The poems and prose writings of Sumner Lincoln Fairfield In two volumes |
 |
 |
LINES COMPOSED WHILE ASCENDING THE MISSISSIPPI. |
|
 | The poems and prose writings of Sumner Lincoln Fairfield |  |
184
LINES COMPOSED WHILE ASCENDING THE MISSISSIPPI.
Oh, give me back my native hills,
The rockgirt woods that wave in heaven,
The music of a myriad rills,
That purl beneath the light of even!
Oh, give me back the winter wind,
That o'er the northern mountain howls!
The burning clime I leave behind,—
The sensual feast, the mantling bowls.
The rockgirt woods that wave in heaven,
The music of a myriad rills,
That purl beneath the light of even!
Oh, give me back the winter wind,
That o'er the northern mountain howls!
The burning clime I leave behind,—
The sensual feast, the mantling bowls.
Let all who, born for better things,
Would chain the heart to Mammon's car,
Fly on the north wind's fleetest wings,
And hail the tropic's loveliest star!
To me more lovely is the home,
Where kindred hearts at evening meet,
While shrieking blasts, like demons, roam,
And minds, long tried, each other greet.
Would chain the heart to Mammon's car,
Fly on the north wind's fleetest wings,
And hail the tropic's loveliest star!
To me more lovely is the home,
Where kindred hearts at evening meet,
While shrieking blasts, like demons, roam,
And minds, long tried, each other greet.
I would not mount the vassal's throne
To find a felon's damned grave;
I would not do to be undone,
Nor, born Mind's monarch, be a slave!
Corruption lurks in all the bowers
Of that soft, sunny, sensual clime,
Where Sin's dark pinions gloom the hours,
And, giantlike, stalks forth dark Crime.
To find a felon's damned grave;
I would not do to be undone,
Nor, born Mind's monarch, be a slave!
Corruption lurks in all the bowers
Of that soft, sunny, sensual clime,
Where Sin's dark pinions gloom the hours,
And, giantlike, stalks forth dark Crime.
Let not the Spirit, God decreed
Should range at will through earth and heaven,
Descend to be, in thought or deed,
The creature of Time's festering leaven!
Let not the light that God breathed in,
From his own soul, the unborn child,
Be dimmed by doubt or gloomed by sin,
Or perish on earth's dreariest wild.
Should range at will through earth and heaven,
Descend to be, in thought or deed,
The creature of Time's festering leaven!
185
From his own soul, the unborn child,
Be dimmed by doubt or gloomed by sin,
Or perish on earth's dreariest wild.
Oft we become the things we hate,
Led on by those who ne'er relent,
And thus we raise a tomb to Fate,
And build o'er hope a monument.
Evil becomes the guest of all
Whom conscience guards not through the ills,
That darken round us from the Fall,
Like cataracts formed by mountain rills.
Led on by those who ne'er relent,
And thus we raise a tomb to Fate,
And build o'er hope a monument.
Evil becomes the guest of all
Whom conscience guards not through the ills,
That darken round us from the Fall,
Like cataracts formed by mountain rills.
Plague breathes through all the gleaming air,
That floats o'er Heaven as if it thought;
In gilded cups lurks man's despair,
And all that woe hath ever wrought.
If, in this world, we would be wise,
Shun we the guilt that is unblest,
For in the far, far unknown skies,
There is for sin no realm of rest.
That floats o'er Heaven as if it thought;
In gilded cups lurks man's despair,
And all that woe hath ever wrought.
If, in this world, we would be wise,
Shun we the guilt that is unblest,
For in the far, far unknown skies,
There is for sin no realm of rest.
Then give me back my native hills,
Though rude the men and rough the soil,
And scant the harvest that ne'er fills
The granary,—won by hardest toil;
If no high, proud, and generous spirit
Flashes like light from northern hearts,
They from their sires a God inherit,
And God's own VOICE that ne'er departs.
Though rude the men and rough the soil,
And scant the harvest that ne'er fills
The granary,—won by hardest toil;
If no high, proud, and generous spirit
Flashes like light from northern hearts,
They from their sires a God inherit,
And God's own VOICE that ne'er departs.
| The poems and prose writings of Sumner Lincoln Fairfield | |