Once came an exile, longing to be free,
Born in the greenest island of the sea;
He sought out this, the fairest blooming isle
That ever gemmed a river; and its smile,
Of summer green and freedom, on his heart
Fell, like the light of Paradise. Apart
It lay, remote and wild; and in his breast
He fancied this an island of the blest;
And here he deemed the world might never mar
The tranquil air with its molesting jar.
Long had his soul, among the strife of men,
Gone out and fought, and fighting, failed; and then
Withdrew into itself: as when some fount

Thus sang the poet-lover, mid the scenes
Where happiness once brooded like a dove.
The mournful tale is ended with a sigh,
And she who listened weeps; and where they stand
The sad moon ponders, like the ghost of Eve
All night a-gazing on an Eden lost.
The conjuring fancy fills the place with shapes,
Holding their doubtful tryste; the o'ershadowed eye
Peoples the dusk with phantoms; and the ear,
By keen imagination finely tuned,
Like a light cord to fullest tension drawn
Vibrates to each accordant sigh of air,

Adieu the island! Lo, the Sabbath dawns,
A cloudless April-day. Still toward the West
The broad stream bears them onward in its arms.
On either shore, and through the neighbouring fields,
While sounds the bell from yonder village spire,
The unknown people throng. Then to the deck
The various inmates of the ark collect,
And round the pastor drawn, in pious groups,
Flood the calm air with the melodious hymn;
While, as they pass the town, an answer comes,
Like a clear echo, from the hill-side church.
The melody into their hearts descends—

Where a far prairie pours its yearly flood
Of verdure to a forest's dusky foot,
And where a stream to Mississippi flows
In endless vassalage; and where the beaver,
Like the red Indian and the buffalo,
Flying before the fast-encroaching plow,
The sickle and the mill, hath fled so late,
Scared by the trapper from his watery door—
While his small homestead, in the liquid plain,
With empty threshold looks abroad amazed—
And where the breastwork still retards the stream,
To hint and aid the future miller's dam;

When comes the eve—and in these antique woods
Eve comes before its time, and the deep night
With double darkness falls—then springs the blaze
Of crackling camp-fires; while the astonished trees,
Half-lighted, stand and murmur their surprise
To others crowding in the shade behind;
And many a bird with fascinated wonder,
And stealthy beast, with wide unwinking stare
And fixed amazement, gaze with silent fear,
Till night is robbed of half its dreary noise.
There stands the pastor mid his little flock,
And opes the wonted volume; while beside,

Behold the morn! and now begins the toil.
The first loud axe alarms the forest's shade;
And there the first tree falls, and falling wide,
With spreading arms that tear their downward way
Strips the adjacent branches; the loud crash
Thunders to Heaven, and the astonished sun
Looks down the murderous gap. Thus, ever thus,
In the community of men, a wrong
To one deals injury to many more.
Hark, how the roar runs echoing through the woods.
And every oldest oak and sycamore
Thrills with prophetic feeling of its fall.
Now marks each labourer his future home;

Of all the lovely seasons of the year,
None is so full of majesty as this,
When red October, like a king of old—
As wise as rich, and generous as wise—
Smiles on the untaxed garners of the land.
The fields lie cleared and brown; and all the woods
Gleam with a mellow splendour, where the gold
Vies with the purple and the crimson glory,—
The sunset of the year. Whence soon shall follow
The gusty twilight of November days;
Then the dull, rainy eve, till Winter comes,
Like a white moonlight night, and shuts the scene

The skies are clouded, and the sad winds sweep,
Wailing along the forest, like a bard
Pouring a requiem upon his harp.
All sights and sounds are dreary; and the pipe,
So long attuned to pleasurable exploits,
Breathes like a widowed night-bird unconsoled.
A melancholy wide pervades the air;
Whence falls the shadow? what invisible hand
Spreads the dusk veil? Is it that Autumn drops
Her chilly mantle, like a funeral weed,
Trailing and rustling on the gusty wind?
Or some presentiment of ill to come,
Half comprehended, springs? Is it that grief

The season comes when, from her three-month's trance.
The Earth awakes: already her deep heart
Begins to stir, and send its life abroad.
On slopes, which lie adjacent to the sun,
The snows grow thin and vanish, and the air
Is scented with the odours of the mould;
For there the Spring, with warm and delicate feet,
Fresh from her hidden caverns of perfume,
Walks in the noon to wake the early flowers.
Here the first bird begins the woodland's song;
But in yon maple grove, where genial airs
Are earliest to blow, and last to leave,

Along yon rugged road which, like a stream,
Bursts through the shadowy forest to the west—
Where many a wain, like a deep-laden barge,
Sweeps with the current following the sun—
Behold to-day, with toilsome course reversed,
One lonesome team is heading to the east.
Crouched 'neath the cover, pale and sick at heart,
Like wounded sufferers from a camp of war,
The dwindled household of the pioneer
Pursues its homeward way. And when the wheel
Sinks, in the black mire stalled, 'tis Baldwin's arm,
Now robbed of half its strength, impels it on.