Classic Poem

Another morning finds them on their way:
Another still, and still another flies.
To-day beside the Susquehanna leads
Their road romantic; and to-day, the sun,
Looking betwixt the hill-tops to the vales,
Beholds, with cheerful eye, the climbing line
Which by the roaring Juniata winds;
Till lo! upon the windy mountain height,
While glows the eve above a sea of hills,
Flushing the Alleghanian peaks, the train
Hangs like a cloud that, with the coming day,
Beside the brook which takes a westward course
Shall hold its far descent. Here, from the road,
They turn into the woods beneath the pines,
And, mid the budding laurels, pitch their camp.
The wains, together, in close circle drawn,
Give shelter to the steeds that feed within.
At once, in noisy groups, all hands collect
The dry, dead branches and the resinous cones,
And build the fire, and hew the stakes and crane;
While Master Ethan, fathoming his pouch,
Draws out the line, and Arthur trims the rod.
And soon along the wild, tumultuous brook
The bait is swept; and oft, as to the eddy
It whirls, mid spray and foam, the mountain trout
Flickers in air its constellated sides
To eke the evening meal. The camp-fire springs,
And the red day fades out, and leaves the sky
To the cold April moon and stars—the moon.
As Ceres' sickle, thin, and sharp, and bright.
Behold where glide the dusk forms to and fro
Before the crackling blaze, their shadows far
Reaching among the pines! Throughout the night
The hungry fire is fed by those who hold,
By turns, the dreary watch—a foretaste this
Of many a night to come, in gloomy depths
Of wildernesses, far, unknown. Strange sounds
Are floating on the gusty air; the boughs,
In wavy motion, make continuous noise
As of a mighty river roaring by;
While, as night deepens, louder brawl the brooks,
Flashing their spectral light among the rocks:
One sweeping east, unto the Chesapeake—
One west, to Mississippi and the Gulf.
To such inhospitable heights as this,
Where the thin air unto the palest cheek
Sends the quick blood, the fancy deems that sleep
Would scarcely come, or, coming, stay not long;
But now in many a tented wain she sits,
Soothing the fallen lid with murmurous sounds,
Despite the young, capricious imp of dreams,
Who half way mars her choicest task. The watch
Of middle night is Arthur's; when his form
Stands tall and brave against the steadfast blaze,
One other figure steals unto his side,
And, 'gainst persuasion, shares the starry hour:
For love, more sure than sleep, attends the course
Of whosoever once hath harboured him.
Where'er they look, the black and pillared pines
Sway to and fro, as if some giant arm,
Like Samson's, rocked them to their fall; and yet
The tempest, in his oft accustomed track,
Sits, like a hunter mid his leash of hounds,
Resting, uncertain where to bend his steps.
The moon, above the shadowy mountain lines,
Drops its increasing crescent, where the hope
Of those two hearts as one together glides,
To round and brighten in the distant West.
Dear, as a new star to the wakeful eye
Of one who, on a midnight tower, keeps watch,
Is scene like this unto the tuneful muse:
The maid all tenderness and trust, and rich
With sympathies which time alone can show;
The other boundless in his guardian love,
Which colours even his most ambitious dream;—
A noble nature, full of great desires,
And whom the well-pleased future shall behold
A leader mid his people. Night departs;
The stars withdraw behind a veil of light,
To gild in other worlds the evening sky,
While morning rules in this. When now the sun.
Like a swift diver 'neath a vessel's keel,
Hath swept the nether space, and all a-glow
Exalts his shining forehead in the east—
Laying his level arms across the hills—
Gazing, delighted, where he climbs, refreshed—
The white train, like a bank of spring-time snow
Loosened by warmth, glides slowly down along
The steep and melting roads; while constant care
Scarce shuns the dread abyss which yawns beside
The freezing depths where, half the summer through
Some straggling follower of winter rests,
Lodged in his sheltered tent of sunless snow.
Still by their side, companioning their way,
The embryo river—here a gust of foam
Which the deer leaps, and hunter, undismayed,
Seizing a rough branch, follows—headlong flies.
Days come and close; and, with another eve,
Against the sky their ken discerns, well-pleased,
The swinging cloud, starred through with meteor sparks
Which, hourly, o'er the Iron City floats,
Announcing where the loud and labouring forge
And furnace flame, continuous, throb and glow.
And when within the hospitable yards
Of well-stored inns, the teams are led ungeared,
And matrons, maids, and children, round the fire,
Thaw out the memory of the mountain cold,—
The men and youths, adventurous, sally forth,
And seek the red mouth of the furnace broad,
Where flows the iron into smoking moulds;
Or stand, admiring, where the hammer huge
Falls on the white hot metal, at each blow
Filling the space with sudden rain of fire,
Or how the hungry rollers take the mass,
And yield, at length, the long and slender bars.
Here Barton stands, as native to the scene,
And feels the impulse of his noble craft
Thrill to his fingers, with a fond desire
To grasp the bar and sledge. The morning comes
Behold where noisy builders by the stream.
With axe and adze, construct the future arks,
To sweep the Ohio to its mouth, and take
The Mississippi, in its swift career,
Wide-winding 'twixt the boundaries of States
As lesser streams 'twixt farms. Here, on this beam,
The fresh-hewn poplar, which among its fellows
Sweetens the air with odours, till it floats
Enamoured in the sun as o'er a garden,
Let us sit down, unstartled—sit and hear
The song of Labour, whose resounding blow
Sounds like a voice proclaiming to the future
The march of this, our forward-going age.
The song of Labour! nobler song is not!
He is the bard who writes, in living acts,
The epic of the era; every stroke
A word prophetic of the great hereafter.
Observe this group of workmen who prepare
The beams and boards, and clear the ample space,
To shape the flat-boat's square, ungraceful form.
Some line and score, and with the broad-axe hew
The giant log: and then the whip-saw comes.
Long, slender, biting as a champion's sword,
And double-handled, manned at either end,
One on the up-reared trunk and one beneath!
See how the swift blade, as the lightning, flies,
Severing, like death, what time can never join!
Thus separated, and the ends a-slope,
Hewn equal, like the runners of a sleigh—
Huge as a northern army might desire,
To bear provisions for a winter camp—
They upturned lie; and now the oaken planks
Reach crosswise, pinned and spiked from end to end
Then, with dull chisel, and the noisy mallet,
The swingling-tow is driven into the seams,
Till all are caulked, and comes the black cement,
Of molten odorous pitch, which gives secure
Protection 'gainst invasion of the wave.
Anon, the monster hull, by levers reared,
Heaves a great vault in air, and righted thus,
Lies ready for the launch. The rails are laid,
And to the slippery slope the boat is given;
And, lo! the wooden avalanche descends
Sheer to the middle of the stream, to be
Recalled by checking cables. As it strikes,
One, mid loud shouts from the resounding shore,
Breaks on the bow the deep baptismal flask;
And let our hopes with his be freely joined,
With heartfelt prayers that fair Prosperity
May spread her pinions o'er the sailless ark;
For this the deck which Providence ordains
To bear our travellers hence. A few swift days
Go by; the boat is covered, and complete
Within and out. On either side the oars,
And one astern, from ashen sapling hewn—
Each suppled, toughened many seasons through
In sweeping rivers of the mountain wind—
Droop, like unfolded wings, half spread for flight,
And now, in groups, unto the crowded wharf
The various households gather with their wares,
And soon betake them to their floating home;
And, drawn in close assemblies on the deck,
Gaze, wondering, at the tumult which they leave;
Bidding adieu to Pennsylvanian shores,
Which few, of all the crowd, shall tread again.
When, suddenly, a well-known voice is heard,
And all, delighted, hearken as it swells:

“Lo, our waiting ark is freighted,
In its depths of oak and pine
All our household gods are gathered—
Thine, my noble friend, and thine!

Here the laughter-loving children
Gaze, with wonder-filling eyes,
With the maidens whose emotions,
Like the waters, fall and rise.

Here are youths whose westward fancies
Chase the forest-sheltered game;
Here are men with soul and sinew
Which no wilderness can tame.

Here are matrons, full of courage—
Worthy these the pioneers—
And the patriarch lends a sanction
In the wisdom of his years.

Axe and team, and plough and sickle,
In the hold are gathered all;
And, methinks, I hear the woodlands,
Mid their thundering echoes, fall.

And behold the great logs blazing.
Till the ashen fields are bare,
And a boundless harvest springing—
The response of toil and prayer!

Draw the foot-board, loose the cables,
Free the wharf, and man the oars;
Give the broad keel to the river,
Bid adieu to crowded shores:

Wharves where Europe's venturous exiles
Throng with all their hopes and cares—
Sires of future States of freemen,
Standing mid their waiting wares.

Bid adieu the Iron City,
With its everlasting roar,
Whose Niagara of traffic
Flows to westward evermore.

Where the cloud swings into heaven,
And the furnace flames disgorge,
With the multitudinous clamour
Of the factory and the forge.

In yon mountains, like the eagles,
Brood the rivers at their springs,
Then descend, with sudden swooping,
On their far and flashing wings.

Here the dashing Alleghany
And Monongahela meet,
And a moment whirl and dally
Round the city's crowded feet;

Till, anon, with wedded pinions,
How they sweep the shores as one,
Driving westward, ever westward,
In the pathway of the sun.

Like a cloud upon the storm-wind,
Now our heaving ark careers;
Or some great bridge which a freshet
Bears in triumph from its piers.

Down we sweep; and yonder steamer
Smoking round the distant hill,
With its swift wheel flashing splendour,
Like the loud wheel of a mill,

Shall not fright us, though the waters
Sweep our deck with foamy force,
While the angel of Adventure,
With true courage, guides our course.

And the river, like our purpose,
Brooks no voice which bids it wait,
Bearing onward, ever onward,
Where the forest opes its gate;

Opes the gate that hung for ages,
Rusting in its old repose,
Which, once swung upon its hinges,
There's no giant hand can close.

Far beyond that ancient portal
We will pitch our camp, nor rest
Till from out our forest cabins
Spring the homesteads of the West.”