Classic Poem

On the low hills that skirt the River's side,
Where feebly waves through half-felt joy the grass,
Couched at their frugal cheer a savage host
Held banquet high, nor doubt not in their ire,
Here smoked forbidden dainties, though the fire
Lit by the white men had not scorched their wits.
How silent all! save the lone Sandpiper,
Whose plaintive call a little echo stirs.
When on the brink he idly plagues his mate.
Soft sways around the Spring's consoling air,
And up the sallows, like a distant camp,
The never-ceasing hum of bees; birds soar,
And gay the insect tribe flit in the beams
Of the low-falling orb.
I do not walk alone;
For still I feel thy arm is round me,
And thy law above, Thou, who art all in all, —
Whose goodness guides, whose truth endears the whole,
Without whose presence what were all to man,
Save a far clouded gleam of deepening night.
I do not walk alone, for still the Spring
Calls up my old companions; and I see
The old familiar faces: once more hear
Notes that I once had heard, touches of joy,
Beyond all words of mine expressions glad,
Thoughts linked to brightness, and joys twined with joys,
So that the far-off chimneys, as they rear
Their tall unmoving pillars to the sky,
Permit from their broad roofs sweet in the sun,
A solace in their hospitable thoughts,
Intent on home.
That was my thought, my Home!
And those dear memories that with thee build,
Like youth's first love throned in unfading light.
For like this Spring's soft sunshine, like the kiss
Of this first sunlight, like these smiling hours,
That never seem to bid farewell to day,
Safe in my heart is home with all its joys;
The blessed security of love that in one place
There, I am truly loved; and there no thought
Of usury upon the warm affections of the soul
Ever may come, no blinding doubt, no frost,
But in the laughing faces of our kin,
Glad in the children dear and matron blest,
And trust that knew no bane, we so shall live,
So die, — then gathered to our graves.
And see,
How quietly the dimpling river laves,
Safe in its pure seclusion, the green base
Of yonder hill, bleached to its core with shells,
Things of the Indian, who, in this retreat
Bent their small wigwams, when the spring's first thought
Jetted the shad up from the usurping sea,
And taught them near to lay their numerous spawn.
Gone, like those leaping fish, that Indian tribe,
Falling like autumn leaves drift o'er the soil,
Where, for unnumbered centuries they chased
The graceful deer, wild bear, and cumbrous moose.
To thoughtful eye, their arrow-heads appear,
Turned with the furrows of the farmer's plough, —
Or pestle smooth, or chisel sharp of slate,
And soap-stone pot, the heirlooms of a Race
That owned these lands.
So fared the fatal Indian,
So decayed, so fell like grasses unrenewed,
Down, where the white man builds. Thus drop the races,
Annihilate and spoiled, not to return.
Yet at their base the dimpling river laves,
Base of these low, lone hills. The blackbird's trill
Calls up his dusky mate, from the stiff twigs
Of copse, the Button-bush that brings no leaf
As yet, and on his wing the stripe of flame,
Darts like a crimson meteor o'er the blue.
On floating logs grave tortoises enjoy
The watery dream, for hope returns, to all, —
The everlasting hope returns with Spring.
Save that the Indian bow no longer twangs
Along the meadow, nor his watch-fires light
The lonely tresses of the ambushed wood,
Even as for countless ages all pursue
The same immeasurable round. Why fear
The pangs of penury, the student's curse, —
Or love abandoned when some victim's heart
Tears up from thine its fibres, and so graves
A wake of living anguish in thy soul?
Why live and droop beneath the weight of woe,
That unsuccessful effort piles o'er pride,
Half measuring its strength, thence prone to earth
Hurled by self-accusation? Could not thou,
Leagued with the universal law pursue
Like it, a sympathetic journey;
Nor fail thy sunshine to the sun, as he
Ne'er to thee fails; bud as the laurel buds
Deep in the hidden swamp, like the pinxter
Hang flowers along the edges of the wood,
Where save the savage hunter none delights,
Or the green bittern brooding from the light? —
Alone, deserted? then art thou alone,
On some near hill-top, ere the orb of day
In early summer, tints the floating heaven,
And far around thy sleeping race endow
With their oblivion the dim village roofs;
Nor yet the wakeful herdsman folds his kine
So to prolong their hours?
Alone, then listen hushed!
A living hymn awakes the studious air!
A myriad sounds that to one song converge,
As the added light shows the far hamlet
And the distant wood. These, are the voices
Of the unnumbered birds that fill the sphere
With their delicious harmony, prolonged
And ceaseless, so that at no time it dies,
Vanquishing the expectation by delay.
Still added notes, from the first Robin's 'larum
On the walnut's bough, to the Veery's flute,
Who from the furthest deep of the wet wood,
In martial trills rallies his liquid lay,
And the blithe whistling Oriole pours his joy.
O! mark the molten flecks along the skies
That move not, floating in those rosy heights
Of clear celestial radiance, so far pure
That not the artist in all color skilled,
The English Turner, faintly them could picture.