WHERE LIVES THE SOUL OF POETRY. 293
That roars a dismal warning to the bark,
And lingers where volcanic mountains throw
A burning deluge on the vale below.
Where lives the soul of poetry? Dark caves
Worn by the foamy buffeting of waves;
The blue abysses of the moaning sea,
Where coral insects fashion dome and tree,
And mermaids chant, by mortal eye unseen,
And comb in sparry halls their tresses green;
The broad savanna, where the bison strays,
And come in herds the fallow deer to graze;
The mossy forest, far from haunts of men,
Where the wild wolf prepares his savage den;
The giant Andes, round whose frosty peaks
The tempest hovers and the condor shrieks.
Cold, cheerless Greenland, where the ice-berg hoar
Strikes with a deafening crash the barren shore,
While roves the white fox, and the polar bear,
In quest of prey, forsakes his icy lair;
Bright tropic bowers, within whose depths of green,
The pard and savage tiger lurk unseen,
Where the fierce scales of deadly reptiles shine,
While round the trunks of giant palms they twine;
The spicy groves of Araby the blest,
In fadeless robes of bloom and verdure drest;
294 WHERE LIVES THE SOUL OF POETRY.
Where birds of gorgeous plumage perch and sing,
In varied strains, or wander on the wing;
Romantic Persia, where the dulcet lay
Of the glad Peri never dies away,
Where the light pinions of the wooing wind
Fan the young leaves of date or tamarind,
While nightingales amid the branches throng,
And own the presence of the soul of song.
The rich warm hues that flush the western cloud,
When yellow twilight weaves her glorious shroud;
The babbling cascade that descends in foam,
And flashes beauty from its rocky home;
The mingling tones of laughing earth and air,
When Morn braids purple in her golden hair;
The dance of leaves, the lulling fall of rain,
The river on its journey to the main ;
The quiet lakes that spread their sheets of blue,
A sweet enchantment lending to the view.
The fierce tornado, parent of dismay,
Uprooting sylvan giants in his way;
The lulling winds of summer, or the blast
That howls a requiem when the leaf is cast;
The pearly moonshine of an autumn night,
When glen and glade are bathed in spectral light;
The lawn of spring, with varied flowers inwrought,
Are the pure nurses of poetic thought.
west! the west! turn to the lighted west! _t crimson wonders break upon us there! drooping sun, slow sinking to his rest,
Is the red hectic on the cheek of airp of destruction—herald of decay,
se feverish bloom proclaims the death of day.
e's holiday above, and all the clouds,
la robes, the sunbeams sport among;
on upon festoon entwining, crowds,
all the drapery of heaven is hung-
far away the ruddy masses break
gy waves, like some illumined lake.
Glows in gradation, as the eye goes down, Of purple, crimson, scarlet, orange, gold— Intensest gold!-Where blinding to the sigh The molten sun swims in a sea of light!
Not in the West alone, the bloom is spreadThe envious East is burning at the sight; Men's faces glare with the unnatural red, And twinkling waves rejoice with living ligh Fortress, and spire, and Hudson's glancing s To the broad blaze flash back an answering
Frail flower of beauty! how thy hues
Ev'n as I gaze they melt in air away-
The gold grows crimson, and the crimson br
Till tint by tint, relapses into gray!
Of Beauty's daughters such the fearful doom
Such the brief triumph, and the lasting gloon
EVE o'er our path is stealing fast;
Yon quivering splendours are the last
The sun will fling, to tremble o'er
The waves that kiss the opposing shore;
His latest glories fringe the height
Behind us, with their golden light.
The mountain's mirrored outline fades
Amid the fast extending shades;
Its shaggy bulk, in sterner pride,
Towers, as the gloom steals o'er the tide; For the great stream a bulwark meet That leaves its rock-encumbered feet.
River and Mountain! though to song
Not yet, perchance, your names belong;
Those who have loved your evening hues,
Will ask not the recording Muse,
What antique tales she can relate,
Your banks and steeps to consecrate.
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