And there twittered
Birds in every vine.
Then sonorous from the chasm
Pealed a voice distinct and loud:
'Innocence and God-reliance
Set all evil at defiance.
Maiden, by these
(As by snow, trees)
ALONE with Nature, when her passionate mood
Deepens and deepens, till from shadowy wood
And sombre shore the blended voices sound
Of five infuriate torrents, wanly crowned
With such pale-misted foam as that which starts
To whitening lips from frenzied human hearts!
Echo repeats the thunderous roll and boom
Of these vexed waters through the foliaged gloom
So wildly, in their grand, reverberant swell,
Borne from dim hillside to rock-bounded dell,
That oft the tumult seems
The vast, fantastic dissonance of dreams,
A roar of adverse elements torn and riven
In gaunt recesses of some billowy hell, --
But sending ever through the tremulous air
Defiance, laden with august despair,
Up to the calm and pitiful face of heaven!
From ledge to ledge the impetuous current sweeps
Forever tortured, tameless, unsubdued,
Amid the darkly humid solitude;
Through waste and turbulent deeps
It cleaves a terrible pathway, overrun
Only by doubtful flickerings of the sun,
To meet with swift cross-eddies, whirlpools set
On verges of some measureless abyss;
Above the stir and fret,
The hollow lion's roar, or serpent-hiss
Of whose unceasing conflict waged below
The gorges of the giant precipice,
Shines the mild splendor of a heavenly bow!
But blinded to the rainbow's tender light,
Soft as the eyes of Mercy bent on Might,
Still with dark vapors all around it furled,
The demon-spirit of this watery world,
Through many a maddened curve and stormy throe,
Speeds to its last tumultuous overflow,
When downward hurled from wildering shock to shock,
Its wild heart breaks upon the outmost rock
That guards the empire of this rule of wrath:
Henceforth, beyond the shattered cataract's path,
The tempered spirit of a gentler guide
Enters, methinks, the unperturbed tide, -
Its current sparkling in the blest release
From wasting passion, glides through shores of peace;
O'er brightened spaces and clear confluent calms
Float the hale breathings of near meadow balms;
And still by silent cove and silvery reach
The murmurous wavelets pass,
Lip the coy tendrils of the delicate grass,
And tranquil hour by hour
Uplift a crystal glass,
Wherein each lithe narcissus flower
May mark its slender frame and beauteous face
Mirrored in softly visionary grace,
And still, by fairy bight and shelving beach
The fair waves whisper, low as leaves in June-
(Small gossips lisping in their woodland bower),
And still, the ever-lessening tide
Lapses, as glides some once imperious life
From haughty summits of demoniac pride,
Hatred, and vengeful strife
Down through Time's twilight-valleys purified,
Yearning alone to keep
A long predestined tryst with Night and Sleep,
Beneath the dew-soft kisses of the moon!
YAN I forget that happiest day,
That happiest day of all the year,
When on the sloping rock I lay,
Toccoa dripping near?
The lifted wonder of thy eyes
The marvel of thy soul expressed.
Aloft I saw serenest skies,
Below, thy heaving breast.
On wings of mist, in robes of spray
Long trailed, and flowing wide and white,
Adown the mountain steep and gray
We saw Toccoa glide.
Her garments sweeping through the vale
Began the whispering leaves to wake,
And wafted like a tiny sail
A leaf across the lake.
The murmur of the falling shower,
Which did the solitude increase,
We heard; the cool and happy hour
Filled our young hearts with peace.
Thou satest with a maiden grace,
Thou sawest the rugged rocks and hoary,
As with a half-uplifted face
Thou listenedst to my story.
How many of the banished race,
Those old red warriors of the bow,
Have slumbered in this shadowy place,
Have watched Toccoa flow.
Perchance, where now we sit, they laid
Their arms, and raised a boastful chant,
While through the gorgeous Autumn shade
The sunshine shot aslant.
One night, a hideous howling night,
The black boughs swaying overhead,
Three painted braves across the height
A false Pe-ro-kah1 led.
Bright were her glances, bright her smiles,
Wondrous her waving length of hair,
(Ye who descend through slippery wiles,
A maiden's eyes beware!)
What saw these swarthy Cherokees
In the deep darkness on the brink?
They saw a red fire through the trees,
Through the tossed branches wave and wink;
They saw pale faces white and dreaming,
Clutched their keen knives, and held their breath,
All this was but a cheating seeming,
For them, not for the phantom's death.
Spoke then the temptress (maid or devil), –
'Let the pale sleepers sleep no more!" Whoop!-three good bounds on solid rock, Then empty blackness for a floor.
Yelled the fierce braves with rage and fright,
With fright their bristling war-plumes rose:
On these down fluttering, did the night
Her jaws sepulchral close.
These rocks tall-lifted, rent apart,
This Indian legend old
To thee, enchantress as thou art,
A warning truth unfold.
Who love, mid midnight dangers stand,
To them false fires wink:
Accursed be the evil hand
That beckons to the brink.
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