The Demon of Destiny :: :: University of Virginia Library

The plant transplanted from its native bed,
Where long it languish'd with a drooping head,
Oft finds fresh vigour in another soil,
And blooms again with its primeval smile.
Thus the sad emigrants, who friendless roam,
Feel hopes recruited in the forest home.

When Fortune, shelter'd, makes her fane the wood,
Where Nature, buxom, forsters Fortitude;
Birds new-come cheer, and flowers unfolding gay,
Adorn the clearance, widening to the day.
There, too, when ev'ning brings task-won repose,
With songs of father-land the maiden glows;
And there afar, while list'ning boughs hang mute,
Is sometimes heard a gently warbling flute,
As if the polish of its pathos then
Held in remembrance distant murmuring men.

But never always, does blest calm pervade,
More than the town, the forests' twilight shade;
For dangers lower when winter rides the storm,
And fickle winds false Fortune's part perform,
As found the strangers whose sad Fate I sing:—
Their hopes were blossoms, blossoms of a spring,

Ordain'd to perish, yea, themselves unknown,—
Their grave the greenwood, and their name a groan.

Bright was the morn,—the silver lilies bright
Shone, as the stars and breezes breathed delight,
When they with love their abbion name suppress'd—
Went to the wilderness to build a nest;
Their hearts entwin'd, embrac'd one cherub child,
And Love, with Youth, their truant feet beguil'd.

Of rustic rank, by their plain garb, they were;
But small white hands, superior mein and air,
Seem'd surer signs of deficated blood,
And boist'rous Rudeness in their presence stood
Aw'd by the influence of a charm serene,—
The urbane spirit of what they had been.

O! gorgeous Commerce, changeful Proteus pow'r!
Thy smile a minute, and thy frown an hour,
Were these mild beings of the storied world
Thy fated victims, with disasters hurl'd
Down from the sphere in which they once had shown
With sanguine sires, who, drugg'd by Fate, were prone
To snatch the fare of Tantalusian feasts,
Yet doom'd like Lucifer to fall—thy guests?
It matters not, whatever decent pride
Sought in the loneness of the woods to hide,
In silence still, upon their nameless bier,
Will sacred flow a soft religious tear.

Content they labour'd in Canadian bowers,
Love their companion, and their neighbours, flowers—
Cheer to their tasks, the cherub child would call,
Like Innocence in Eden ere the fall,
Of some new songster in the forest heard;
And they would listen to the feather'd bard,
Sharing, delighted, the glad prattler's glee,
To think that buds grew tuneful on the tree.

Thus summer pass'd, and bright the noontide beam
Then first ran sparkling with the woodland stream,
And over-head, with vivid wakeful rays,
The orbs of Heaven, by leafy vaultages
No more conceal'd, seem'd eyes endow'd with sight,—
Argus of Providence was then the night.

In autumn, still the mild unknown enjoy'd
But varied sweets,—true Love is never cloy'd;

They oft admiring saw, at blush of morn,
Amaz'd, how Nature could herself adorn,
With wreaths and garlands, as if leaves became
Gems, flowers, and fires, and branches flakes of flame;
The Earth, refulgent with autumnal dyes,
Mirror'd the glories of the evening skies,
As if such scenes were to the sense reveal'd,
As raptur'd saints in trances have beheld.

But when the solemn hoary winter lower'd,
And glowing leaves, like showers of stars, were shower'd,
While ruthless stern the homeward Indians past,
Warn'd by the gloom, and crash-proclaiming blast.

They sat beside their hut's enliv'ning blaze,
And thought of distant scenes, and other days.

Then oft the anxious, list'ning, gentle fair
Would, startl'd, utter an unconscious pray'r,
And closer to her pensive husband cower,
Aw'd by the terrors of the dismal hour.

In such a time, while wildly rav'd around
The wrestling boughs, and all the forest own'd
The howling demon of the tempest's wrath,
A sullen savage left his trodden path,
And at their fire, uncourteous stoop'd to light
His quench'd cigar, to dare the gath'ring night.

They saw him soon, unspeaking still, resume
The Indian track, and vanish in the gloom,
Though in the dark they long beheld afar,
The crimson radiance of his fir'd cigar,
And sparks, like fire-flies, ever and anon
Stream from the star which then red-twinkling shone.

Boding, they knew not why, they shelter'd stood
And ey'd the dwindling motion of the wood;
But ere they wist, a bright unfurling flame
Behind it rose, and with the wind it came
Roaring towards them with terrific glare,
As if in conflagration blaz'd the air.

The fiery hurricane increasing spread,
Devouring rag'd and hunger'd as it fed;
Around and effortless the father gaz'd,—
The frantic mother, madding and amaz'd,
Heard from the hut her pretty prattler sing,
Deeming the light the splendour of the spring,

And rush'd to snatch him where he happy lay,—
Upbraided Heaven, and then began to pray.

With wings of flame, like fiends incens'd from Hell,
The burning boughs and blazing branches fell
Fierce on the kindling shingles of their home,
Till houseless, beggar'd, they prepar'd to roam.
But in the anguish of their misery,
A fearful hissing rose from every tree,
As if dread Heaven had, as of old, again
From opening windows pour'd a deluge rain.
Then chang'd the wind, and rattling from the north,
The hailing cruelty came hustling forth,
Till where in pyramids the fires arose—
On ashes thron'd, vindictive winter froze.

The hopeless strangers with their all—the child,
Their vernal blossom that so blest the wild,
Mov'd on towards—they knew not where to go:
The cherub trembl'd, and thick fell the snow—
The skies were black—they sat them down and sigh'd,
And soon the mother, then the father died.

Thus when at morn, the settlers, half afraid,
Who saw the burning, came intent to aid,
They found the baby, yet still breathing there,
Clasp'd by his mother, with a mother's care,
And stoop'd to free him from her cold embrace;
But it too died—oh! gentle, nameless race.