Poems

TO THE WISSAHICCON

 
My feet shall tread no more thy mossy side,
   When once they turn away, thou Pleasant Water,
Nor ever more, reflected in thy tide,
   Will shine the eyes of the White Island’s daughter.
But often in my dreams, when I am gone
   Beyond the sea that parts thy home and mine,
   Upon thy banks the evening sun will shine,
And I shall hear thy low, still flowing on.
And when the burden of existence lies
   Upon my soul, darkly and heavily,
I’ll clasp my hands over my weary eyes,
   Thou Pleasant Water, and thy clear waves see.
Bright be thy course for ever and for ever,
   Child of pure mountain springs, and mountain snow;
And as thou wanderest on to meet the river
   Oh, still in light and music mayst thou flow!
I never shall come back to thee again,
When once my sail is shadowed on the main,
Nor ever shall I hear thy laughing voice
As on their rippling way thy waves rejoice,
Nor ever see the dark green cedar throw
Its gloomy shade o’er the clear depths below,
Never, from stony rifts of granite gray
Sparkling like diamond rocks in the sun’s ray,
Shall I look down on thee, thou pleasant stream,
Beneath whose crystal folds the gold sands gleam;
Wherefore, farewell! but whensoe’er again
   The wintry spell melts from the earth and air;
And the young Spring comes dancing through thy glen,
   With fragrant, flowery breath, and sunny hair;
When through the snow the scarlet berries gleam,
Like jewels strewn upon thy banks, fair stream,
My spirit shall through many a summer’s day
Return, among thy peaceful woods to stray.
 

AN EVENING SONG

 
   Good night, love!
May Heaven’s brightest stars watch over thee!
Good angels spread their wings, and cover thee,
      And through the night,
         So dark and still,
      Spirits of light
         Charm thee from ill!
My heart is hovering round thy dwelling-place,
Good night, dear love!  God bless thee with his grace!
 
 
   Good night, love!
Soft lullabies the night-wind sing to thee!
And on its wings sweet odours bring to thee!
      And in thy dreaming
         May all things dear,
      With gentle seeming,
         Come smiling near!
My knees are bowed, my hands are clasped in prayer—
Good night, dear love!  God keep thee in his care!
 

THE DEATH-SONG

 
Mother, mother! my heart is wild,
   Hold me upon your bosom dear,
Do not frown on your own poor child,
   Death is darkly drawing near.
 
 
Mother, mother! the bitter shame
   Eats into my very soul;
And longing love, like a wrapping flame,
   Burns me away without control.
 
 
Mother, mother! upon my brow
   The clammy death-sweats coldly rise;
How dim and strange your features grow
   Through the hot mist that veils my eyes!
 
 
Mother, mother! sing me the song
   They sing on sunny August eves,
The rustling barley-fields along,
   Binding up the ripe, red sheaves.
 
 
Mother, mother!  I do not hear
   Your voice—but his,—oh, guard me well!
His breathing makes me faint with fear,
   His clasping arms are round me still.
 
 
Mother, mother! unbind my vest,
   Upon my heart lies his first token:
Now lay me in my narrow nest,
   Your withered blossom, crushed and broken.
 

IMPROMPTU

 
You say you’re glad I write—oh, say not so!
   My fount of song, dear friend, ’s a bitter well;
And when the numbers freely from it flow,
   ’Tis that my heart, and eyes, o’erflow as well.
 
 
Castalia, fam’d of yore,—the spring divine,
   Apollo’s smile upon its current wears:
Moore and Anacreon, found its waves were wine,
   To me, it flows a sullen stream of tears.
 

WRITTEN AFTER LEAVING WEST POINT

 
   The hours are past, love,
   Oh, fled they not too fast, love!
Those happy hours, when down the mountain side,
We saw the rosy mists of morning glide,
And, hand in hand, went forth upon our way,
Full of young life and hope, to meet the day.
 
 
   The hours are past, love,
   Oh, fled they not too fast, love!
Those sunny hours, when from the mid-day heat,
We sought the waterfall with loitering feet,
And o’er the rocks that lock the gleaming pool,
Crept down into its depths, so dark and cool.
 
 
   The hours are past, love,
   Oh, fled they not too fast, love!
Those solemn hours, when through the violet sky,
Alike without a cloud, without a ray,
The round red autumn moon came glowingly,
While o’er the leaden waves our boat made way.
 
 
   The hours are past, love,
   Oh, fled they not too fast, love!
Those blessed hours, when the bright day was past,
   And in the world we seemed to wake alone,
When heart to heart beat throbbingly, and fast,
   And love was melting our two souls in one.
 

FAITH

 
Better trust all, and be deceived,
   And weep that trust, and that deceiving;
Than doubt one heart, that if believed,
   Had blessed one’s life with true believing.
 
 
Oh, in this mocking world, too fast
   The doubting fiend o’ertakes our youth!
Better be cheated to the last,
   Than loose the blessed hope of truth.
 

“’TIS AN OLD TALE AND OFTEN TOLD.”

 
Are they indeed the bitterest tears we shed,
Those we let fall over the silent dead?
Can our thoughts image forth no darker doom,
Than that which wraps us in the peaceful tomb?
Whom have ye laid beneath that mossy grave,
Round which the slender, sunny, grass-blades wave?
Who are ye calling back to tread again
This weary walk of life? towards whom, in vain,
Are your fond eyes and yearning hearts upraised;
The young, the loved, the honoured, and the praised?
Come hither;—look upon the faded cheek
Of that still woman, who with eyelids meek
Veils her most mournful eyes;—upon her brow
Sometimes the sensitive blood will faintly glow,
When reckless hands her heart-wounds roughly tear,
But patience oftener sits palely there.
Beauty has left her—hope and joy have long
Fled from her heart, yet she is young, is young;
Has many years, as human tongues would tell,
Upon the face of this blank earth to dwell.
Looks she not sad? ’tis but a tale of old,
Told o’er and o’er, and ever to be told,
The hourly story of our every day,
Which when men hear, they sigh and turn away;
A tale too trite almost to find an ear,
A woe too common to deserve a tear.
She is the daughter of a distant land;—
Her kindred are far off;—her maiden hand,
Sought for by many, was obtained by one
Who owned a different birthland from her own.
But what reck’d she of that? as low she knelt
Breathing her marriage vows, her fond heart felt,
“For thee, I give up country, home, and friends;
Thy love for each, for all, shall make amends;”
And was she loved?—perishing by her side
The children of her bosom drooped and died;
The bitter life they drew from her cold breast
Flicker’d and failed; she laid them down to rest,
Two pale young blossoms in their early sleep,
And weeping said, “They have not lived to weep.”
And weeps she yet? no, to her weary eyes
The bliss of tears, her frozen heart denies;
Complaint, or sigh, breathes not upon her lips,
Her life is one dark, fatal, deep eclipse.
Lead her to the green grave where ye have laid
The creature that ye mourn;—let it be said,
“Here love, and youth, and beauty, are at rest!”
She only sadly murmurs, “Blest!—most blest!”
And turns from gazing, lest her misery
Should make her sin, and pray to Heaven to die.
 

FRAGMENT.
From an epistle written when the thermometer stood at 98° in the shade.
* * * * *

 
Oh! for the temperate airs that blow
   Upon that darling of the sea,
Where neither sunshine, rain, nor snow,
   For three days hold supremacy;
But ever-varying skies contend
The blessings of all climes to lend,
To make that tiny, wave-rocked isle,
In never-fading beauty smile.
England, oh England! for the breeze
That slowly stirs thy forest-trees!
Thy ferny brooks, thy mossy fountains,
Thy beechen woods, thy heathery mountains,
Thy lawny uplands, where the shadow
   Of many a giant oak is sleeping;
The tangled copse, the sunny meadow,
   Through which the summer rills run weeping.
Oh, land of flowers! while sinking here
   Beneath the dog-star of the West,
The music of the waves I hear
That cradle thee upon their breast.
Fresh o’er thy rippling corn-fields fly
   The wild-winged breezes of the sea,
While from thy smiling, summer sky,
   The ripening sun looks tenderly.
And thou—to whom through all this heat
   My parboiled thoughts will fondly turn,
Oh! in what “shady blest retreat”
   Art thou ensconced, while here I burn?
Across the lawn, in the deep glade,
Where hand in hand we oft have strayed,
Or communed sweetly, side by side,
Hear’st thou the chiming ocean tide,
As gently on the pebbly beach
   It lays its head, then ebbs away,
Or round the rocks, with nearer reach,
   Throws up a cloud of silvery spray?
Or to the firry woods, that shed
   Their spicy odours to the sun,
Goest thou with meditative tread,
   Thinking of all things that are done
Beneath the sky?—a great, big thought,
   Of which I know you’re very fond.
For me, my mind is solely wrought
   To this one wish:—O! in a pond
Would I were over head and ears!
   (Of a cold ducking I’ve no fears)
Or any where, where I am not;
   For, bless the heat! it is too hot!
 

AN APOLOGY

 
Blame not my tears, love: to you has been given
   The brightest, best gift, God to mortals allows;
The sunlight of hope on your heart shines from Heaven,
   And shines from your heart, on this life and its woes.
 
 
Blame not my tears, love: on you her best treasure
   Kind nature has lavish’d, oh, long be it yours!
For how barren soe’er be the path you now measure,
   The future still woos you with hands full of flowers.
 
 
Oh, ne’er be that gift, love, withdrawn from thy keeping!
   The jewel of life, its strong spirit, its wings;
If thou ever must weep, may it shine through thy weeping,
   As the sun his warm rays through a spring shower flings.
 
 
But blame not my tears, love: to me ’twas denied;
   And when fate to my lips gave this life’s mingled cup,
She had filled to the brim, from the dark bitter tide,
   And forgotten to pour in the only sweet drop.
 

WRITTEN AFTER SPENDING A DAY AT WEST POINT

 
Were they but dreams?  Upon the darkening world
Evening comes down, the wings of fire are furled,
On which the day soared to the sunny west:
The moon sits calmly, like a soul at rest,
Looking upon the never-resting earth;
All things in heaven wait on the solemn birth
Of night, but where has fled the happy dream
That at this hour, last night, our life did seem?
Where are the mountains with their tangled hair,
The leafy hollow, and the rocky stair?
Where are the shadows of the solemn hills,
And the fresh music of the summer rills?
Where are the wood-paths, winding, long and steep,
And the great, glorious river, broad and deep,
And the thick copses, where soft breezes meet,
And the wild torrent’s snowy, leaping feet,
The rustling, rocking boughs, the running streams,—
Where are they all? gone, gone! were they but dreams?
And where, oh where are the light footsteps gone,
That from the mountain-side came dancing down?
The voices full of mirth, the loving eyes,
The happy hearts, the human paradise,
The youth, the love, the life that revelled here,—
Are they too gone?—Upon Time’s shadowy bier,
The pale, cold hours of joys now past, are laid,
Perhaps, not soon from memory’s gaze to fade,
But never to be reckoned o’er again,
In all life’s future store of bliss and pain.
From the bright eyes the sunshine may depart,
Youth flies—love dies—and from the joyous heart
Hope’s gushing fountain ebbs too soon away,
Nor spares one drop for that disastrous day,
When from the barren waste of after life,
The weariness, the worldliness, the strife,
The soul looks o’er the desert of its way
To the green gardens of its early day:
The paradise, for which we vainly mourn,
The heaven, to which our ling’ring eyes still turn,
To which our footsteps never shall return.
 

SONG

 
   Pass thy hand through my hair, lore;
      One little year ago,
   In a curtain bright and rare, love,
      It fell golden o’er my brow.
   But the gold has passed away, love,
      And the drooping curls are thin,
   And cold threads of wintry gray, love,
      Glitter their folds within:
How should this be, in one short year?
It is not age—can it be care?
 
 
   Fasten thine eyes on mine, love;
      One little year ago,
   Midsummer’s sunny shine, love,
      Had not a warmer glow.
   But the light is there no more, love,
      Save in melancholy gleams,
   Like wan moonlight wand’ring o’er, love,
      Dim lands in troubled dreams:
How should this be, in one short year?
It is not age—can it be care?
 
 
   Lay thy cheek to my cheek, love,
      One little year ago
   It was ripe, and round, and sleek, love,
      As the autumn peaches grow.
   But the rosy hue has fled, love,
      Save a flush that goes and comes,
   Like a flow’r born from the dead, love,
      And blooming over tombs:
How should this be, in one short year?
It is not age—can it be care?