The transient music of a spring-time runnel,
Which may not last the season through;—or though
My light be only as an evening taper
Placed in the casement of a hill-side home,
Which, ere the midnight, in the socket dies;
Still will I hold the satisfying trust,
That some there are who, in a transient brook,
Can find a music which may give them joy;
Or pleasure in the taper, lit at eve
To send its ray aslant the peaceful vale.
And yet one higher hope still lights my toil,
And cheers the darkness when the lamp grows dim;
And I have pledged me in the heart to fill
The compass of this wish, if in me lies
Strength, native and achieved-and heaven vouchsafe
What else is needful, equal to the task!-
Let me but place one stone within the wall
While the stout masons, with great plumb and line,
Are laying the foundations, broad and deep,
Of native mind, to be a temple, and
A future tower of strength,-let me but place
One stone within the wall, where worthier are,
Inscribed with Poesy !-no other word!
Whether the name of him who placed it there
Go with it, is but little; and should be,
In the just balance of true poets,-naught!
Florence, 1854.
A VISION Strode before me toward the west,
What time the day let drop its golden shield—
A giant form with sun-illumined face:
His hue was like the last dull bar that falls
At eve athwart the hill-tops. From his brow,
A plume of many colors 'gainst the sky
Blazed like a torch-flame. In his tawny hand
A mighty bow he bore-so tall, its top
Flamed in the sun-down, while the low extreme
Trailed the dusk dews, unseen, along the vale.
His eyes were deep, cavernous, unsubdued—
So deep, a curse seemed crouching in their depth-
And bent with fixed and melancholy stare;
The sun a target to his arrowy sight.
He took no note of where his footsteps fell-
No sound of tread, no rustle in the grass,
Ran herald to his coming-all was soft
And noiseless as the owlet's wing. His lips
Were set in uncomplaining firmness; his right hand
Grasped, as with joy, the trophies at his girdle.
From his huge breast no word of sadness broke-
Not even a sigh to startle the calm hour!
And yet not voiceless was the air; small sounds,
Faint murmurs, delicate whisperings and low songs-
The cadence of invisible choirs, perchance,
Of aboriginal elves, which fly the haunts
Of pallid Saxons as a child a ghost;—
A choral sorrow, as if leaves and flowers,
The sprites of wood and stream and water-fall,
Were pouring out a burthen of despair,
Filling the ear of twilight, rose and rose,
Thrilled to the faint stars brightening overhead,
And fell and fell, until the deep lake heard
The shy nymphs answering from their caves forlorn.
O, mighty spirit, flying, ever flying!
We are the woodlands-hearken to our wail!
Our poplars trembling and our maples sighing,
Our great oaks bowing, as before a gale,
Our pines all sorrowing and our aspens dying,
Our sycamores with terror growing pale,
All mourn thy flight. Oh! turn to their embraces,
Nor let the sunshine gloat upon their vacant places!
O, mighty spirit, speeding, ever speeding!—
We are the hills and valleys thou hast loved!
Here rest your sires, their dead hearts freshly bleeding
Beneath thy flight, while they lie unremoved!
Above their shrines dull foreign herds are feeding,
And glides the grating ploughshare unreproved.
Oh! turn again-repel the foe's advance
Rebuild your midnight fires, and weave your warlike dance!
O, mighty spirit, fading, ever fading!
We are the springs and brooklets, rivers, lakes!
We miss your maidens-miss your children wading
Along our sands and pebbles; and where breaks
Our lightest ripple now, it dies upbraiding
The lonely marge, and every fountain aches!
Your light canoes lie warping on the shore,
Half buried in the sand! Oh! turn to us once more!
O, mighty spirit, flying, ever flying!
Thou wilt not stay and smile on us again:
Our hopes are ashes, and our hearts are dying,
Our garlands are transmuted to a chain;
Our necks beneath the conquerors are lying,
The toiling yoke succeeds thy peaceful reign!
The clouds have ta en thee! We have looked our last,
And mournful memory now alone can bring the past.
The song was ended and the shade was gone,
Lost in the fiery forests of the sun.
But often since, as Eve her mantle drew
O'er her chaste bosom, stepping from her cave,
Where all the day she nods above her urn
Of dews and perfume, sentried by her owl-
The muse has watched in the departing west,
'Mid visionary landscapes, rivers, lakes,
O'er purple prairies, and through golden woods,
This flying shadow with his blazing bow
And flashing arrows, flaming as they flew,
Chasing the deer whose antlers 'mid the stars
Flung up the lustre of the dying day;
Or o'er the fallen bison saw him stand,
His red foot glowing in its gorgeous mane.
Such was the vision and its flight: and when
All this had passed-the shadow and the song-
A lovelier music to the spiritual ear
Swelled through the starry air and filled the vale,Sounds which seemed born in heaven, and poured From out the constellations in the East.
Scarce sweeter were the melodies, methinks,
Heard by the shepherds on far Bethlehem's plain,
What time the flocks, waked by the midnight dawn,
Greeting the fancied advent of the day,
Arose, their fleeces dripping fresh with dew,
And cropt the wet grass in the amber light
Of that one star which ushered in a morn
That circles all the years, and, brightening, sheds
Its radiance through the ages.
I am the fairest spirit breathed from God—
Not mine the praise, but His-
And where my footprints sanctify the sod
There peaceful plenty is.
Hail, happy land! your ancient night is through-
Receive us and be blest!
From this celestial urn of holy dew
I here baptize the West!
I am the child of her whose voice but now
Made musical the air;
I bring the laurel which shall bind your brow,
I come to place it there.
I bring the sword so tempered in the glow
Of Courage, Truth, and Right,
Its keen edge severs at one steady blow
The tyrant's chain of might!
Unsheathed still let it gleam athwart the land,
The light of peace or ire;
Its flash shall be as lightning in your hand-
Its stroke, a bolt of fire!
I bring the buds of future centuries
To bloom upon your breast
They hold the dews of Freedom-and with these
I here baptize the West!
I am that spirit born in Paradise,
When man's first parents erred,
And the deep judgment thundered from the skies
The dread commanding word.
I walked with them through far and thorny lands,
In desert realms unknown,
And taught them toil, until their tender hands
Were tawny as my own.
I bring the axe, the sickle, and the plough,
Whose use alone gives rest-
And with the dews which fell from Adam's brow
I here baptize the West!
I am that spirit who, in ages gone,
No certain shelter found;
But here, at last, I hail the peaceful dawn,
And bless the sacred ground.
Mine was the name the joyous angels sung,
To cheer the shepherds' ear;
And with that Star I into being sprung,
And with that Star am here.
And with this palm-branch, plucked from off the stem
Of Heaven's own tree of rest,
And dipped in dews which fell o'er Bethlehem,
I, too, baptize the West!
The chorus died; and presently the sound
Of falling forests, and the woodman's blow,
Of mill-wheels laboring in the stream, replied,
With one loud voice, to welcome in the band:
Then all was silent as befits the night.
FAIR Pennsylvania! than thy midland vales,
Lying 'twixt hills of green, and bound afar
By billowy mountains rolling in the blue,
No lovelier landscape meets the traveller's eye.
There Labor sows and reaps his sure reward,
And Peace and Plenty walk amid the glow
And perfume of full garners. I have seen
In lands less free, less fair, but far more known,
The streams which flow through history and wash
The legendary shores, and cleave in twain
Old capitals and towns, dividing oft
Great empires and estates of petty kings
And princes, whose domains full many a field,
Rustling with maize along our native West,
Outmeasures and might put to shame! and yet
Nor Rhine, inebriate reeling through his hills,
Nor mighty Danube, marred with tyranny,
His dull waves moaning on Hungarian shores-
Nor rapid Po, his opaque waters pouring
Athwart the fairest, fruitfullest, and worst
Enslaved of European lands—nor Seine,
Winding uncertain through inconstant France-
Is half so fair as thy broad stream whose breast
Is gemmed with many isles, and whose proud name
Shall yet become among the names of rivers
A synonyme of beauty--Susquehanna!
But where, fair land, thy smaller streams invite
With music among plenteous farms, I turn,
As to a parent's fond embrace, and lay,
Well pleased, my way-worn mantle by, and shed,
With grateful heart, from off my weary feet
The white dust gathered in the world's highway.
Here my young muse first learned to love and dream-
To love the simplest blossom by the road--
To dream such dreams as will not come again.
And for one hour of that unlettered time-
One hour of that wild music in the heart,
When Fancy, like the swallow's aimless wing,
Flitted eccentric through all moods of nature-
I would exchange, thrice told, this weary day.
Then were yon hills, still beautiful and blue,
Great as the Andes; and this rushy brook,
Which the light foot-board, fallen, turns aside,
A torrent voluble, with noisy falls
And gulfy pools profound; and yonder stream,
The fisher wades with ease to throw his bait
Into the larger ripple, was a river
To measure Jordan by! For then my thoughts
Were full of scriptural lore, oft-heard at morn,
And in the evening heard, until the place
Became a Palestine, while o'er the hills
The blue horizon compassed all the world.
Adieu to Fancy! Let me ope the gate,
Wide as the lane it bars, and cool my feet
Along the grassy path, and turn with joy,
As erst, to yonder chapel on the hill.
Lo! the calm Sabbath sanctifies the air,
And over all, from God's uplifted hand,
The silence falls, and like a blessing lies
The stillness on my spirit. The sweet sounds,
Which unprohibited from Eden time till now
Have charmed alike the day of toil and rest,
Alone assail the ear, making the quiet heard,
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