Areytos or songs and ballads of the South

I sate upon the lofty Tryon's brow,
While yet the sun was struggling up the east;
Broad was the realm around, and fair below
The plains, with summer fruits and flowers increas'd.
The soul and eye were at perpetual feast
On beauty; and the exquisite repose
Of nature, from the striving world released,
Taught me forgetfulness of mortal throes,
Life's toils, and all the cares that wait on human woes.

Never was day more cloudless in the sky—
Never the earth more beautiful in view:
Rose-crowned, the mountain summits gather'd high,
And the green forests shared the purple hue;
Midway, the little pyramids, all blue,
Stood robed for ceremonial, as the sun
Rose gradual in his grandeur, till he grew
Their god, and sovereign elevation won,
Lighting the loftiest towers as at a service done.

Nor was the service silent: for the choir
Of mountain winds took up the solemn sense
Of that great advent of the central fire,
And pour'd rejoicing as in recompense;
One hardly knew their place of birth, or whence
Their coming; but, through gorges of the hills,
Swift stealing, yet scarce breathing, they went thence
To gather on the plain—which straightway thrills
With mightiest strain, that soon the whole vast empire fills.

From gloomy caverns of the Cherokee—
From gorges of Saluda—from the groves
Of laurel, stretching far as eye may see,
In valleys of Tselica—from great coves
Of Tensas, where the untamed panther roves;
The joyous and exulting winds troop forth,
Singing the mountain strain that freedom loves—
A wild but generous song of eagle birth,
That summons, far and near, the choral strains of earth.

They come from height and plain—from mount and sea:
They gather in their strength, and, from below,
Sweep upwards to the heights—an empire free,
Marching with pomp and music—a great show
Triumphal—like an ocean in its flow,
Glorious in roar and billow, as it breaks
O'er earth's base barriers: first, ascending slow,
The mighty march its stately progress takes,
But, rushing with its rise, its roar the mountain shakes!

O winds! that have o'erswept the viewless waste
Where nature dwells in verdure—where the wild,
Not barren, though a wilderness, is graced
With flowers more sweet than e'er in garden smiled;
Or, in strange mood, by northern snows beguiled,
Have swept the mer de glace, nor felt the cold—
Unfold to me, as to a yearning child
That longs for marvels—in its longings bold,
The story of your flight—the experience yet untold.

The world is yours, for ever, generous winds!
Ye have won all its avenues; have swept
Where Nature in her stern dominion binds
The waters in ice-fetters; nor have crept,
Though the sad sun himself in heaven hath slept,

O'ercome with chills of apathy; and thence
Have brought the doom to flowers, that, unbewept,
Do not all perish! Yet 'twould recompense
Your wrong, to share with us your strange intelligence.

The cultured and the wild, the height, the plain,
Ancient and present seasons, all are yours!
Ye have heard Israel's monarch harp complain—
Have swept old Homer's lyre on Hellas' shores—
Hearkened while Dante's savage soul deplores,
And Milton moans his blindness in your ears—
Yours only! Oh! how boundless are your stores
Of treasured legends: yield them to my prayers!
Make fruitful all the thought to rove through perishing years!

Methinks, as now your billows from below
Roll upwards, and with generous embrace
Swell round me, that I hear a murmuring flow
Of song, which might be story: and I trace
The faint, far progress—men, and time, and place,
Commercing in relation fit—till start
The actors into action: art with grace
Appealing to the kindred in our art,
Till all grows life and light, for fancy and the heart.

I climb the mighty pyramids, and scan
The boundless desert—vacant, vast and wild,
Yet still I see the ancient prints of man!
Ye sweep away the sand above him piled,
And pierce his vaults—reveal him as the child
Of an ungoverned passion, fierce and strong,
Rending his way to power: his nature filed
With savage lusts, that teach a joy in wrong,
While Vengeance broods above, nor spares the usurper long.

How, as your murmurs swell upon the sense,
Grow they to voices, and inform the ear!
The imagination, in its dream intense,
By natural consequence becomes the seer:
The vanished ages at its will appear;
The gates of Nimroud open; o'er the plain
Stream forth the servile myriads, dark and fair,
In fatal pomp, the power is wed to pain,
Sennacherib leads the host, and piles the fields with slain.

And Judah, as a captive in his hands,
Droops to his dungeon. The sad wife and maid
Go to their lowly toils in stranger lands;
Their silent harps among the willows laid,
Resound not, though by the fierce conqueror bade
Repeat the glorious God-rejoicing strains
That ever, morn and eve, glad tribute paid
To the great giver of their happy gains,
Ere guilty deeds had changed their raptures into pains.

Their mournful harps ye swept with trailing wings,
To unseen spirits; with a power to cheer,
The sorrowful chaunt re-opened sacred springs
Of love and worship; the consoling tear,
Though salt, had yet its sweetness, and made clear
Jehovah's promise of that coming hour,
Howe'er remote, the dawn of happier year,
When, in the fullness of his wakening power,
The widowed bride should wear, once more, the bridal flower.

Thus, on your wings ye bear to unknown times
The empire's conquering shout, the captive's song;
Your voices are the voices of all climes!—
All ages—great and base—the weak, the strong—
Their cry of grief or rapture, prayer or wrong,

Move with your choral pinions. Ages die,
But still their accents rise and linger long,
Even as the light from stars that fleck the sky
Will strain through space, though they no longer burn on high.

I list ye, and these valleys teem with life;
The desert puts on verdure; cities soar
Beneath the mountain; and the glorious strife
Of purpose and performance, evermore
Resounds from human haunts; the generous lore
Recalls the beautiful when earth was young;
Legions of glorious aspects ye restore—
Shades of those mighty minstrels who have sung
When Nature was a child, and Art first found her tongue.

I travel with ye o'er each sacred spot,
Made holy by the march of mightiest men:
Here was the altar-place; this mystic grot
Harbored a muse; within yon wooded glen,
Pan marshalled all his satyrs; here, again,
Gathered the little phalanx of the free,
Prepared to welcome the last struggle then,
For shrines and temples dear to liberty,
The gift of shadowy sires that watched the strife to see.

Where the glad nation, lapsed in summer bliss,
Forgot her vigilance—where the conquering race
Stood forth, and bridged with death the precipice
That kept them from the bright luxurious place,
Ye lead me still, till meeting, face to face,
I gaze upon the past o'er walls of time—
Each circumstance of power, and pride, and grace
Unveiled with realms of each delicious clime,
Where glory wraps her pall around the hills sublime!

What empires ye unfold to me, blest airs,
That travel o'er all wastes of time and earth;
Those mighty shadows, when the strife was theirs,
Have felt your pinions, and, with sense of mirth,
Thrown wide their bosoms, feeling a new birth
In your cool breathings; in the storm of fight
Ye swept the plain, and to the soul of worth
Brought cheer, in echoing answers of great might,
From other godlike souls that strove for home and right.

Oh! sing to me for ever, from your heights—
Roll from your deep abysses the proud strain
That teaches power, and tells of wild delights,
Of a sad grandeur, half allied to pain!
Oh, billowy anthems, upward swell again,
With all your awful voices, that unite
The ages with their gods—a shadowy train,
That trail great robes of purple on the sight,
And, in the maturing soul, look down with eyes of might!

Mount Tryon, a lofty summit, looking from North, into South Carolina.

University of Virginia Library

THE MOUNTAIN WINDS.