I.
Far, far away, where sunsets weave
Their golden tissues o'er the scene,
And distant glaciers, dimly heave,
Like trailing ghosts, their peaks between —
Where, at the Rocky Mountain's base,
Arkansas, yet an infant, lingers,
A while the drifting leaves to chase,
Like laughing youth, with playful fingers —
There Nature, in her childhood, wrought
'Mid rock and rill, with leaf and flower,
A vale more beautiful than thought
E'er gave to favored fairy's bower:
And in that hidden hermitage,
Of forest, river, lake, and dell, —
While Time himself grew gray and sage,
The lone Enchantress loved to dwell.
II.
Ages have flown, — the vagrant gales
Have swept that lonely land; the flowers
Have nodded to the breeze; the vales,
Long, long, have sheltered in their bowers,
The forest minstrels; and the race
Of mastodons hath come and gone;
And with the stream of time, the chase
Of bubbling life hath swept the lawn,
Unmarked, save that the bedded clay,
Tells where some giant sleeper lies;
And wrinkled cliffs, tottering and gray,
Whisper of crumbled centuries.
Yet there the valley smiles; the tomb
Of ages is a garden gay,
And wild flowers freshen in their bloom,
As from the sod they drink decay.
And creeping things of every hue,
Dwell in this savage Eden-land,
And all around it blushes new,
As when it rose at God's command.
Untouched by man, the forests wave,
The floods pour by, the torrents fall,
And shelving cliff and shadowy cave,
Hang as bold nature hung them all!
The hunter's wandering foot hath wound,
To this far scene, perchance like mine,
And there a Forest Dreamer found,
Who walks the dell with spectral mien.
Youthful his brow, his bearing high —
Yet writhed his lip, and all subdued,
The fire that once hath lit his eye
Wayward and sullen oft his mood;
But he perchance may deign to tell,
As he hath told to me, his tale,
In words like these, — while o'er the dell,
The autumn twilight wove its veil.
III.
" Stranger! these woods are wild and drear;
These tangled paths are rough and lone;
These dells are full of things of fear,
And should be rather shunned than known.
Then turn thy truant foot away,
And seek afar the cultured glade,
Nor dare with reckless step to stray,
'Mid these lone realms of fear and shade!
You go not, and you seek to hear,
Why one like me should idly roam,
'Mid scenes like these, so dark, so drear —
These rocks my bed, these woods my home?
IV.
" One crime hath twined with serpent coil
Around my heart its fatal fold;
And though my struggling bosom toil,
To heave the monster from its hold —
It will not from its victim part.
By day or night, in down or dell,
Where'er I roam, still, still my heart
Is pressed by that sad serpent spell.
Aye, as the strangling boa clings
Around his prey with fatal grasp,
And as he feels each struggle, wrings
His victim with a closer clasp;
Nor yet till every pulse is dumb,
And every fluttering spasm o'er,
Releases, what, in death o'ercome,
Can strive or struggle now no more;
So is my wrestling spirit wrung,
By that one deep and deadly sin,
That will not, while I live, be flung,
From its sad work of woe within.
Far, far away, where sunsets weave
Their golden tissues o'er the scene,
And distant glaciers, dimly heave,
Like trailing ghosts, their peaks between —
Where, at the Rocky Mountain's base,
Arkansas, yet an infant, lingers,
A while the drifting leaves to chase,
Like laughing youth, with playful fingers —
There Nature, in her childhood, wrought
'Mid rock and rill, with leaf and flower,
A vale more beautiful than thought
E'er gave to favored fairy's bower:
And in that hidden hermitage,
Of forest, river, lake, and dell, —
While Time himself grew gray and sage,
The lone Enchantress loved to dwell.
II.
Ages have flown, — the vagrant gales
Have swept that lonely land; the flowers
Have nodded to the breeze; the vales,
Long, long, have sheltered in their bowers,
The forest minstrels; and the race
Of mastodons hath come and gone;
And with the stream of time, the chase
Of bubbling life hath swept the lawn,
Unmarked, save that the bedded clay,
Tells where some giant sleeper lies;
And wrinkled cliffs, tottering and gray,
Whisper of crumbled centuries.
Yet there the valley smiles; the tomb
Of ages is a garden gay,
And wild flowers freshen in their bloom,
As from the sod they drink decay.
And creeping things of every hue,
Dwell in this savage Eden-land,
And all around it blushes new,
As when it rose at God's command.
Untouched by man, the forests wave,
The floods pour by, the torrents fall,
And shelving cliff and shadowy cave,
Hang as bold nature hung them all!
The hunter's wandering foot hath wound,
To this far scene, perchance like mine,
And there a Forest Dreamer found,
Who walks the dell with spectral mien.
Youthful his brow, his bearing high —
Yet writhed his lip, and all subdued,
The fire that once hath lit his eye
Wayward and sullen oft his mood;
But he perchance may deign to tell,
As he hath told to me, his tale,
In words like these, — while o'er the dell,
The autumn twilight wove its veil.
III.
" Stranger! these woods are wild and drear;
These tangled paths are rough and lone;
These dells are full of things of fear,
And should be rather shunned than known.
Then turn thy truant foot away,
And seek afar the cultured glade,
Nor dare with reckless step to stray,
'Mid these lone realms of fear and shade!
You go not, and you seek to hear,
Why one like me should idly roam,
'Mid scenes like these, so dark, so drear —
These rocks my bed, these woods my home?
IV.
" One crime hath twined with serpent coil
Around my heart its fatal fold;
And though my struggling bosom toil,
To heave the monster from its hold —
It will not from its victim part.
By day or night, in down or dell,
Where'er I roam, still, still my heart
Is pressed by that sad serpent spell.
Aye, as the strangling boa clings
Around his prey with fatal grasp,
And as he feels each struggle, wrings
His victim with a closer clasp;
Nor yet till every pulse is dumb,
And every fluttering spasm o'er,
Releases, what, in death o'ercome,
Can strive or struggle now no more;
So is my wrestling spirit wrung,
By that one deep and deadly sin,
That will not, while I live, be flung,
From its sad work of woe within.