Classic Poem

And this was once the realm of nature, where
Wild as the wind, tho' exquisitely fair,
She breath'd the mountain breeze, or bow'd to kiss
The dimpling waters with unbounded bliss.
Here in this Paradise of earth, where first
Wild mountain Liberty began to burst,
Once Nature's temple rose in simple grace,
The hill her throne, the world her dwelling-place.
And where are now her lakes so still and lone,
Her thousand streams with bending shrubs o'ergrown?

Where her dark cat'racts tumbling from on high,
With rainbow arch aspiring to the sky?
Her tow'ring pines with fadeless wreaths entwin'd,
Her waving alders streaming to the wind?
Nor these alone, — her own, — her fav'rite child,
All fire; all feeling; man untaught and wild;
Where can the lost, lone son of nature stray?
For art's high car is rolling on its way;
A wand'rer of the world, he flies to drown
The thoughts of days gone by and pleasures flown,
In the deep draught, whose dregs are death and woe,
With slavery's iron chain conceal'd below.
Once thro' the tangled wood, with noiseless tread
And throbbing heart, the lurking warrior sped,
Aim'd his sure weapon, won the prize, and turn'd
While his high heart with wild ambition burn'd,
With song and war-whoop to his native tree,
There on its bark to carve the victory.
His all of learning did that act comprise,
But still in nature's volume doubly wise.

The wayward stream which once with idle bound,
Whirl'd on resistless in its foaming round,
Now curb'd by art flows on, a wat'ry chain
Linking the snow-capp'd mountains to the main.
Where once the alder in luxuriance grew,
Or the tall pine its towering branches threw
Abroad to Heaven, with dark and haughty brow,
There mark the realms of plenty smiling now;
There the full sheaf of Ceres richly glows,
And Plenty's fountain blesses as it flows;
And man, a brute when left to wander wild,
A reckless creature, nature's lawless child,
What boundless streams of knowledge rolling now,
From the full hand of art around him flow!
Improvement strides the surge, while from afar,
Learning rolls onward in her silver car;

Freedom unfurls her banner o'er his head,
While peace sleeps sweetly on her native bed.

The muse arises from the wildwood glen,
And chants her sweet and hallow'd song again,
As in those halcyon days, which bards have sung,
When hope was blushing, and when life was young.
Thus shall she rise, and thus her sons shall rear
Her sacred temple here , and only here ,
While Percival, her lov'd and chosen priest,
For ever blessing, tho' himself unblest,
Shall fan the fire that blazes at her shrine,
And charm the ear with numbers half divine.

A THUNDER-STORM of the olden days!
The red sun' sinks in a sleepy haze;
The sultry twilight, close and still,
Muffles the cricket's drowsy trill.
Then a round-topped cloud rolls up the west,
Black to its smouldering, ashy crest,
And the chariot of the storm you hear,
With its jarring axle rumbling near;
Till the blue is hid, and here and there
The sudden, blinding lightnings glare.
Scattering now the big drops fall,
Till the rushing rain in a silver wall
Blurs the line of the bending elms,
Then blots them out and the landscape whelms.
A flash — a clap, and a rumbling peal:
The broken clouds the blue reveal;

The last bright drops fall far away,
And the wind, that had slept for heat all day,
With a long-drawn sigh awakes again
And drinks the cool of the blessed rain.

November! night, and a sleety storm:
Close are the ruddy curtains, warm
And rich in the glow of the roaring grate.
It may howl outside like a baffled fate,
And rage on the roof, and lash the pane
With its fierce and impotent wrath in vain.
Sitting within at our royal ease
We sing to the chime of the ivory keys,
And feast our hearts from script and score
With the wealth of the mellow hearts of yore.

A winter's night on a world of snow!
Not a sound above, not a stir below:
The moon hangs white in the icy air,
And the shadows are motionless everywhere.

Is this the planet that we know —
This silent floor of the ghostly snow?
Or is this the moon, so still and dead,
And yonder orb far overhead,
With its silver map of plain and sea,
Is that the earth where we used to be?
Shall we float away in the frosty blue
To that living, summer world we knew,
With its full, hot heart-beats as of old,
Or be frozen phantoms of the cold?

A river of ice, all blue and glare,
Under a star-shine dim and rare.
The sheeny sheet in the sparkling light
Is ribbed with slender wisps of white —
Crinkles of snow, that the flying steel
Lightly crunches with ringing heel.
Swinging swift as the swallows skim,
You round the shadowy river's rim:
Falling somewhere out of the sky
Hollow and weird is the owlet's cry;
The gloaming woods seem phantom hosts,
And the bushes cower in the snow like ghosts.

Till the tinkling feet that with you glide
Skate closer and closer to your side,
And something steals from a furry muff,
And you clasp it and cannot wonder enough
That a little palm so soft and fair
Could keep so warm in the frosty air.

'T is thus we dream in our tranquil clime,
Rooted still in the olden time;
Longing for all those glooms and gleams
Of passionate Nature's mad extremes.
Or was it only our hearts, that swelled
With the youth and life and love they held?