Classic Poem

In a wild, tranquil vale, fringed with forests of green,
Where nature had fashion'd a soft sylvan scene,
The retreat of the ring-dove, the haunt of the deer,
P ASSAIC in silence roll'd gentle and clear.

No grandeur of prospect astonish'd the sight,
No abruptness sublime mingled awe with delight;
There the wild flowret blossom'd, the elm proudly waved,
And pure was the current the green bank that laved.

But the spirit that ruled o'er the thick-tangled wood,
And had fixed in its gloomy recess his abode,
Loved best the rude scene that the whirlwinds deform,
And gloried in thunder, and lightning and storm.

All flush'd from the tumult of battle he came,
Where the red-men encounter'd the children of flame,
While the noise of the warhoop still rung in his ears,
And the fresh, bleeding scalp as a trophy he wears.

Oh! deep was the horror, and fierce was the fight,
When the eyes of the red-men were shrouded in night;
When by strangers invaded, by strangers destroy'd,
They ensanguined the fields which their fathers enjoy'd.

Lo! the sons of the forest in terror retire,
Pale savages chase them with thunder and fire;
In vain whirls the war-club, in vain twangs the bow,
By thunder and fire are the warriors laid low.

From defeat and from carnage the fierce spirit came,
His breast was a tumult, his passions were flame,
Despair swells his heart, fury maddens his ire,
And black scowls his brow o'er his eye-balls of fire.

With a glance of disgust he the landscape survey'd,
With its fragrant wild flowrets, its wide-waving shade,
Its river meand'ring through margins of green,
Transparent its waters — its surface serene

He rived the green hills — the wild woods he laid low,
He turn'd the still stream in rough channels to flow,
He rent the rude rock, the steep precipice gave,
And hurl'd down the chasm the thundering wave.

A scene of strange ruin he scatter'd around,
Where cliffs piled on cliffs in wild majesty frown'd —
Where shadows of horror embrown the dark wood,
And the rain-bow and mist mark the turbulent flood

Countless moons have since roll'd — in this long lapse of time,
Cultivation has soften'd those features sublime,
The axe of the white man enliven'd the shade,
And dispell'd the deep gloom of the thicketed glade.

Yet the stranger still gazes, with wondering eye,
On rocks rudely torn and groves mounted on high —
Still loves on the cliff's dizzy border to roam,
Where the torrent leaps headlong embosom'd in foam.