The Poets and Poetry of America

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THEODORE S. FAY.*

MY NATIVE LAND.

COLUMBIA, was thy continent stretch'd wild,
In later ages, the huge seas above?

And art thou Nature's youngest, fairest child,
Most favour'd by thy gentle mother's love?
Where now we stand, did ocean monsters rove,
Tumbling uncouth, in those dim, vanish'd years,
When through the Red Sea PHARAOH's thousands
drove,

When struggling JOSEPH dropp'd fraternal tears, When GoD came down from heaven, and mortal men were seers?

Or, have thy forests waved, thy rivers run,
Elysian solitudes, untrod by man,
Silent and lonely, since, around the sun,
Her ever-wheeling circle earth began?
Thy unseen flowers did here the breezes fan,
With wasted perfume ever on them flung?
And o'er thy showers neglected rainbows span,
When ALEXANDER fought, when HOMER sung,
And the old populous world with thundering battle
rung?

Yet, what to me, or when, or how thy birth,-
No musty tomes are here to tell of thee;
None know, if cast when nature first the earth
Shaped round, and clothed with grass, and flower,
and tree,

Or whether since, by changes, silently,
Of sand, and shell, and wave, thy wonders grew;
Or if, before man's little memory,

Some shock stupendous rent the globe in two, And thee, a fragment, far in western oceans threw.

I know but that I love thee. On my heart, Like a dear friend's, are stamp'd thy features now; Though there the Roman or the Grecian art Hath lent, to deck thy plain and mountain brow, No broken temples, fain at length to bow, [time. Moss-grown and crumbling with the weight of Not these o'er thee their mystic splendours throw, Themes eloquent for pencil or for rhyme, As many a soul can tell that pours its thoughts sublime.

But thou art sternly artless, wildly free: We worship thee for beauties all thine own: Like damsel, young and sweet, and sure to be Admired, but only for herself alone. With richer foliage ne'er was land o'ergrown, No mightier rivers run, nor mountains rise, Nor ever lakes with lovelier graces shone, Nor wealthier harvests waved in human eyes, Nor lay more liquid stars along more heavenly skies. I dream of thee, fairest of fairy streams, Sweet Hudson! Float we on thy summer breast, Who views thy enchanted windings ever deems Thy banks, of mortal shores, the loveliest! Hail to thy shelving slopes, with verdure dress'd,

Author of "Norman Leslie," "The Countess Ida," etc., and now Secretary of Legation at Berlin. He is a native of New York.

Bright break thy waves the varied beach upon; Soft rise thy hills, by amorous clouds caress'd; Clear flow thy waters, laughing in the sunWould through such peaceful scenes my life might gently run!

And, lo! the Catskills print the distant sky,
And o'er their airy tops the faint clouds driven,
So softly blending, that the cheated eye
Forgets or which is earth or which is heaven,—
Sometimes, like thunder-clouds, they shade the

even,

Till, as you nearer draw, each wooded height Puts off the azure hues by distance given; And slowly break upon the enamour'd sight Ravine, crag, field, and wood, in colours true and bright.

Mount to the cloud-kiss'd summit. Far below Spreads the vast champaign like a shoreless sea. Mark yonder narrow streamlet feebly flow, Like idle brook that creeps ingloriously; Can that the lovely, lordly Hudson be, Stealing by town and mountain? Who beholds, At break of day this scene, when, silently, Its map of field, wood, hamlet, is unroll'd, While, in the east, the sun uprears his locks of gold,

Till earth receive him never can forget? Even when return'd amid the city's roar, The fairy vision haunts his memory yet, As in the sailor's fancy shines the shore. Imagination cons the moment o'er, When first-discover'd, awe-struck and amazed, Scarce loftier JoVE-whom men and gods adoreOn the extended earth beneath him gazed, Temple, and tower, and town, by human insect raised.

Blow, scented gale, the snowy canvass swell, And flow, thou silver, eddying current on. Grieve we to bid each lovely point farewell, That, ere its graces half are seen, is gone. By woody bluff we steal, by leaning lawn, By palace, village, cot, a sweet surprise, At every turn the vision breaks upon; Till to our wondering and uplifted eyes The Highland rocks and hills in solemn grandeur

[rise.

Nor clouds in heaven, nor billows in the deep, More graceful shapes did ever heave or roll, Nor came such pictures to a painter's sleep, Nor beam'd such visions on a poet's soul! The pent-up flood, impatient of control, In ages past here broke its granite bound, Then to the sea in broad meanders stole, While ponderous ruins strew'd the broken ground, And these gigantic hills forever closed around. And ever-wakeful echo here doth dwell, The nymph of sportive mockery, that still Hides behind every rock, in every dell, And softly glides, unseen, from hill to hill, No sound doth rise but mimic it she will,— The sturgeon's splash repeating from the shore, Aping the boy's voice with a voice as shrill, The bird's low warble, and the thunder's roar, Always she watches there, each murmur telling o'er.

Awake, my lyre, with other themes inspired.
Where yon bold point repels the crystal tide,
The Briton youth, lamented and admired,
His country's hope, her ornament and pride,
A traitor's death ingloriously died,
On freedom's altar offer'd; in the sight

Of Gon, by men who will their act abide,

On the great day, and hold their deed aright,

To stop the breath would quench young freedom's holy light.

But see! the broadening river deeper flows,

Its tribute floods intent to reach the sea,
While, from the west, the fading sunlight throws
Its softening hues on stream, and field, and tree;
All silent nature bathing, wondrously,

In charms that soothe the heart with sweet desires,
And thoughts of friends we ne'er again may see,
Till, lo! ahead Manhatta's bristling spires,
Above her thousand roofs red with day's dying fires.
May greet the wanderer of Columbia's shore,
Proud Venice of the west! no lovelier scene.
Of thy vast throngs now faintly comes the roar,
Though late like beating ocean surf I ween,-
And everywhere thy various barks are seen,
Cleaving the limpid floods that round thee flow,
Encircled by thy banks of sunny green,―
The panting steamer plying to and fro,

Or the tall sea-bound ship abroad on wings of snow.
And radiantly upon the glittering mass
The god of day his parting glances sends,
As some warm soul, from earth about to pass,
Back on its fading scenes and mourning friends
Deep words of love and looks of rapture bends,
More bright and bright, as near their end they be.
On, on, great orb! to earth's remotest ends,
Each land irradiate, and every sea-
But O, my native land, not one, not one like thee!

C. C. MOORE.*

FROM A FATHER TO HIS CHILDREN, AFTER HAVING HAD HIS PORTRAIT TAKEN FOR THEM.

THIS semblance of your parent's time-worn face
Is but a sad bequest, my children dear:
Its youth and freshness gone, and in their place
The lines of care, the tracks of many a tear!
Amid life's wreck, we struggle to secure

Some floating fragment from oblivion's wave:
We pant for something that may still endure,

And snatch at least a shadow from the grave.
Poor, weak, and transient mortals! why so vain
Of manly vigour, or of beauty's bloom?
An empty shade for ages may remain

When we have moulder'd in the silent tomb.
But no! it is not we who moulder there,

We, of essential light that ever burns;
We take our way through untried fields of air,
When to the earth this earth-born frame returns.

* CLEMENT C. MOORE, formerly one of the professors in Columbia College, resides in New York. Most of his poems were composed many years ago.

And 'tis the glory of the master's art.

Some radiance of this inward light to find,
Some touch that to his canvass may impart

475

A breath, a sparkle of the immortal mind.
Alas! the pencil's noblest power can show
But some faint shadow of a transient thought,
Some waken'd feeling's momentary glow,
Some swift impression in its passage caught.
O that the artist's pencil could portray

A father's inward bosom to your eyes,
What hopes, and fears, and doubts perplex his way,
What aspirations for your welfare rise.
Then might this unsubstantial image prove,
When I am gone, a guardian of your youth,
A friend for ever urging you to move
In paths of honour, holiness, and truth.
Let fond imagination's power supply

The void that baffles all the painter's art;
And when those mimic features meet your eye,
Then fancy that they speak a parent's heart.
Think that you still can trace within those eyes
The kindling of affection's fervid beam,
The searching glance that every fault espies,
The fond anticipation's pleasing dream.
Fancy those lips still utter sounds of praise,

Or kind reproof that checks each wayward will,
The warning voice, or precepts that may raise
Your thoughts above this treacherous world of ill.
And thus shall Art attain her loftiest power;
To noblest purpose shall her efforts tend:
Not the companion of an idle hour,

But Virtue's handmaid and Religion's friend.

F. S. KEY.*

THE STAR-SPANGLED BANNER.

O! SAY, can you see, by the dawn's early light, What so proudly we hail'd at the twilight's last gleaming;

Whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the perilous fight,

O'er the ramparts we watch'd, were so gallantly
streaming?

And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still

there;

O! say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
On the shore,dimly seen through the mists of the deep,
Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence

reposes,

What is that which the breeze o'er the towering steep

As it fitfully blows, half-conceals, half-discloses? Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam; Its full glory reflected now shines on the stream; 'Tis the star-spangled banner, O! long may it wave O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

FRANCIS S. KEY is a native of Baltimore. This song is supposed to have been written by a prisoner on board the British fleet, on the morning after the unsuccessful bombardment of Fort McHenry.

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The Poets and Poetry of America: With an Historical Introduction