Classic Poem

The silence of a southern day,
When all the air is sick with heat,
O'er forest leagues that stretch away
Before the traveller's weary feet;

He sees no restive leaflets quiver,
No glancing rays that meet and part,
The very beat of the broad river
Is even, as a silent heart;

And strange-shaped flowers of gorgeous dyes,
Unmoved by any wandering breeze,
Look out with their great scarlet eyes,
And watch him from the giant trees.

Surely no brother of his race
Came e'er before to these wild woods,
To startle, with his pallid face,
The brightness of their solitudes.

And yet the path before him breaks
Across the tangled thicket drear,
A straighter track than wild beast makes,
Or antelope that bounds in fear.

And as he moves there seems to spring,
In his soul's depth, a consciousness —
As though some other living thing
Were with him in the wilderness.

The pathway broadens — and behold,
In the wood's heart, a chamber hewn,
Where Dryad, of the days of old,
Had loved to come and rest at noon!

Or if but England's sky were bent,
And yonder turf were not so brown,
The fairies might hold parliament
At night, when stars were raining down;

And in the midst a little mound,
As it had been a small child's grave,
With the green tendrils twisted round
Of plant whence purple blossoms wave.

Calm sleep the dead within the church,
Where simple voices sing and pray,
And calm beyond the ivied porch,
Where village children pause to play.

Their bed is blest, their dirge was sung,
Their dust is with their fathers' dust,
But sure his heart was solely wrung
Who here could leave his dead in trust.

The lonely wanderer pass'd in haste —
" It is a fearful spot, " he saith;
" There is no life in all the waste,
And yet this shrine of human death. "

Yea, life is near — a thin blue wreath
Comes curling through the foliage dark —
A settler's hut lies hid beneath,
And now he hears the watch-dog's bark.

Bright gleam'd the exile's lustrous eve;
No stranger to his haunts had come,
While, year by year, that forest high
Hung changeless o'er his lonely home.

Long time were greeting hands entwined,
Long time they cheer'd the social board
With many an earnest question kind,
And eager answer freely pour'd.

But when the sun's great heat was quell'd
Beneath the western ocean's wave,
The stranger's hand the exile held,
And led him to the forest grave.

There, while the round moon rose afar,
Making the listener's face look pale,
While, one by one, broke each bright star
Unmark'd, he told his simple tale.

" Green grow the valleys of the west,
Bright bound the streams of dark Tyrone,
There are my father's bones at rest,
Where I shall never lay my own.

" Here drowsy Nature lies asleep,
Crush'd by her own abundant treasure,
But there her restless pulses leap
For ever to a changeful measure;

" To moaning of the fitful gale
Through hollows in the purple hill,
To rivers rattling down the vale,
Short showers, and sunbeams shorter still.

" Ours was a lonely mountain place,
Girt round with berried rowan trees:
Good Sir, the wind on that hill's face,
It would not let them grow like these.

" But, looking down the mountain bare,
We saw the white church by the river,
And we could hear, when winds were fair,
O'er the low porch, the one bell quiver.

" And though the path was hard to climb
Across the bog and up the brae,
God's minister came many a time,
Nor ever blamed the rugged way.

" Ah me! it is a woeful thing
Never to hear one blessed word
Till sparks, that else might heavenward spring,
Die out for want of being stirr'd.

" The world was round us all the week,
Hard work was ours from morn till even,
The words that good man used to speak
Brought to our souls a glimpse of heaven.

" A wife I had, no truer breast
E'er shared a poor man's grief and joy,
Nor wanted to our mountain nest
Love's dearest pledges — girl and boy.

" Two died and left me, — first, alas!
The mother went, and then the son;
Ah well! the hallow'd churchyard grass
Grows over them — God's will be done.

" And Rose and I were left alone,
A six-year child without a mother,
And still, " he said, " though she is gone,
We are alone with one another.

" In thought my comrade all day long,
She creeps into my dreams at night,
The burden of a wordless song,
An image true to all but sight.

" Ever a short, low cough I hear,
There lies in mine a thin, small hand,
Or a voice singeth in mine ear;
The voice that haunted the old land,

" When that brave mountain breeze of ours
That dash'd the scent from golden furze,
And swept across the heather flowers,
Touch'd not a brighter cheek than hers.

" Why tell again the tale of tears
Told by a thousand hearts before,
The anguish of those famine years,
The useless toil, the straiten'd store?

" How, of the land we loved forsaken,
And spurn'd from off her blighted face,
We dared the dark deep, tempest-shaken,
And found an exile's resting place?

" Who lauds the lily's silver crown,
He little thinks how, night by night,
From heaven's great heart the dews dropp'd down
That fed its leaves of dazzling white.

" Little ye care at home to scan
How good insensibly is cherish'd,
How holy habits form the man,
And souls without their dew have perish'd.

" How, heeding not God's blessed day,
All days grow godless as they fall,
And he who has no hour to pray
Forgets, at last, to pray at all.

" How, sever'd from each symbol rite,
By Heaven to human weakness lent,
Each pledge of things beyond the sight,
Worship, and priest, and sacrament,

" We wander'd through a weary plain,
Where our souls fainted as we trod,
No golden link in labour's chain,
No sweet seventh day for rest and God.

" Still round the child there hung a spell
Of old traditionary rule,
Of texts the Pastor used to tell,
And hymns she learn'd at Sunday school.

" My heart has bled to hear her sing,
Or lisp " Our Father" in her play,
And, but it was so strange a thing,
I could myself have knelt to pray.

" Let summer winds blow wild at will,
New buds will deck earth's wasted bosom;
O death! thy blast was sterner still,
It tore away my only blossom.

" It would have moved a heart of stone
To see how fast my darling faded,
As a young olive dies alone,
By forest trees too closely shaded.

" And as she wither'd, form and feature,
The smooth round cheek, the dimpled chin, —
It seem'd her spiritual nature
Glow'd with a stronger life within.

" The struggling soul look'd through the bars
Of those blue eyes so strangely bright;
Sweet eyes, they burn'd like two young stars
Before the moon is up at night.

" And she would tell me more and more
About the things she learn'd of old,
As memory open'd all her store
When sickness found the key of gold.

" 'Twas after a long day of pain,
When the night fell her brain grew weak,
The fever burn'd along her vein,
And strew'd false roses on her cheek.

" I watch'd beside her in the gloom,
I counted every short, thick breath;
There was another in the room
Keeping watch too, — and that was Death.

" I saw the red moon through the trees,
I heard afar the wild dog crying;
That her sweet soul was ill at ease
I knew, she was so long of dying.

" And " Call the Rector, Father dear,"
Loud in the noon of night she said;
" I cannot go until I hear
A prayer beside my dying bed."

" Then would she sleep — Oh that long night!
How slow it went, and yet how fast,
While waver'd on her life's pale light,
And flicker'd, and went out at last!

" " Will he not come?" she cried again;
Then — God forgive me that I lied —
" He cometh, darling, up the glen,"
I answer'd, and she smiled, and died. "