And clearly on the calm air swells The twilight voice of distant bells. From Ocean's bosom, white and thin The mists come slowly rolling in; Hills, woods, the river's rocky rim, Amidst the sea-like vapor swim, While yonder lonely coast-light set Within its wave-washed minaret, Half quenched, a beamless star and pale, Shines dimly through its cloudy veil!
Home of my fathers!-I have stood Where Hudson rolled his lordly flood: Seen sunrise rest and sunset fade Along his frowning Palisade; Looked down the Apalachian peak On Juniata's silver streak; Have seen along his valley gleam The Mohawk's softly winding stream; The level light of sunset shine Through broad Potomac's hem of pine; And autumn's rainbow-tinted banner Hang lightly o'er the Susquehanna; Yet, wheresoe'er his step might be, Thy wandering child looked back to thee Heard in his dreams thy river's sound Of murmuring on its pebbly bound, The unforgotten swell and roar Of waves on thy familiar shore; And saw amidst the curtained gloom And quiet of his lonely room, Thy sunset scenes before him pass; As, in Agrippa's magic glass, The loved and lost arose to view, Remembered groves in greenness grew, Bathed still in childhood's morning dew, Along whose bowers of beauty swept Whatever Memory's mourners wept, Sweet faces, which the charnel kept,
Young, gentle eyes, which long had slept; And while the gazer leaned to trace, More near, some dear familiar face, He wept to find the vision flown- A phantom and a dream alone!
GIFT from the cold and silent Past! A relic to the present cast; Left on the ever-changing strand Of shifting and unstable sand, Which wastes beneath the steady chime And beating of the waves of Time ! Who from its bed of primal rock
First wrenched thy dark, unshapely block? Whose hand, of curious skill untaught, Thy rude and savage outline wrought?
The waters of my native stream Are glancing in the sun's warm beam: From sail-urged keel and flashing oar The circles widen to its shore;
And cultured field and peopled town Slope to its willowed margin down. Yet, while this morning breeze is bringing The home-life sound of school-bells ringing, And rolling wheel, and rapid jar Of the fire-winged and steedless car, And voices from the wayside near Come quick and blended on my ear, A spell is in this old gray stone— My thoughts are with the Past alone!
A change!-The steepled town no more Stretches along the sail-thronged shore;
Like palace-domes in sunset's cloud, Fade sun-gilt spire and mansion proud. Spectrally rising where they stood, I see the old, primeval wood: Dark, shadow-like, on either hand I see its solemn waste expand: It climbs the green and cultured hill, It arches o'er the valley's rill;
And leans from cliff and crag, to throw Its wild arms o'er the stream below. Unchanged, alone, the same bright river Flows on, as it will flow forever! I listen, and I hear the low
Soft ripple where its waters go; I hear behind the panther's cry, The wild bird's scream goes thrilling by, And shyly on the river's brink The deer is stooping down to drink.
But hark!-from wood and rock flung back, What sound comes up the Merrimack? What sea-worn barks are those which throw The light spray from each rushing prow? Have they not in the North Sea's blast Bowed to the waves the straining mast? Their frozen sails the low, pale sun Of Thulè's night has shone upon; Flapped by the sea-wind's gusty sweep Round icy drift, and headland steep. Wild Jutland's wives and Lochlin's daughters Have watched them fading o'er the waters, Lessening through driving mist and spray, Like white-winged sea-birds on their way!
Onward they glide-and now I view Their iron-armed and stalwart crew; Joy glistens in each wild blue eye, Turned to green earth and summer sky: Each broad, seamed breast has cast aside
Its cumbering vest of shaggy hide; Bared to the sun and soft warm air, Streams back the Norsemen's yellow hair. I see the gleam of axe and spear, The sound of smitten shields I hear, Keeping a harsh and fitting time To Saga's chant, and Runic rhyme; Such lays as Zetland's Scald has sung, His gray and naked isles among; Or muttered low at midnight hour Round Odin's mossy stone of power. The wolf beneath the Arctic moon Has answered to that startling rune; The Gaal has heard its stormy swell, The light Frank knows its summons well; Iona's sable-stoled Culdee
Has heard it sounding o'er the sea, And swept with hoary beard and hair. His altar's foot in trembling prayer!
"T is past-the 'wildering vision dies In darkness on my dreaming eyes! The forest vanishes in air- Hill-slope and vale lie starkly bare; I hear the common tread of men, And hum of work-day life again: The mystic relic seems alone A broken mass of common stone; And if it be the chiselled limb Of Berserkar or idol grim— A fragment of Valhalla's Thor, The stormy Viking's god of War, Or Praga of the Runic lay, Or love awakening Siona, I know not-for no graven line, Nor Druid mark, nor Runic sign, Is left me here, by which to trace Its name, or origin, or place. Yet, for this vision of the Past,
This glance upon its darkness cast, My spirit,bows in gratitude Before the Giver of all good, Who fashioned so the human mind, That, from the waste of Time behind A simple stone, or mound of earth, Can summon the departed forth; Quicken the Past to life again— The Present lose in what hath been, And in their primal freshness show The buried forms of long ago. As if a portion of that Thought By which the Eternal will is wrought, Whose impulse fills anew with breath The frozen solitude of Death, To mortal mind were sometimes lent, To mortal musings sometimes sent, To whisper-even when it seems But Memory's phantasy of dreams— Through the mind's waste of woe and sin, Of an immortal origin!
To the God of all sure mercies let my blessing rise to-day,
From the scoffer and the cruel He hath plucked the spoil away,
Yea, He who cooled the furnace around the faith
And tamed the Chaldean lions, hath set His handmaid free!
« PreviousContinue » |