Classic Poem

CHILD of the sylvan hills,
I hear afar, down the rocky glen,
The song of the robin and the wren,
The tinkle of glancing rills.

The oak-leaves overhead
Murmur like fond familiar lips,
While, stealing athwart their green eclipse,
The sun, to my mossy bed

Comes like an alchemist,
Setting a gem in the daisy's hair
And crowning the timid violet fair
With gold and amethyst.

The playful woodland air
Sings in mine ear like a happy child;
Reddens my cheeks with his kisses wild,
And tangles my loosened hair.

I see the squirrel leap
From the maple tall to the hickory-tree;
The spotted toad, renowned as he,
Dives into the river deep;

While, on the reedy shore,
The oriole pipes, and the grosbeak proud
Eyes him askant; I laugh aloud,
I am a child once more.

The peacock blows his horn
In the glen where the tall stone chimneys rise;
The black crow caws from the amber skies
To the scarecrow in the corn.

I hear my mother sing
Her hymn by the open cottage-pane;
My brother whistles along the lane,
To the partridge by the spring.

Two faces, heavenly fair,
In childish innocence look out
From the elder-thicket; my sisters shout;
I bound to meet them there —

And bird and flowery land
Vanish away. I sit in tears
Holding these silent souvenirs,
Dried mosses in my hand.

Along these sunny skies,
Cloudless and golden though they be,
I see no home-bird wander free,
No cottage-chimney rise;

And with a yearning pain
I think of the bright Kentucky rill
That sings by the graves on the lonely hill,
And the broken cottage-pane.

Though lovingly for me
Fresh fountains flow in stranger lands,
Fresh flowers are culled by stranger hands,
Fresh fruits from friendship's tree —

That streamlet always sings
Of the sunken roof and the silent dead,
Of brambles that choke the violet's bed,
Of childhood's perished springs.

Child of the sylvan height,
Whose gentle fingers culled for me
These fairy creatures of rock and tree,
My thankful heart to-night

Goes to the pleasant South,
To that fair homestead where thy head
Nestles in peace on its downy bed;
I kiss thy sweet young mouth;

And kneeling by thy side,
Soft, lest I break thy happy sleep,
Earnest, as flows yon river deep,
I pray to Him who died:

Keep her, O Undefiled,
White as the lilies of the field;
From sorrow's blast her pure heart shield,
From sin's sirocco wild.

Yet nay — each human way
Hath its dark passes. Be her lamp;
Bid Thine archangel, Lord, encamp
Around her, night and day:

So may she reach that land
Whither the loved are beckoning now,
The morning star upon her brow,
The palm-branch in her hand.