven!
"Now, as we glide,
The forest deepens round us. The bald tracts,
Sterile, or glittering but with profitless sands,
Page 25
Depart; and through the glimmering woods behold
A darker soil, that on its bosom bears
A nobler harvest. Venerable oaks,
Whose rings are the successive records, scored
By Time, of his dim centuries; pines that lift,
And wave their coronets of green aloft,
Highest to heaven of all the aspiring wood;
And cedars, that with slower worship rise--
Less proudly, but with better grace, and stand
More surely in their meekness;--how they crowd,
As if 'twere at our coming, on the path!--
Not more majestic, not more beautiful,
The sacred shafts of Lebanon, though sung
By Princes, to the music of high harps,
Midway from heaven;--for these, as they, attest
HIS countenance who, to glory over all,
Adds grace in the highest, and above these groves
Hung brooding, when, beneath the creative word,
They freshen'd into green, and towering grew,
Memorials of his presence as his power!
--Alas! the forward vision! a few years
Will see these shafts o'erthrown. The profligate hands
Of avarice and of ignorance will despoil
The woods of their old glories; and the earth,
Uncherish'd, will grow barren, even as the fields,
Vast still, and beautiful once, and rich as these,
Which, in my own loved home, half desolate,
Attest the locust rule,--the waste, the shame,
The barbarous cultivation--which still robs
The earth of its warm garment and denies
Fit succor, which might recompense the soil,
Whose inexhaustible bounty, fitly kept,
Was meant to fill the granaries of man,
Through all earth's countless ages.
Page 26
"How the sward
Thickens in matted green. Each tufted cone
Gleams with its own blue jewel, dropt with white,
Whose delicate hues and tints significant,
Wake tenderness within the virgin's heart.
In love's own season. In each mystic cup
She reads sweet meaning, which commends the flower
Close to her tremulous breast. Nor seems it there
Less lovely than upon its natural couch,
Of emerald bright,--and still its hues denote
Love's generous spring-time, which, like generous youth,
Clouds never the dear aspect of its green,
With sickly doubts of what the autumn brings."
Boy as I was, and speaking still through books--
Not speaking from myself--I said: "Alas!
For this love's spring-time--quite unlike the woods,
It never knows but one; and, following close,
The long, long years of autumn, with her robes
Of yellow mourning, and her faded wreath
Of blighted flowers, that, taken from her heart,
She flings upon the grave-heap where it rots!"
"Ah! fie!" was straightway the reply of him,
The old benevolent master, who had seen,
Through thousand media yet withheld from me,
The life I had but dream'd of--"this is false!--
Love hath its thousand spring-times like the flowers,
If we are dutiful to our own hearts,
And nurse the truths of life, and not its dreams.
But not in hours like this, with such a show
Around us, of earth's treasures, to despond,
To sink in weariness and to brood on death.
Oh! be no churl, in presence of the Queen
Page 27
Of this most beautiful country, to withhold
Thy joy,--when all her court caparison'd,
Comes to her coronation in such suits
Of holiday glitter. It were sure a sin
In sight of Heaven, when now the humblest shrub
By the maternal bounty is set forth,
As for a bridal, with a jewell'd pomp
Of flowers in blue enamel--lustrous hues
Brightening upon their bosoms like sweet tints,
Caught from dissolving rainbows, as the sun
Rends with his ruddy shafts their violet robes,--
When gay vines stretching o'er the streamlet's breast
Link the opposing pines and arch the space,
Between, with a bright canopy of charms,
Whose very least attraction wears a look
Of life and fragrance!--when the pathway gleams,
As spread for march of Princess of the East,
With gems of living lustre--ravishing hues
Of purple, as if blood-dipp'd in the wounds
Of Hyacinthus,--him Apollo loved,
And slew though loving:--now, when over all
The viewless nymphs that tend upon the streams,
And watch the upward growth of April flowers,
Wave ever, with a hand that knows not stint,
Yet suffers no rebuke for profligate waste,
Their aromatic censers, 'till we breathe
With difficult delight;--not now to gloom
With feeble cares and individual doubts,
Of cloud to-morrow. It were churlish here,
Ungracious in