 | Areytos or songs and ballads of the South |  |
319
BALLAD.—DORCHESTER.
Not with irreverent thought and feeling, I resign
The tree that was a chronicle in other days than mine;
Its mossy branches crown'd the grove, when, hastily array'd,
Came down the gallant partisan to battle in the shade;
It saw his fearless eye grow dark, it heard his trumpet cry,
When at its roots, the combat o'er, he laid him down to die;
The warm blood gushing from his heart hath stain'd the sod below—
That tree shall be my chronicle, for it hath seen it flow.
The tree that was a chronicle in other days than mine;
Its mossy branches crown'd the grove, when, hastily array'd,
Came down the gallant partisan to battle in the shade;
It saw his fearless eye grow dark, it heard his trumpet cry,
When at its roots, the combat o'er, he laid him down to die;
The warm blood gushing from his heart hath stain'd the sod below—
That tree shall be my chronicle, for it hath seen it flow.
Sweet glide thy waters, Ashley, and pleasant on thy banks
The mossy oak and massy pine stand forth in solemn ranks;
They crown thee in a fitting guise, since, with a gentle play,
Through bending groves, and circling dells, thou tak'st thy lonely way:
Thine is the summer's loveliness—thy winter hath its charms,
Thus sheltered in thy mazy course, beneath their Druid arms;
And thine the recollection old, which honors thy decline,
When happy thousands saw thee rove, and Dorchester was thine.
The mossy oak and massy pine stand forth in solemn ranks;
They crown thee in a fitting guise, since, with a gentle play,
Through bending groves, and circling dells, thou tak'st thy lonely way:
Thine is the summer's loveliness—thy winter hath its charms,
Thus sheltered in thy mazy course, beneath their Druid arms;
And thine the recollection old, which honors thy decline,
When happy thousands saw thee rove, and Dorchester was thine.
320
But Dorchester is thine no more: its gallant pulse is still,
The wild-cat prowls among its graves, and screams the whip-poor-will;
A mournful spell is on its homes, where solitude, supreme,
Still, couching in her tangled woods, dreams one unbroken dream:
The cotter seeks a foreign home—the cottage roof is down,
The ivy clambers all uncheck'd above the steeple's crown;
And doubly gray, with grief and years, the old church tottering stands—
Ah! how unlike that holy home not built with human hands!
The wild-cat prowls among its graves, and screams the whip-poor-will;
A mournful spell is on its homes, where solitude, supreme,
Still, couching in her tangled woods, dreams one unbroken dream:
The cotter seeks a foreign home—the cottage roof is down,
The ivy clambers all uncheck'd above the steeple's crown;
And doubly gray, with grief and years, the old church tottering stands—
Ah! how unlike that holy home not built with human hands!
These ruins have their story, and with a reverent fear
I glide beneath the broken arch and through the passage drear;
The hillock at my feet grows warm—beneath it beats a heart,
Whose pulses wake to utterance, whose accents make me start;
That heart hath beat in battle when the thunder cloud was high,
And death, in every form of fate, careering through the sky;
Beside it now another heart, to peace but lately known,
Beats with a kindred pulse but hath a story of its own.
I glide beneath the broken arch and through the passage drear;
The hillock at my feet grows warm—beneath it beats a heart,
Whose pulses wake to utterance, whose accents make me start;
That heart hath beat in battle when the thunder cloud was high,
And death, in every form of fate, careering through the sky;
Beside it now another heart, to peace but lately known,
Beats with a kindred pulse but hath a story of its own.
Ah! sad the fate of maiden whose lover falls in fight,
Condemned to bear, in widowhood, the lonely length of light:
The days that come without a sun—the nights that bring no sleep—
The long, long watch—the weariness—the same sad toil, to weep!
Methinks the call is happiness, when sudden sounds the strain
That summons back the exiled heart of love to heaven again;
No trumpet tone of battle, but a soft note sweetly clear,
Like that which even now is heard when doves are cooing near.
Condemned to bear, in widowhood, the lonely length of light:
The days that come without a sun—the nights that bring no sleep—
The long, long watch—the weariness—the same sad toil, to weep!
Methinks the call is happiness, when sudden sounds the strain
That summons back the exiled heart of love to heaven again;
No trumpet tone of battle, but a soft note sweetly clear,
Like that which even now is heard when doves are cooing near.
1835.
| Areytos or songs and ballads of the South | |