Specimens of American poetry :: :: University of Virginia Library

The thoughts are strange that crowd into my brain,
While I look upward to thee. It would seem
As if God pour'd thee from his “hollow hand,”
And hung his bow upon thine awful front;
And spoke in that loud voice, which seem'd to him
Who dwelt in Patmos for his Saviour's sake,
“The sound of many waters;” and had bade
Thy flood to chronicle the ages back,
And notch His cent'ries in the eternal rocks.

Deep calleth unto deep. And what are we,
That hear the question of that voice sublime?
Oh! what are all the notes that ever rung
From war's vain trumpet, by thy thundering side!
Yea, what is all the riot man can make
In his short life, to thy unceasing roar!
And yet, bold babbler, what art thou to Him,
Who drown'd a world, and heap'd the waters far
Above its loftiest mountains?—a light wave,
That breaks, and whispers of its Maker's might.

EPITHALAMIUM.

I saw two clouds at morning,
Tinged with the rising sun;
And in the dawn they floated on,
And mingled into one:
I thought that morning cloud was blest,
It moved so sweetly to the west.

I saw two summer currents,
Flow smoothly to their meeting,
And join their course, with silent force,
In peace each other greeting:
Calm was their course through banks of green,
While dimpling eddies play'd between.

Such be your gentle motion,
Till life's last pulse shall beat;
Like summer's beam, and summer's stream,
Float on, in joy, to meet
A calmer sea, where storms shall cease—
A purer sky, where all is peace.

204

ON A LATE LOSS.

The breath of air that stirs the harp's soft string,
Floats on to join the whirlwind and the storm;
The drops of dew exhaled from flowers of spring,
Rise and assume the tempest's threatening form;
The first mild beam of morning's glorious sun,
Ere night, is sporting in the lightning's flash;
And the smooth stream, that flows in quiet on,
Moves but to aid the overwhelming dash
That wave and wind can muster, when the might
Of earth, and air, and sea, and sky unite.

So science whisper'd in thy charmed ear,
And radiant learning beckon'd thee away.
The breeze was music to thee, and the clear
Beam of thy morning promised a bright day.
And they have wreck'd thee!—But there is a shore
Where storms are hush'd, where tempests never rage;
Where angry skies and blackening seas, no more
With gusty strength their roaring warfare wage.
By thee its peaceful margent shall be trod—
Thy home is Heaven, and thy friend is God.

The loss of Professor Fisher of Yale College, in the Albion.

COLONIZATION SOCIETY.

All sights are fair to the recover'd blind—
All sounds are music to the deaf restored—
The lame, made whole, leaps like the sporting hind;
And the sad bow'd down sinner, with his load
Of shame and sorrow, when he cuts the cord,
And drops the pack it bound, is free again
In the light yoke and burden of his Lord.
Thus, with the birthright of his fellow man,
Sees, hears and feels at once the righted African.

'T is somewhat like the burst from death to life;
From the grave's cerements to the robes of Heaven;
From sin's dominion, and from passion's strife,
To the pure freedom of a soul forgiven!
When all the bonds of death and hell are riven,
And mortals put on immortality;
When fear, and care, and grief away are driven,

205

And Mercy's hand has turn'd the golden key,
And Mercy's voice has said, “Rejoice—thy soul is free!”

THE CAPTAIN. A FRAGMENT.

Solemn he paced upon that schooner's deck,
And mutter'd of his hardships:—“I have been
Where the wild will of Mississippi's tide
Has dash'd me on the sawyer;—I have sail'd
In the thick night, along the wave-wash'd edge
Of ice, in acres, by the pitiless coast
Of Labrador; and I have scraped my keel
O'er coral rocks in Madagascar seas—
And often in my cold and midnight watch,
Have heard the warning voice of the lee shore
Speaking in breakers! Ay, and I have seen
The whale and sword-fish fight beneath my bows;
And when they made the deep boil like a pot,
Have swung into its vortex; and I know
To cord my vessel with a sailor's skill,
And brave such dangers with a sailor's heart;
—But never yet upon the stormy wave,
Or where the river mixes with the main,
Or in the chafing anchorage of the bay,
In all my rough experience of harm,
Met I—a Methodist meeting-house!
[OMITTED]
Cat-head, or beam, or davit has it none,
Starboard nor larboard, gunwale, stem nor stern!
It comes in such a “questionable shape,”
I cannot even speak it! Up jib, Josey,
And make for Bridgeport! There, where Stratford Point,
Long Beach, Fairweather Island, and the buoy,
Are safe from such encounters, we'll protest!
And Yankee legends long shall tell the tale,
That once a Charleston schooner was beset,
Riding at anchor, by a Meeting-House.

The Bridgeport paper of March, 1823, said; “Arrived, schooner Fame, from Charleston, via New London. While at anchor in that harbor, during the rain storm on Thursday evening last, the Fame was run foul of by the wreck of the Methodist Meeting-House from Norwich, which was carried away in the late freshet.”

206

THE DEEP.

There's beauty in the deep:—
The wave is bluer than the sky;
And though the light shine bright on high,
More softly do the sea-gems glow
That sparkle in the depths below;
The rainbow's tints are only made
When on the waters they are laid,
And Sun and Moon most sweetly shine
Upon the ocean's level brine.
There 's beauty in the deep.

There 's music in the deep:—
It not in the surf's rough roar,
Nor in the whispering, shelly shore—
They are but earthly sounds, that tell
How little of the sea-nymph's shell,
That sends its loud, clear note abroad,
Or winds its softness through the flood,
Echoes through groves with coral gay,
And dies, on spongy banks, away.
There 's music in the deep.

There 's quiet in the deep:—
Above, let tides and tempests rave,
And earth-born whirlwinds wake the wave;
Above, let care and fear contend,
With sin and sorrow to the end:
Here, far beneath the tainted foam,
That frets above our peaceful home,
We dream in joy, and wake in love,
Nor know the rage that yells above.
There 's quiet in the deep.

THE INDIAN SUMMER.

What is there saddening in the Autumn leaves?
Have they that “green and yellow melancholy”
That the sweet poet spake of?—Had he seen
Our variegated woods, when first the frost
Turns into beauty all October's charms—
When the dread fever quits us—when the storms

207

Of the wild Equinox, with all its wet,
Has left the land, as the first deluge left it,
With a bright bow of many colors hung
Upon the forest tops—he had not sigh'd.

The moon stays longest for the Hunter now:
The trees cast down their fruitage, and the blithe
And busy squirrel hoards his winter store:
While man enjoys the breeze that sweeps along
The bright blue sky above him, and that bends
Magnificently all the forest's pride,
Or whispers through the evergreens, and asks,
“What is there saddening in the Autumn leaves?”

THE TWO COMETS.

There once dwelt in Olympus some notable oddities,
For their wild singularities call'd Gods and Goddesses.—
But one in particular beat 'em all hollow,
Whose name, style and title was Phœbus Apollo.

Now Phœb. was a genius—his hand he could turn
To anything, everything genius can learn:
Bright, sensible, graceful, cute, spirited, handy,
Well bred, well behaved—a celestial Dandy!
An eloquent god, though he did n't say much;
But he drew a long bow, spoke Greek, Latin and Dutch;
A doctor, a poet, a soarer, a diver,
And of horses in harness an excellent driver.

He would tackle his steeds to the wheels of the sun,
And he drove up the east every morning, but one;
When young Phæton begg'd of his daddy at five,
To stay with Aurora a day, and he'd drive.
So good natured Phœbus gave Phaey the seat,
With his mittens, change, waybill, and stage horn complete;
To the breeze of the morning he shook his bright locks,
Blew the lamps of the night out, and mounted the box.
The crack of his whip, like the breaking of day,
Warm'd the wax in the ears of the leaders, and they
With a snort, like the fog of the morning, clear'd out
For the west, as young Phaey meant to get there about
Two hours before sunset.
He look'd at his “turnip,”
And to make the delay of the old line concern up,
He gave 'em the reins; and from Aries to Cancer,
The style of his drive on the road seem'd to answer;

208

But at Leo, the ears of the near wheel-horse prick'd,
And at Virgo the heels of the off leader kick'd;
Over Libra the whiffle-tree broke in the middle,
And the traces snapp'd short, like the strings of a fiddle.
One wheel struck near Scorpio, who gave it a roll,
And sent it to buzz, like a top, round the pole;
While the other whizz'd back with its linchpin and hub,
Or, more learnedly speaking, its nucleus or nub;
And, whether in earnest, or whether in fun,
He carried away a few locks of the sun.

The state of poor Phaeton's coach was a blue one,
And Jupiter order'd Apollo a new one;
But our driver felt rather too proud to say “Whoa,”
Letting horses, and harness, and everything go
At their terrified pleasure abroad; and the muse
Says, they cut to this day just what capers they choose;
That the eyes of the chargers as meteors shine forth;
That their manes stream along in the lights of the north;
That the wheels which are missing are comets, that run
As fast as they did when they carried the sun;
And still pushing forward, though never arriving,
Think the west is before them, and Phaeton driving.

ADDRESS TO CONNECTICUT RIVER.

From that Ione lake, the sweetest of the chain
That links the mountain to the mighty main,
Fresh from the rock and welling by the tree,
Rushing to meet and dare and breast the sea,
Fair, noble, glorious, river! in thy wave
The sunniest slopes and sweetest pastures lave,
The mountain torrent, with its wintry roar
Springs from its home and leaps upon thy shore;—
The promontories love thee—and for this
Turn their rough cheeks and stay thee for thy kiss.
Stern, at thy source, thy northern Guardians stand,
Rude rulers of the solitary land,
Wild dwellers by thy cold sequester'd springs,
Of earth the feathers and of air the wings;
Their blasts have rock'd thy cradle, and in storm
Cover'd thy couch and swathed in snow thy form—
Yet, bless'd by all the elements that sweep
The clouds above, or the unfathom'd deep,
The purest breezes scent thy blooming hills,

209

The gentlest dews drop on thy eddying rills,
By the moss'd bank, and by the aged tree,
The silver streamlet smoothest glides to thee,
The young oak greets thee at the waters' edge,
Wet by the wave, though anchor'd in the ledge.
—'T is there the otter dives, the beaver feeds,
Where pensive osiers dip their willowy weeds,
And there the wild-cat purs amid her brood,
And trains them, in the sylvan solitude,
To watch the squirrel's leap, or mark the mink
Paddling the water by thy quiet brink;—
Or to out-gaze the grey owl in the dark,
Or hear the young fox practising to bark.

Dark as the frost-nipp'd leaves that strow'd the ground,
The Indian hunter here his shelter found;
Here cut his bow and shaped his arrows true,
Here built his wigwam and his bark canoe,
Spear'd the quick salmon leaping up the fall,
And slew the deer without the rifle ball.
Here his young squaw her cradling tree would choose,
Singing her chant to hush her swart pappoose,
Here stain her quills and string her trinkets rude,
And weave her warrior's wampum in the wood.
—No more shall they thy welcome waters bless,
No more their forms thy moonlit banks shall press,
No more be heard, from mountain or from grove,
His whoop of slaughter, or her song of love.

Thou didst not shake, thou didst not shrink, when late
The mountain-top shut down its ponderous gate,
Tumbling its tree-grown ruins to thy side,
And avalanche of acres at a slide.
Nor dost thou stay, when winter's coldest breath
Howls through the woods and sweeps along the heath—
One mighty sigh relieves thy icy breast,
And wakes thee from the calmness of thy rest.

Down sweeps the torrent ice—it may not stay
By rock or bridge, in narrow or in bay—
Swift, swifter to the heaving sea it goes
And leaves thee dimpling in thy sweet repose.
—Yet as the unharm'd swallow skims his way,
And lightly drops his pinions in thy spray,
So the swift sail shall seek thy inland seas,
And swell and whiten in thy purer breeze,
New paddles dip thy waters, and strange oars
Feather thy waves and touch thy noble shores.

210

Thy noble shores! where the tall steeple shines,
At midday, higher than thy mountain pines,
Where the white schoolhouse with its daily drill
Of sunburnt children, smiles upon the hill,
Where the neat village grows upon the eye,
Deck'd forth in nature's sweet simplicity—
Where hard-won competence, the farmer's wealth,
Gains merit honor, and gives labor health,
Where Goldsmith's self might send his exiled band
To find a new ‘Sweet Auburn’ in our land.

What art can execute or taste devise,
Decks thy fair course and gladdens in thine eyes—
As broader sweep the bendings of thy stream,
To meet the southern sun's more constant beam.
Here cities rise, and sea-wash'd commerce hails
Thy shores and winds, with all her flapping sails,
From tropic isles, or from the torrid main—
Where grows the grape, or sprouts the sugar-cane—
Or from the haunts, where the striped haddock play,
By each cold northern bank and frozen bay.
Here safe return'd from every stormy sea,
Waves the striped flag, the mantle of the free,
—That star-lit flag, by all the breezes curl'd
Of yon vast deep whose waters grasp the world.

In what Arcadian, what Utopian ground
Are warmer hearts or manlier feelings found,
More hospitable welcome, or more zeal
To make the curious ‘tarrying’ stranger feel
That, next to home, here best may he abide,
To rest and cheer him by the chimney-side;
Drink the hale farmer's cider, as he hears
From the grey dame the tales of others years.
Cracking his shagbarks, as the aged crone,
Mixing the true and doubtful into one,
Tells how the Indian scalp'd the helpless child
And bore its shrieking mother to the wild,
Butcher'd the father hastening to his home,
Seeking his cottage—finding but his tomb.
How drums and flags and troops were seen on high,
Wheeling and charging in the northern sky,
And that she knew what these wild tokens meant,
When to the Old French War her husband went.
How, by the thunder-blasted tree, was hid
The golden spoils of far famed Robert Kid;
And then the chubby grandchild wants to know
About the ghosts and witches long ago,
That haunted the old swamp.

211

The clock strikes ten—
The prayer is said, nor unforgotten then
The stranger in their gates. A decent rule
Of Elders in thy puritanic school.

When the fresh morning wakes him from his dream,
And daylight smiles on rock, and slope, and stream,
Are there not glossy curls and sunny eyes,
As brightly lit and bluer than thy skies,
Voices as gentle as an echoed call
And sweeter than the soften'd waterfall
That smiles and dimples in its whispering spray,
Leaping in sportive innocence away:—
And lovely forms, as graceful and as gay
As wild-brier, budding in an April day
—How like the leaves—the fragrant leaves it bears,
Their simple purposes and simple cares.

Stream of my sleeping fathers! when the sound
Of coming war echoed thy hills around,
How did thy sons start forth from every glade,
Snatching the musket where they left the spade.
How did their mothers urge them to the fight,
Their sisters tell them to defend the right,—
How bravely did they stand, how nobly fall,
The earth their coffin and the turf their pall—
How did the aged pastor light his eye,
When, to his flock, he read the purpose high
And stern resolve, whate'er the toil may be,
To pledge life, name, fame, all—for Liberty.
—Cold is the hand that penn'd that glorious page—
Still in the grave the body of that sage
Whose lip of eloquence and heart of zeal,
Made Patriots act and listening statesmen feel—
Brought thy Green Mountains down upon their foes,
And thy white summits melted of their snows,
While every vale to which his voice could come,
Rang with the fife and echoed to the drum.

Bold River! better suited are thy waves
To nurse the laurels clustering round their graves,
Than many a distant stream, that soaks the mud
Where thy brave sons have shed their gallant blood,
And felt, beyond all other mortal pain,
They ne'er should see their happy home again.

Thou had'st a poet once,—and he could tell,
Most tunefully, whate'er to thee befell,
Could fill each pastoral reed upon thy shore—
—But we shall hear his classic lays no more!
He loved thee, but he took his aged way,

212

By Erie's shore, and Perry's glorious day,
To where Detroit looks out amidst the wood,
Remote beside the dreary solitude.

Yet for his brow thy ivy leaf shall spread,
Thy freshest myrtle lift its berried head,
And our gnarl'd Charter-oak put forth a bough,
Whose leaves shall grace thy Trumbull's honor'd brow.

[The dead leaves strow the forest walk]

“The dead leaves strow the forest walk,
And wither'd are the pale wild-flowers;
The frost hangs blackening on the stalk,
The dew-drops fall in frozen showers.
Gone are the springs green sprouting bowers
Gone summer's rich and mantling vines,
And Autumn, with her yellow hours,
On hill and plain no longer shines.

I learn'd a clear and wild-toned note,
That rose and swell'd from yonder tree—
A gay bird, with too sweet a throat,
There perch'd and raised her song for me.
The winter comes, and where is she?
Away—where summer wings will rove,
Where buds are fresh, and every tree
Is vocal with the notes of love.

Too mild the breath of southern sky,
Too fresh the flower that blushes there,
The northern breeze that rustles by,
Finds leaves too green, and buds too fair;
No forest-tree stands stript and bare,
No stream beneath the ice is dead,
No mountain-top with sleety hair
Bends o'er the snows its reverend head.

Go there with all the birds,—and seek
A happier clime, with livelier flight,
Kiss, with the sun, the evening's cheek,
And leave me lonely with the night.
—I'll gaze upon the cold north light,
And mark where all its glories shone—
See!—that it all is fair and bright,
Feel—that it all is cold and gone.”