Classic Poem

In the blessed time of the vernal spring,
A joyless, hopeless, feeble thing—
I lay on a sleepless bed of pain,
While fever burned in my heart and brain;
My eyes were sunk in my throbbing head;
My cheeks with a livid hue were spread;
My thin, withered hands were dry and pale,
As the leaves that float in the autumn gale;
My cries of distress were loud and long,
For a fiery thirst was upon my tongue.
The thoughts that awoke in my wandering mind
Were tossed like trees in a stormy wind;
My ears were stunned with incessant sound,
From a legion of shadows that hemmed me round;
While my fancy flashed into fitful gleams,
And hurried me off to a land of dreams.
Methought I stood at meridian day
In a desolate region far away,
Where the wild Arab roams with a lawless band,
And the desert-ship sails o'er a sea of sand;
Where the ostrich runs with a wondrous speed,
As fleet and as far as the tameless steed;
Where earth puts forth not a spot of bloom,
And feels not a plough but the dread simoom;
Where the sun looks down with oppressive glare,
And the heart grows faint with the sultry air;
Where the wanderer thinks of his home in vain,
And finds a lone grave on that wide, wide plain.
'Twas there I stood, and with languid eye
Looked abroad on the dreary earth and sky;
Not a blade of green verdure smiled in my view,—
Not a gleaming of water the sad waste through,—
Not the breath of a breeze, not the scent of a flower,
To cheer my lorn soul in that perilous hour.
Thirsting and weary I wandered on,
But my hopes of relief and rest were gone;
Till at length I beheld what seemed to be
The broad bright face of an inland sea,—
A mass of mute water of silvery sheen,
Where the prow of a vessel had never been.
Oh! how I panted to reach its brink,
And refresh my soul with delicious drink!
Oh! how I yearned to be there, and lave
My feverish limbs in its lucid wave!
I flew o'er the waste with a madman's flight—
But a vision of beauty had mocked my sight;
For scarce a short league had my bare feet sped,
Than my last hope vanished—the waters fled!
And as I looked back with despairing mind,
On the sandy space I had left behind,
I marvelled to see on the farthest plain
The false, fair wave I had followed in vain!
My fancy changed, and methought that I
Lay naked and faint 'neath a tropic sky;
A mariner wrecked, and compelled to float
In a mastless, sailless, rudderless boat;
Above me a cloudless welkin wide,
Below me a green and waveless tide,
Where never a breath o'er its surface blew,—
Where languid and slow the sea-bird flew.
In thought I lay many nightless days,
While the terrible sun's unconquered blaze
Blistered and scorched my shrivelled skin,
Till the fountains of blood felt dry within.
The raging of hunger aroused me first,
But that soon passed, and remorseless thirst
Burned in my throat with increased desire,
Till my breath was flame, and my tongue was fire;
And the bitter wave, as I stooped to sip,
Was turned to salt on my baffled lip.
For months and years—for ages of pain,
I lay without hope on the stagnant main,
Consumed and destroyed by slow degrees,
On the pitiless breast of those lonely seas.
I gnawed my flesh with a frantic yell,
And greedily drank of the drops that fell;
Till, strong in my agony, up I sprang—
While the startled air with my curses rang—
And plunged in the sunny and silent deep,
To find in its caverns a long, long sleep
Still in my dream's unwelcome thrall,
I passed by the ancient Memphian wall,
And wandered, beneath warm Summer's smile,
On the fertile banks of the mighty Nile.
The thirst within me now seemed to be
Increased to a dread intensity;
So great, indeed, I was fain to throw
My weary form in the waters below:
But scarce had I stooped to taste of the flood,
Than its whole bright surface was turned to blood,
And crocodiles came from their slimy lair,
Sent by the fiends to devour me there;
And lest from their jaws I should hope to spring,
They hemmed me round with a terrible ring.
With an effort for life, I strove to cry,
But my soundless throat was husk and dry:
I writhed in my agony,—gasped for breath,
And would have rejoiced at a gentler death;
But I could not keep my dire foes at bay—
They gathered around their hopeless prey;
They breathed on my pale and despairing face,
And smothered me soon in their horrid embrace.
I dreamed again, and I stood once more
On giant Columbia's boundless shore;
The land of broad lakes and impetuous floods,—
The land of dark and eternal woods;
Where the Red Man walks in his wild attire,
Compelled to escape from the White Man's ire;—
The land of mountains that rise, and rise,
As if they aspired to reach the skies;
Lifting their vast and fantastic forms
Beyond the dark region of clouds and storms;—
The land of rich prairies, unploughed and green,
Where the foot of the pilgrim hath rarely been.
It was here I roamed with my demon—Thirst,
Shut out from my race like one accursed;
Till I rested at last on St. Lawrence's side,
And wistfully gazed on its roaring tide,
Where Niagara falls from his crescent rock,
And startles the woods with his thunder-shock.
Weary of being,—unquenched within,
Unscared by the cataract's awful din,
I leaped in the torrent both strong and deep,
And shot like a dart o'er the fearful steep:
Down for many a fathom I fell,
Tossed about in the watery hell.
Stunned with a spirit-appalling sound,
In the eddying gulf whirled round and round,
I looked to the sky, which seemed to me,
Through the billowy spray, like a troubled sea;
And the mass of rude waters, as down it came,
Went hissing through all my burning frame,
Till my thoughts were lost in the peril and pain,
And madness took hold of my dizzy brain
My knowledge of danger had waned away,
And my pulse had almost ceased to play;
The scene of my horror was dark and still,
I felt at my heart a death-like chill;
Unconscious of all that passed before,
I struggled a moment, and felt no more.
My vision was changed; and I took my stand,
Once more on the breast of my own green land;
And, Oh! I was glad I had ceased to roam,
And drew so near to my native home.
How fain I beheld, and how well I knew,
Each object that met my delighted view!
It was joy to my soul as I paused to mark
The quivering wing of the soaring lark,
And hear from the boughs of some far off tree,
The cuckoo that called o'er the “pleasant lea.”
And then there were odours from fields and bowers,
Breathed by the lips of the wilding flowers;
Roses that blushed on the briery thorn,
And wild blue-bells by the rivulet born;
Violets that deep in the dingle hide,
And woodbines hung on the hedge-row side;—
All seemed to welcome the wanderer back
From the desolate main and the desert's track.
And though I was thirsting and fevered still,
Unquenched by the waters of river or rill,
I felt it were sweeter to linger and die
Beneath the calm smile of my own blue sky.
Such were my thoughts, when my loitering feet
Bore me away to a green retreat,—
A beautiful, quiet, and sheltered dell,
Where first I listened to Fancy's spell,
And learned from her mild and mysterious tongue
The power of beauty, the pleasure of song;
Indeed 'twas a lovely and peaceful spot,
Which seen but once could be never forgot;
'Twas a natural theatre, circled by trees,
Which whispered like harps to the fairy breeze;
Its daisy-paved floor was level and soft,
And the sky, like a canopy, hung aloft;
In its centre uprose a limpid spring,
Like a diamond set in an emerald ring.
Oh! with what rapture I paused to drink,
And knelt me down on its grassy brink;
But scarce had I dimpled its glassy face,
Than its waters shrunk, and left no trace,
But a slimy bottom, that swarmed with life,
With a host of reptiles rank and rife,—
A legion of lizards, and bloated toads,
That crept in crowds from their dark abodes!
There was the scorpion's loathsome form,
The twisted adder, and crawling worm,
And a thousand other unnatural things,
With monstrous legs and preposterous wings.
I started back with a fearful scream,
Which broke the spell of that horrible dream;
And, lo! by the side of my humble bed,
With her arm beneath my distracted head,
My wife bent o'er me with anxious eye,
Alarmed by the sound of my helpless cry.
She held to my lips the cooling draught,
And, Oh! how sweetly,—how deeply I quaffed!
It ran through my veins like a blessed balm,
Till my heart grew glad, and my brain grew calm.
The bine at my window hung bright in bloom,
And sent its breath in my lonely room;
The evening breeze blew mild and meek,
And fanned my hair and kissed my cheek.
The golden sun, as he sunk to rest,
In the purple lap of the gorgeous west,
Poured on my face his rosy light,
To cheer me with hope through the shadowy night.
In the glorious smile of the waning day,
I heard my darling boy at play,
Whose voice beguiled me of pleasing tears,
And carried my memory back for years,
To the time when I myself was free
From sickness, and sorrow, and care, as he;
And then I called upon Heaven above
To bless that child of my hope and love.
The soothing scent of the woodbine flower—
The freshening breeze of the evening hour—
The beautiful blush of the setting sun—
The boy at his sport ere day was done—
Were tokens of mercy and peace, which brought
A rapture of feeling and thankful thought:—
I prayed to Him who is strong to save,
And He snatched me back from the yawning grave!