The American common-place book of poetry :: :: University of Virginia Library

Go forth, sad fragments of a broken strain,
The last that either bard shall e'er essay:
The hand can ne'er attempt the chords again,
That first awoke them in a happier day:
Where sweeps the ocean breeze its desert way,
His requiem murmurs o'er the moaning wave;
And he who feebly now prolongs the lay
Shall ne'er the minstrel's hallowed honors crave;
His harp lies buried deep in that untimely grave!

Friend of my youth! with thee began the love
Of sacred song; the wont, in golden dreams,
'Mid classic realms of splendors past to rove,
O'er haunted steep, and by immortal streams;
Where the blue wave, with sparkling bosom gleams
Round shores, the mind's eternal heritage,
For ever lit by memory's twilight beams;
Where the proud dead, that live in storied page,
Beckon, with awful port, to glory's earlier age.

There would we linger oft, entranced, to hear,
O'er battle fields, the epic thunders roll;
Or list, where tragic wail upon the ear,
Through Argive palaces shrill echoing stole;
There would we mark, uncurbed by all control,
In central heaven, the Theban eagle's flight;

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Or hold communion with the musing soul
Of sage or bard, who sought, 'mid pagan night,
In loved Athenian groves, for truth's eternal light.

Homeward we turned to that fair land, but late
Redeemed from the strong spell that bound it fast,
Where Mystery, brooding o'er the waters, sate,
And kept the key, till three millenniums past;
When, as creation's noblest work was last,
Latest, to man it was vouchsafed to see
Nature's great wonder, long by clouds o'ercast,
And veiled in sacred awe, that it might be
An empire and a home, most worthy for the free.

And here forerunners strange and meet were found
Of that blest freedom, only dreamed before;—
Dark were the morning mists, that lingered round
Their birth and story, as the hue they bore.
“Earth was their mother;” or they knew no more,
Or would not that their secret should be told;
For they were grave and silent; and such lore,
To stranger ears, they loved not to unfold,
The long-transmitted tales their sires were taught of old.

Kind Nature's commoners, from her they drew
Their needful wants, and learned not how to hoard;
And him whom strength and wisdom crowned they knew,
But with no servile reverence, as their lord.
And on their mountain summits they adored
One great, good Spirit, in his high abode,
And thence their incense and orisons poured
To his pervading presence, that abroad
They felt through all his works,—their Father, King, and God.

And in the mountain mist, the torrent's spray,
The quivering forest, or the glassy flood,
Soft falling showers, or hues of orient day,
They imaged spirits beautiful and good;
But when the tempest roared, with voices rude,
Or fierce, red lightning fired the forest pine,
Or withering heats untimely seared the wood,
The angry forms they saw of powers malign;
These they besought to spare, those blessed for aid divine.

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As the fresh sense of life, through every vein,
With the pure air they drank, inspiring came,
Comely they grew, patient of toil and pain,
And, as the fleet deer's, agile was their frame:
Of meaner vices scarce they knew the name;
These simple truths went down from sire to son,—
To reverence age,—the sluggish hunter's shame,
And craven warrior's infamy, to shun,—
And still avenge each wrong, to friends or kindred done.

From forest shades they peered, with awful dread,
When, uttering flame and thunder from its side,
The ocean-monster, with broad wings outspread,
Came, ploughing gallantly the virgin tide.
Few years have passed, and all their forests' pride
From shores and hills has vanished, with the race,
Their tenants erst, from memory who have died,
Like airy shapes, which eld was wont to trace,
In each green thicket's depths, and lone, sequestered place.

And many a gloomy tale tradition yet
Saves from oblivion, of their struggles vain,
Their prowess and their wrongs, for rhymer meet
To people scenes where still their names remain;
And so began our young, delighted strain,
That would evoke the plumed chieftains brave,
And bid their martial hosts arise again,
Where Narragansett's tides roll by their grave,
And Haup's romantic steeps are piled above the wave.

Friend of my youth! with thee began my song,
And o'er thy bier its latest accents die;
Misled in phantom-peopled realms too long,—
Though not to me the muse averse deny,
Sometimes, perhaps, her visions to descry,—
Such thriftless pastime should with youth be o'er;
And he who loved with thee his notes to try,
But for thy sake such idlesse would deplore,—
And swears to meditate the thankless muse no more.

But no! the freshness of that past shall still
Sacred to memory's holiest musings be;
When through the ideal fields of song, at will,
He roved, and gathered chaplets wild with thee;
When, reckless of the world, alone and free,

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Like two proud barks, we kept our careless way,
That sail by moonlight o'er the tranquil sea;
Their white apparel and their streamers gay,
Bright gleaming o'er the main, beneath the ghostly ray;—

And downward, far, reflected in the clear
Blue depths, the eye their fairy tackling sees;
So buoyant, they do seem to float in air,
And silently obey the noiseless breeze;—
Till, all too soon, as the rude winds may please,
They part for distant ports. The gales benign,
Swift wafting, bore, by Heaven's all-wise decrees,
To its own harbor sure, where each divine
And joyous vision, seen before in dreams, is thine.

Muses of Helicon! melodious race
Of Jove and golden-haired Mnemosyne!
Whose art from memory blots each sadder trace,
And drives each scowling form of grief away!
Who, round the violent fount, your measures gay
Once trod, and round the altar of great Jove;
Whence, wrapt in silvery clouds, your nightly way
Ye held, and ravishing strains of music wove,
That soothed the Thunderer's soul, and filled his courts above!

Bright choir! with lips untempted, and with zone
Sparkling, and unapproached by touch profane;
Ye, to whose gladsome bosoms ne'er was known
The blight of sorrow, or the throb of pain;—
Rightly invoked,—if right the elected swain,
On your own mountain's side ye taught of yore,
Whose honored hand took not your gift in vain,
Worthy the budding laurel-bough it bore,—
Farewell! a long farewell! I worship you no more.