University of Virginia Library

“PRO PATRIA”

THE DEAD CENTURY

THE RIVER OTTER

A FRAGMENT

A hundred times the Summer's fragrant blooms
Have laden all the air with sweet perfumes;
A hundred times, along the mountain-side,
Autumn has flung his crimson banners wide;
A hundred times has kindly Winter spread
His snowy mantle o'er the violet's bed;
A hundred times has Earth rejoiced to hear
The Spring's light footsteps in the forest sere,
Since on yon grassy knoll the quick, sharp stroke
Of the young woodman's axe the silence broke.
Not then did these encircling hills look down
On quaint old farmhouse, or on steepled town.
No church-spires pointed to the arching skies;
No wandering lovers saw the moon arise;
No childish laughter mingled with the song
Of the fair Otter, as it flowed along
As brightly then as now. Ah! little recked
The joyous river, when the sunshine flecked
Its dancing waters, that no human eye
Gave it glad welcome as it frolicked by!
The long, uncounted years had come and flown,
And it had still swept on, unseen, unknown,
Biding its time. No minstrel sang its praise,
No poet named it in immortal lays.
It played no part in legendary lore,
And young Romance knew not its winding shore.
But in her own loveliness Nature is glad,
And little she cares for man's smile or his frown;
In the robes of her royalty still she is clad,
Though his eye may behold not her sceptre or crown!
And over our beautiful Otter the trees
Swayed lightly as now in the frolicsome breeze;
And the tremulous violet lifted an eye
As blue as its own to the laughing blue sky.
The harebell trembled on its stem
Down where the rushing waters gleam,
A sapphire on the broidered hem
Of some fair Naiad of the stream.
The buttercups, bright-eyed and bold,
Held up their chalices of gold
To catch the sunshine and the dew,
Gayly as those that bloom for you.
And deep within the forest shade,
Where broadest noon mere twilight made,
Ten thousand small, sweet censers swung,
And tiny bells by zephyrs rung,
Made tinkling music till the day
In solemn splendor died away.
The woods were full of praise and prayer,
Although no human tongue was there;
For every pine and hemlock sung
The grand cathedral aisles among,
And every flower that gemmed the sod
Looked up and whispered, “Thou art God.”
The birds sung as they sing to-day,
A song of love and joy alway.
The brown thrush from its golden throat
Poured out its long, melodious note;
The pigeons cooed; the veery threw
Its mellow thrill from spray to spray;
The wild night-hawk its trumpet blew,
And the owl cried, “Tu whit, tu whoo,”
From set of sun to break of day.
The partridge reared her fearless brood
Safe in the darkling solitude,
And the bald eagle built its nest
High on the tall cliff's craggy crest.
And often, when the still moonlight
Made all the lonely valley bright,
Down from the hills its thirst to slake,
The deer trod softly through the brake;
While far away the spotted fawn
Waited the coming of the dawn,
And trembled when the panther's scream
Startled it from a troubled dream.
The black bear roamed the forest wide;
The fierce wolf tracked the mountain-side;
The wild-cat's silent, stealthy tread
Was, even there, a fear and dread;
The red fox barked—a strange, weird sound,
That woke the slumbering echoes round;
And the burrowing mink and otter hid
In their holes the tangled roots amid.
Lords of their limitless domain,
Of hill and dale, of mount and plain,
The wild things dreamed not of the hour
When they should own their Master's power!

PAST AND PRESENT

(Driftwood)

VERMONT

(WRITTEN FOR THE VERMONT CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION, AT BENNINGTON, AUGUST 15, 1877.)

I.

O woman-form, majestic, strong and fair,
Sitting enthronèd where in upper air
Thy mountain-peaks in solemn grandeur rise,
Piercing the splendor of the summer skies—
Vermont! Our mighty mother, crowned to-day
In all the glory of thy hundred years,
If thou dost bid me sing, how can I but obey?
What though the lips may tremble, and the verse
That fain would grandly thy grand deeds rehearse
May trip and falter, and the stammering tongue
Leave all unrhymed the rhymes that should be sung?
I can but do thy bidding, as is meet,
Bowing in humble homage at thy feet—
Thy royal feet—and if my words are weak,
O crownèd One, 'twas thou didst bid me speak!

II.

Yet what is there to say,
Even on this proud day,
This day of days, that hath not oft been said?
What song is there to sing
That hath not oft been sung?
What laurel can we bring
That ages have not hung
A thousand times above their glorious dead?
What crown to crown the living
Is left us for our giving,
That is not shaped to other brows
That wore it long ago?
Our very vows but echo vows
Breathed centuries ago!
Earth has no choral strain,
No sweet or sad refrain,
No lofty pæan swelling loud and clear,
That Virgil did not know,
Or Danté, wandering slow
In mystic trances, did not pause to hear!
When gods from high Olympus came
To touch old Homer's lips with flame,
The morning stars together sung
To teach their raptures to his tongue.
For him the lonely ocean moaned;
For him the mighty winds intoned
Their deep-voiced chantings, and for him
Sweet flower-bells pealed in forests dim.
From earth and sea and sky he caught
The spell of their divinest thought,
While yet it blossomed fresh and new
As Eden's rosebuds wet with dew!
Oh! to have lived when earth was young,
With all its melodies unsung!
The dome of heaven bent nearer then
When gods and angels talked with men—
When Song itself was newly born,
The Incarnation of the Morn!
But now, alas! all thought is old,
All life is but a story told,
And poet-tongues are manifold;
And he is bold who tries to wake,
Even for God or Country's sake,
In voice, or pen, or lute, or lyre,
Sparks of the old Promethean fire!

III.

IV.

When, one by one, the stately, silent Years
Glide like pale ghosts beyond our yearning sight,
Vainly we stretch our arms to stay their flight,
So soon, so swift they pass to endless night!
We hardly learn to name them,
To praise them or to blame them,
To know their shadowy faces,
Ere we see their empty places!
Only once the glad Spring greets them;
Only once fair Summer meets them;
Only once the Autumn glory
Tells for them its mystic story;
Only once the Winter hoary
Weaves for them its robes of light!
Years leave their work half-done; like men, alas!
With sheaves ungathered to their graves they pass,
And are forgotten. What they strive to do
Lives for a while in memory of a few;
Then over all Oblivion's waters flow—
The Years are buried in the long ago!
But when a Century dies, what room is there for tears?
Rather in solemn exaltation let us come,
With roll of drum
(Not muffled as in woe),
With blare of bugles, and the liquid flow
Of silver clarions, and the long appeal
Of the clear trumpets ringing peal on peal;
With clash of bells, and hosts in proud array,
To pay meet homage to its burial day!
For its proud work is done. Its name is writ
Where all the ages that come after it
Shall read the eternal letters, blazoned high
On the blue dome of the impartial sky.
What ruthless fate can darken its renown,
Or dim the lustre of its starry crown?
On mountain-peaks of Time each Century stands alone;
And each, for glory or for shame, hath reaped what it hath sown!

V.

But this—the one that gave thee birth
A hundred years ago, O beauteous mother!
This mighty Century had a mightier brother,
Who from the watching earth
Passed but last year! Twin-born indeed were they—
For what are twelve months to the womb of time
Pregnant with ages?—Hand in hand they climbed
With clear, young eyes uplifted to the stars;
With great, strong souls that never stopped for bars,
Through storm and darkness up to glorious day!
Each knew the other's need; each in his breast
The subtle tie of closest kin confessed;
Counted the other's honor as his own;
Nor feared to sit upon a separate throne;
Nor loved each other less when—wondrous fate!—
One gave a Nation life, and one a State!

VI.

Oh! rude the cradle in which each was rocked,
The infant Nation, and the infant State!
Rough nurses were the Centuries, that mocked
At mother-kisses, and for mother-arms
Gave their young nurslings sudden harsh alarms,
Quick blows and stern rebuffs. They bade them wait,
Often in cold and hunger, while the feast
Was spread for others, and, though last not least,
Gave them sharp swords for playthings, and the din
Of actual battle for the mimic strife
That childhood glories in!
Yet not the less they loved them. Spartans they,
Who could not rear a weak, effeminate brood.
Better the forest's awful solitude,
Better the desert spaces, where the day
Wanders from dawn to dusk and finds no life!

VII.

But over all the tireless years swept on,
Till side by side the Centuries grew old,
And the young Nation, great and strong and bold,
Forgot its early struggles, in triumphs later won!
It stretched its arms from East to West;
It gathered to its mighty breast
From every clime, from every soil,
The hunted sons of want and toil;
It gave to each a dwelling-place;
It blent them in one common race;
And over all, from sea to sea,
Wide flew the banner of the free!
It did not fear the wrath of kings,
Nor the dread grip of deadlier things—
Gaunt Famine with its ghastly horde,
Dishonor sheathing its foul sword,
Nor faithless friend, nor treacherous blow
Struck in the dark by stealthy foe;
For over all its wide domain,
From shore to shore, from main to main,
From vale to mountain-top, it saw
The reign of plenty, peace, and law!

VIII.

Thus fared the Nation, prosperous, great, and free,
Prophet and herald of the good to be;
And on its humbler way, in calm content,
The lesser State, the while, serenely went.
Safe in her mountain fastnesses she dwelt,
Her life's first cares forgot, its woes unfelt,
And thought her bitterest tears had all been shed,
For peace was in her borders, and God reigned overhead.

IX.

But suddenly over the hills there came
A cry that rent her with grief and shame—
A cry from the Nation in sore distress,
Stricken down in the pride of its mightiness!
With passionate ardor up she sprang,
And her voice like the peal of a trumpet rang—
“What ho! what ho! brave sons of mine,
Strong with the strength of the mountain pine!
To the front of the battle, away! away!
The Nation is bleeding in deadly fray,
The Nation, it may be, is dying to-day!
On, then, to the rescue! away! away!”

X.

Ah! how they answered let the ages tell,
For they shall guard the sacred story well!
Green grows the grass to-day on many a battle-field;
War's dread alarms are o'er; its scars are healed;
Its bitter agony has found surcease;
A re-united land clasps hands in peace.
But, oh! ye blessed dead, whose graves are strown
From where our forests make perpetual moan,
To those far shores where smiling Southern seas
Give back soft murmurs to the fragrant breeze—
Oh! ye who drained for us the bitter cup,
Think ye we can forget what ye have offered up?
The years will come and go, and other centuries die,
And generation after generation lie
Down in the dust; but, long as stars shall shine,
Long as Vermont's green hills shall bear the pine,
As long as Killington shall proudly lift
Its lofty peak above the storm-cloud's rift,
Or Mansfield hail the blue, o'erarching skies,
Or fair Mount Anthony in grandeur rise,
So long shall live the deeds that ye have done,
So deathless be the glory ye have won!

XI.

Not with exultant joy
And pride without alloy,
Did the twin Centuries rejoice when all was o'er.
What though the Nation rose
Triumphant o'er its foes?
What though the State had gained
The meed of faith unstained?
Their mighty hearts remembered the dead that came no more!
Remembered all the losses,
The weary, weary crosses,
Remembered earth was poorer for the blood that had been shed,
And knew that it was sadder for the story it had read!
So, clasping hands with somewhat saddened mien,
And eyes uplifted to the Great Unseen
That rules alike o'er Centuries and men,
Onward they walked serenely toward—the End!

XII.

One reached it last year. Ye remember well—
The wondrous tale there is no need to tell—
How the whole world bowed down beside its bier;
How all the Nations came, from far or near,
Heaping their treasures on its mighty pall—
Never had kingliest king such funeral!
Old Asia rose, and, girding her in haste,
Swept in her jewelled robes across the waste,
And called to Egypt lying prone and hid
Where waits the Sphinx beside the pyramid;
Fair Europe came with overflowing hands,
Bearing the riches of her many lands;
Dark Afric, laden with her virgin gold,
Yet laden deeper with her woes untold;
Japan and China in grotesque array,
And all the enchanted islands of Cathay!

XIII.

XIV.

But what to us are Centuries dead,
And rolling Years forever fled,
Compared with thee, O grand and fair
Vermont—our Goddess-mother?
Strong with the strength of thy verdant hills,
Fresh with the freshness of mountain-rills,
Pure as the breath of the fragrant pine,
Glad with the gladness of youth divine,
Serenely thou sittest throned to-day
Where the free winds that round thee play
Rejoice in thy waves of sun-bright hair,
O thou, our glorious mother!
Rejoice in thy beautiful strength and say
Earth holds not such another!
Thou art not old with thy hundred years,
Nor worn with toil, or care, or tears:
But all the glow of the summer-time
Is thine to-day in thy glorious prime!
Thy brow is fair as the winter-snows,
With a stately calm in its still repose;
While the breath of the rose the wild bee sips,
Half-mad with joy, cannot eclipse
The marvellous sweetness of thy lips;
And the deepest blue of the laughing skies
Hides in the depths of thy fearless eyes,
Gazing afar over land and sea
Wherever thy wandering children be!
Fold on fold,
Over thy form of grandest mould
Floweth thy robe of forest green,
Now light, now dark, in its emerald sheen.
Its broidered hem is of wild flowers rare,
With feathery fern-fronds light as air
Fringing its borders. In thy hair
Sprays of the pink arbutus twine,
And the curling rings of the wild grape vine.
Thy girdle is woven of silver streams;
Its clasp with the opaline lustre gleams
Of a lake asleep in the sunset beams;
And, half concealing
And half revealing,
Floats over all a veil of mist
Pale-tinted with rose and amethyst!

XV.

Arise, O noble mother of great sons,
Worthy to rank among earth's mightiest ones,
And daughters fair and beautiful and good,
Yet wise and strong in loftiest womanhood—
Rise from thy throne, and, standing far and high
Outlined against the blue, adoring sky,
Lift up thy voice, and stretch thy loving hands
In benediction o'er the waiting lands!
Take thou our fealty! at thy feet we bow,
Glad to renew each oft-repeated vow!
No costly gifts we bring to thee to-day;
No votive wreaths upon thy shrine we lay;
Take thou our hearts, then!—hearts that fain would be
From this day forth, O goddess, worthier thee!

GETTYSBURG

1863–1889

“NO MORE THE THUNDER OF CANNON”

GRANT

August 8, 1885