University of Virginia Library

These tranquil shades, where Nature unconfined
Flings her green drapery on the mountain wind,
These smiling hillsides, which our river queen
Wreathes in wild blossoms as she winds between,
If dear to those who never learned to stray
Far from the shadows where their cradles lay—
How sweet to him whom many a wind has blown
To shores less loved if lovelier than his own!
How soft to him whose weary feet have trod
The burning pavement, is the dewy sod—
How fair to him is every nameless flower
Whose painted disk recalls some infant hour;
How free to him the wide horizon seems—
How glad the music of the mountain streams—
How pure the breeze whose restless wings have fanned
The tossing fringes of his forest land—
While rose lipped Summer robes in all her charms
The living landscape locked in Nature's arms.
If scenes like these the wanderer's heart inspire
With lingering sparkles of forgotten fire,
If tired with tumult and the noisy strife
That chokes with dust the crowded paths of life
He turns with rapture from the thronging street
To rest and silence in their calm retreat
Not so with all. The maid in russet gown,
The blue frocked plough boy, pant alike for town,
The solemn umpires of our health and laws
Who ask more patients, practice or applause,
Nay, the grave preacher, who for meagre hire
Quotes Greek and Latin to astound the squire
Filled with high visions as the rattling mail
Rolls with its burden from their quiet vale
Forgetting patients, practice, parish, all
Dream of some ‘opening’—some inviting ‘call’—
Alas! Too anxious for an ampler space
To flourish, flutter, sputter or grimace—
Or in the phrase that suits a saintly ear
To be more useful in a wider sphere.

From the still hamlet to the noisy mart
The home of Nature to the throne of Art
As led by fate the wanderer's footsteps tend
What varied colors oer the landscape blend!
What changing scenes the curious eye will find
To strike the senses or enchain the mind!—
If themes like these can stay the wheels of time
Forged by rude memory into ruder rhyme
Some listless moments may be whiled away
By the dull cadence of my slipshod lay.
Tis summer's noon—and blazing fiercely down
The dazzling sunbeams gild the glittering town
Bathed in their light, from every lofty spire
Its wheeling symbol burns in starry fire
Each sombre turret lifted calm and high
Prints its cold outline on the sultry sky,—
Mingling and glimmering in the flickering glow
Palace and hovel spread their roofs below—
So gleams the surface, but surveyed more near
Its fancied glories melt and disappear;
The baffled winds that stagnate ere they meet
Scarce lift the dust that strews the arid street.
No clustering foliage checks the burning ray
But scanty awnings line the glaring way—
From gaping windows mingling sounds arise—
The nurse that threatens and the child that cries
The flute's hoarse lisp that speaks some shop boy's art
Who kills an hour by murdering poor Mozart
The clink of hammers—not on warriors' mails,
But closing rivets in disjointed pails
The clash of steel—of most unwarlike knives—
From plates—not breast-plates—taking meals, not lives;
The hiss of fountains—soda founts alas!
That pour their treasures at so much a glass
So bursts the chorus led sublimely off
By lusty infants, black with hooping cough
While the vexed pavement by the cart wheel ground
Growls a rough bass to swell the mighty sound,
And loud and long the jarring discord rings
Like the last crash of all created things!

—Turn to the spot where Nature's laws maintain
Their ancient empire over hill and plain
Look when the forest waving wild and high
Braids its deep fringes on the sultry sky—
In those calm depths no living sound is heard
Save the light carol of the summer bird
Or the low rustling of the leafy crest
Whose plaited shelter screens his rocking nest
Or whispering waters, which with languid flow
Steal in soft channels through the flowers below;—
Hush! for thy voice will wrong the peaceful scene
Where all is shadowy, solemn and serene.
Around thy pathway floats the trailing vine
And breathes the fragrance of the balmy pine
Beneath thy feet the perfumed turf is spread
Fresh with the dew those glossy leaves have shed,
Through the dark tracery that above thee bends
In checkered gleams the trembling ray descends—
Look—breathe—and listen! Say, if mortal power
With gold and purple clothed thy lonely bower
Smoothed the rude soil and chained the wandering stream
And bared the wild flowers to the noontide beam
Would all it lavished from its wealth repay
The tangled sweetness which it swept away?

—The dead of winter! chained in ice and snow
The wreck of autumn slumbers dark and low
The silent streamlet fills its frozen bed
As if still lingering by the flowers it fed.
The jagged hemlock splintered in the storm
Frowns oer the forest with its crested form
The strong armed oak, his garlands cast aside
Stands like an athlete in his naked pride
The slanting sunbeam glimmers faint and chill
O'er the choked valley and the whitened hill,
The leaf has faded and the bird has flown
And all is voiceless—Death is Lord alone!

—Not such the scene where man usurps the sway
To change with art the empire of decay
For him no winter bids the blushing rose
Shrink from the breeze beneath the drifting snows
Nay, the frail nurseling torn from tropic skies
Warmed by his care the arctic storm defies
His tendriled vines their purple orbs display
Ere the first violet dares the breath of May
The golden cone that loads the dark-leaved pine
Breathes with the fragrance of the burning vine
The bright plumed prisoner waves his yellow wing
Amidst the blossoms of an endless spring
So wills the pleasure of imperial Man
As if in mockery of his Maker's plan.
Nor less transformed the midnight hours that call
The gay and fair to many a gilded hall
While the hoarse wind is raving hoarsely round
From yon bright scene the merry voices sound
The blazing lustre sheds its radiance o'er
Those graceful shapes that trip the bounding floor
What though the storm is raging fierce and wild—
No wind is rude to fortune's favored child—
Round her white neck the circling jewels glow
Like sparkling flashes on the moonlight snow
No envious drapery oer its beauty weaves
Blanched to the whiteness of the lily's leaves
That fragile form no ruder robes enfold
Than the flowered tissue clasped with fretted gold
Those twinkling feet, in slenderest satin bound
Trace their light circles guiltless of a sound
The curtained walls the wreathes of summer wear
And faint with fragrance breathes the balmy air
And flushing maidens court the gale that swings
The close drawn curtain on its gilded wings—
—Strong is gray Winter—for his arms can rend
The living rock and bid the forest bend,
But man is mightier for he scales his throne
And breaks his sceptre to extend his own!

—Is man the same, where'er his fortune falls,
Left to himself, or caged in crowded walls?
Ask the pert cockney, who, the pink of town
Greets some rough cousin, raw, and just come down—
Ask the stout rustic when the cit descends
With gloves and cane among his country friends!
“John”—says the first “That hat of yours was made
“About the time that Noah's keel was laid—
“Who built that coat? The bill was monstrous large
“If extra puckers made a separate charge
“Don't swing that stick—how every body stares
“Pray did you think the town was full of bears
“Why, how you stamp—who ventured to abuse
“The feet of man with such a pair of shoes?
“Look there! Why bless me!—Now, upon my word—
“Those cotton stockings—aren't they too absurd,
“And that striped waistcoat and that checked cravat
“Upon my honor but you are a flat!”
“Tom” says the rustic, when, the greeting past,
He gets the cockney on his farm at last—
“You're mighty knowing—don't you think you know
“How to thresh wheat?—or would you rather mow?
“There—take that stick—that's what we call a flail
“Don't break your head—what makes you look so pale?
“Ah—there you have it—pray don't make me laugh.
“Hit where you will you'll scatter lots of chaff!
“Well then, the scythe—come—gently—don't be rash
“Take off those gloves—ah—there's an ugly gash—
“Come home with me—next time I'll show you how
“Walk straight along and never fear the cow
“Keep those French boots from off my uncut grass
“I'm sorry, Cousin, but you are an ass!

—From dress and manners if we turn to find
The graver contrasts of the inward mind
How vast the gulf our wondering eye must scan
From clashing crowds to isolated man!

—Few are the cares the simple rustic knows,
So calm the current of his being flows;
The changing hues that paint the living scene
With autumn's brown or spring's rekindled green
The fruits and herbage as by turns they yield
Their ripened treasures in his cultured field
The flight of birds that chase their shifting clime
These are his dials for the lapse of time.
Far from the world, no jarring tones intrude
To break the stillness of his solitude—
His wayward fancies few are found to share
And ceaseless toil demands his daily care—
Few are his sorrows—such as Heaven ordained
And soothed by tears unseen and unrestrained.
His pleasures tranquil, yet not loved the less
Than the brief raptures wooed by wild excess;
When from his arm its manly strength has past
Life's wasting flame burns gently to the last
Taught by long years, his trembling lips inform
The listening reapers of the rising storm—
Bent down with age, and tottering to his tomb
His eye still gladdens in the summer's bloom—
Slowly he fades, while faces fresh and fair
Crowd with sweet smiles around his ancient chair
Till by kind hands his reverend form is laid
In the still churchyard where so oft he strayed
By those he loved he finds his lowly bed,
And oer his mound the grassy turf is spread,
His life unwritten on the roles of fame,
But love still lingering oer his humble name.

—But who is he, whose shattered form appears
Bowed by long care and sapped by wasting years?
Through the dense mart that ancient shape is known
The halls of trade those feeble accents own
In these dark walls the busy years have sped
Whose winters whiten on his trembling head
The field, the forest, and the mountain stream
To him are shadows of his boyhood's dream
The narrow circle where his footsteps range
These strips of pavement centering in exchange;
That stony glance no artful words beguile—
He looks and hears, while others speak and smile;
If this be man, how changed by selfish toil
From man the monarch of the virgin soil!

—Yet scorn not him whose withered hands uphold
In thin cold grasp the dynasty of gold;—
He speaks—his accents, wafted oer the seas
Blend with the sigh of India's farthest breeze—
His quivering fingers trace a single line,
And bar and bolt obey the mighty sign
Through steel and stone the silent mandate goes
And sunless vaults their golden hoards disclose;
Yet in his garb the sneering stranger's eye
Reads the rude marks of threadbare poverty
And the gay spendthrift with contemptuous air
Crowds from the walk the humble millionaire—
The lord of wealth, which Fortune when she gave
Cramped with one shackle—‘thou shalt be a slave
A slave to toil that ceases but with life
One sleepless task one ever wearing strife
Till o'er thy grave the curse and blessing blends
Of smiling heirs and unremembered friends!
Can this be all that queenly Commerce brings
When o'er the deep she spreads her myriad wings—
To grasp the means without the will to use
Less pleased with gain than anxious not to lose
To wean the sense from all that Heaven bestows
And coin to gold each drop of blood that flows?
If such the gift her glittering robes conceal
Trust not thy fate to fortune's rolling wheel—
The lavished treasures of the earth and sky
Around, above thee, and beneath thee lie
For thee they blossom, and for thee they shine,
Unbought by suffering, they at least are thine!

—At every step some little trace we find
That varying habits print upon the mind;
The simpler rustic talks with sense profound
On all the marvels of the country round,
Whose horse is dead—who stole his neighbor's hen—
Whose dog kills sheep—whose pig has left his pen—
Who staid from church,and what the deacon said—
Whose child is sick—whose grandpapa is dead,
Whose farm is mortgaged for his barroom bills
Whose desperate case was cured by Brandreth's pills
Whose buxom lady rules her passive spouse—
Whose milder helpmeet milks her husband's cows—
And themes like these, whose mighty rumor rolls
Through the small world of half a thousand souls.
Not so the gossips of the striving town
Where every mail with news is breaking down
Then every hour some pleasing tale attends
Or precious scandal which the journal lends;—
For them no fire is worthy of the name
If scores of buildings do not sink in flame—
Morn brings its murder with their breakfast rolls
Noon leaves a steamboat thumping on the shoals
The evening paper tells them whereabout
Some thief broke in or chicken pox broke out
Or how some worthy of undoubted wealth
Has struck for Texas—to restore his health—
(His land of promise, but of small delight
To the blank holders of his notes at sight)
Duels and deaths, the wedding and the puff—
Tales for the tender, slanders for the tough,
A web of fact, which fancy weaves at will
Through the sly shuttle of a scribbler's quill:
That is the draught that simple truth supplies
And tart the flavor of unmingled lies;
Like soda powders wrapped in white and blue
To make them sparkle you must mix the two.
—So reeks the city with eternal tales
Of births, deaths, weddings, fires, wrecks, riots, gales.
The poet's caution would be idle there—
“Nil admirari”—you must never stare;
Tell an old townsman that you just have learned
On Monday next our planet will be burned,
To him the tidings will not bring surprise,
Nor chalky cheeks, nor saucer spreading eyes;—
“'Twill beat the fireworks,” he perhaps will say
“That made such fun on Independence day,”
Or if a tradesman will express a hope
Ashes will fall and sink the price of soap!

—As some vast lake where thousand currents tend
And chafe and glitter as their waters blend
Now fresh and stainless from their mountain home,
Now by rough channels scourged to eddying foam
Or darkly turbid, as with sullen toil
They sweep in shadow through the loosening soil
Flung from tall cliffs in many a bright cascade
Or creeping voiceless through the leafy shade,
So in the scene of man's tumultuous strife
Mingle and melt the murmuring waves of life.

—There he that basks in fortune's noontide blaze
Spreads his gay honors to the vulgar gaze
There the pale artist writes his lowly name
And faints for bread to feed the vulture fame
There haggard vice secures her last retreat
And shameless hearts grow harder as they meet
There the lost exile, friendless and alone
Broods o'er his grief unknowing and unknown
There passion's victim in the careless throng
In deepening guilt forgets her girlhood's wrong
And pallid shapes unnoticed as they fade
With trembling lips implore the stranger's aid
And wearied age, unconscious of repose,
And sickly childhood, born to want and woes
Joined by stern fate in one tumultuous sphere
In one dark vortex roll and disappear.

—Between two breaths what worlds of anguish lie
The first short gasp, the last and long drawn sigh;
If thou would'st hear the ceaseless groans that rise
And count the tears that fall from joyless eyes
And read the lines of misery and despair
Seek the wide city—thou wilt find them there.
Turn to yon dome whose dreary arches spread
Their sullen shelter o'er the wanderer's head—
Where the last act of life's poor drama ends
In the cold walls that sorrowing mercy lends.
That sinewy shape, whose shrunken forms reveal
The strength once centering in its nerves of steel,
In fruitless toil its stormy day has past
To ask a grave from charity at last.
—Yon whitelipped child who wastes by slow degrees
The heir of want and nurseling of disease
He whose chilled infancy hath never known
One accent kinder than the stranger's tone
Matured untimely by the frost of grief
Seared in his spring as autumn's stricken leaf—
Read the mute question in his sunken eye
That asks in terror—‘tell me—must I die?’

And there—deserted in her hour of woe—
The death shade darkening o'er her cheek of snow—
(That cheek whose freshness was her fatal dower
And lured the spoiler in its rosier hour)
The wasted form and weary heart are laid
Of one who loved—and loving was betrayed.
Fair as the roses that around her grew
And bathed her tresses in their perfumed dew
She sprung in beauty, and her native wild
Smiled as in welcome o'er the lovely child.
—And snows and summers passed oer hill and plain
And rolling years renewed the golden grain
On Anna's brow they left their ripening trace—
Changed mirth to calm and sprightliness to grace,
But taught too little save the dangerous creed
That conscious beauty learns too soon to read.
—And who is he whose step is ever near,
Whose low breathed accents meet the maiden's ear
Who bends and smiles, and courts with flattering lies
Melts in feigned tears and breathes in artful sighs
Why change her features when his name is heard
Why heaves her bosom at his lightest word
Alas, she deems that faithless heart her own—
She hears but love in every studied tone
And wondering eyes remark her altered air
And busy tongues their scanty hints compare—
A breath—a whisper—doubts—suspicion—shame—
And shuddering virtue wept oer Anna's name!
Dark are the paths her hurrying steps will share
From shame to guilt, from anguish to despair
Soon from her cheek shall fade its sullied bloom
And every hope look forward to the tomb—
That hour has come—its sands are falling fast
Forget her frailty for it is the last.
—Can this be slumber? Yet its murmurs seem
Like the wild visions of a troubled dream—
“Come—come”—she whispers—“I have waited long—
“Indeed I love thee though thou didst me wrong—
“Thou dost not know me—I am pale and worn,
“And those long tresses, once thy pride, are shorn—
“Nay, do not blame me, for the nights were cold
“And we were starving, and they gave me gold—
“He took the food and warmed him at the flame
“And lisped his thanks to him I dared not name
“Thou neer hast seen him—look—how sweetly fair
“O'er his white forehead waves his flaxen hair
“Come to my arms—and art thou living still
“I thought thee dead—thy little hand is chill
“Thou hast been slumbering where the night wind blew
“And on thy ringlets shines the icy dew
“Oh God how heavy on my aching breast
“Weighs thy cold cheek—I pray thee let me rest
“The shadows darken and the sun is gone
“Sleep, sleep, sweet angel till the day star's dawn
“I too must slumber”—Yes to wake no more
Thy dreams are ended and thy sorrows oer!

Not ours to trace the endless shapes that rise
As o'er the stage the living scenery flies
A fertile subject is a dangerous thing
A patent pump in sweet Castalia's spring
That sucks and pours in one eternal stream
And damns the poet with his drowning theme.

O sovereign Patience! more than mortal power
Whose smile can cheat each leaden footed hour
Not winged like Hope, but rising calm and sure
Strong to resist and faithful to endure,
Spread thy mute influence o'er these wearied walls
One little moment ere the curtain falls.
If Sleep, thy sister, lend her drowsy charms
And feebler heads nod heavy in her arms,
Let Fancy cheat them with delicious dreams
Of seraph minstrels and celestial themes,—