Classic Poem

I.

O H ! wilt thou be, dear maiden,
The Texan hunter's bride,
And tend his forest bower
By Colorado's side;
Thy childhood's home forgetting,
That newer home to prize,
Near where the sun is setting,
But where our sun must rise?

II.

I bring no wealth to woo thee,
But, in my grasp, I bear
The weapon, at whose sudden speech
The forest nations fear;
The wild Camanche flies the track
That I have blazed for thee,
And when I wind this yellow horn
The cougar seeks his tree.

III.

Of all the wild steeds of the West,
No one is better graced
Than this I bring to bear thy form
Across the prairie waste;
As little feels the infant,
Within his cradled height,
The waving of the slender bough,
As thou his easy flight.

IV.

And gay with richest flowers,
And green with leafy shade,
Shall be the forest bowers
Which Love for thee has made:
No high and haughty palace,
But, smiling through the green
Of waving, sea-like valleys,
Our snow-white cot is seen.

V.

Sweet groves and soft savannahs,
A clime of calm, it woos
With blossoms of the rainbow born,
And fruitage of its hues;
Broad seas asleep in meadows,
With ranks of cane that rise
Like plumed and painted warriors,
To sink before our eyes. —

VI.

But if within thy bosom
There burns a nobler life,
As dames in knightly days could share
The rapture of the strife;
Then, by my steed and rise,
Let Mexic towers beware,
The eye that cheers my cabin now
Shall light my spirit there.