Vines, with tenacious fibres, high
Clomb o'er those rocks luxuriantly;
Oft o'er their rugged masses gray,
With rustling breeze the wild flowers play;
While at the base their purple hues,
Impearled with morning's glittering dews,
Bloomed round the pile of rifted stone,
Which, as in semblance of a throne,
The hand of Nature there had placed;
And rambling wild, where lower still
Bubbled and welled a sparkling rill,
These simple flowers its margin graced.
Clear as the brightest steel to view,
Thro' mossy turf of greenest hue,
Its lymph that gushing fountain spread :-
And still though ages since have sped,
That little spring is seen;
It bears his name whose deeds of dread
Disturbed its margin green;
As pure, as full, its waters rise,
While those who once its peace profaned,
Have past, and to the stranger's eyes
Nor trace nor memory hath remained.'
The three succeeding passages have a felicity of colouring, which could be attained by none who had not 'looked round on Nature with the eye which Nature bestows only on a poet.'
The first is a description of a bright summer morning, with which the poem opens. pp. 7-10.
The morning air was freshly breathing,
The morning mists were wildly wreathing;
Day's earliest beams were kindling o'er
The wood-crowned hills and murmuring shore.
'Twas summer; and the forests threw
Their chequered shapes of varying hue,
In mingling, changeful shadows seen,
O'er hill and bank, and headland green.
Blithe birds were carolling on high
Their matin music to the sky,
As glanced their brilliant hues along,
Filling the groves with life and song;
All innocent and wild and free
Their sweet, ethereal minstrelsy.
The dew drop sparkled on the spray,
Danced on the wave the inconstant ray;
And moody grief, with dark control,
There only swayed the human soul!
With equal swell, above the flood,
The forest-cinctured mountain stood;
Its eastward cliffs, a rampart wild—
Rock above rock sublimely piled.
What scenes of beauty met his eye,
The watchful sentinel on high!
With all its isles and inlets lay
Beneath, the calm, majestic bay;
Like molten gold, all glittering spread,
Where the clear sun his influence shed:
In wreathy, crisped brilliance borne,
While laughed the radiance of the morn.
Round rocks, that from the headlands far
Their barriers reared, with murmuring war,
The chafing stream, in eddying play,
Fretted and dashed its foamy spray;
Along the shelving sands its swell
With hushed and equal cadence fell ;
And here, beneath the whispering grove,
Ran rippling in the shadowy cove.
Thy thickets with their liveliest hue,
Aquetnet green! were fair to view;
Far curved the winding shore, where rose
Pocasset's hills in calm repose;
Or where descending rivers gave
Their tribute to the ampler wave.
Emerging frequent from the tide,
Scarce noticed mid its waters wide,
Lay flushed with morning's roseate smile,
The gay bank of some little isle;
Where the lone heron plumed his wing,
Or spread it as in act to spring,
Yet paused, as if delight it gave
To bend above the glorious wave.
Where northward spread the unbounded scene,
Oft, in the valley's bosom green,
The hamlets' mouldering ruins showed,
Where war with dæmon brand had strode.
By prostrate hedge and fence o'erthrown,
And fields by blackening hillocks known,
And leafless tree, and scattered stone,
The midnight murderer's work was shown:
Oft melting in the distant view
The cot sent up its incense blue,
VOL. II.
8
As yet unwrapt by hostile fire;
And, mid its trees, some rustic spire,
A peaceful signal, told that there
Was sought the God of peace in prayer.
The WAMPANOAG from the height
Of Haup, who strained his anxious sight,
To mark if foes their covert trace,
Beheld, and curst the Christian race!'
The next is a morning, of different aspect. p. 236.
'Sad rose the morning; not in bloom
Awakening radiant from the gloom;
All nature gladdening as it spread,
And light and life, and glory shed;
Not sporting on the gentle gale,
That floats o'er stream and dewy vale;
Not bursting mid the kindling heaven,
Its hues in gold and purple given ;—
For now, in dreary twilight lay
The scene beneath its mantle
Mute was the melody of morn,
And hushed was nature's harp forloru.
Alone, above the vaporous clouds,
That hung, with mournful hue, like shrouds,
O'er every distant peak,
Rose a faint line, as morning here
Thro' the dark hosts her flag would rear,
The coming day to speak.
Purple it seemed, yet lost and blending,
With the dull hues around ascending;
And a soft roseate tint was seen,
At intervals, the shades between;
As changeful, as unfixed it spread,
As the last bloom, ere life has fled.
But as the light of day uprose,
Those transient tints of beauty close;
In volumes dense, o'er earth and main,
Descend the wreathing mists again;
Pocasset's long and verdant coast
In that unwelcome veil was lost,
With sweep of hills and forests wide,
And sparkling waves between that glide;
Where, glancing o'er the sunny isles,
That stud the water's dimpling smiles,
The eye might ocean's breast explore,
Or scan the western streams that pour
Their tides on Narraganset's shore;
Or upward, to Patuxet's side,
Extend the tribute of their pride.
But now the scene had narrow bound,
And scarce the mountain's base beyond,
Was aught distinctly seen;
Strange were the shapes that seemed to rise
Imperfectly upon the eyes;
And wildered fancy here might form
The awful spirit of the storm,
In all his terrors drest;
Stretching his giant arms abroad,
And throned where footsteps never trod;
Or high in gloomy car upborne,
Rushing to combat with the morn,
Upon the tempest's breast.'
The third is an exquisite picture of an evening scene. p. 56
'The sun is sinking from the sky
In calm and cloudless majesty;
And cooler hours with gentle sway,
Succeed the fiery heat of day.
Forest and shore and rippling tide
Confess the evening's influence wide,
Seen lovelier in that fading light,
That heralds the approaching night;
That magic colouring nature throws,
To deck her beautiful repose ;-
When floating on the breeze of even,
Long clouds of purple streak the heaven,
With brigher tints of glory blending,
And darker hues of night descending.
While hastening to its shady rest
Each weary songster seeks its nest,
Chanting a last, a farewell lay,
As gloomier falls the parting day.
Broad Narraganset's bosom blue
Has shone with every varying hue;
The mystic alchemy of even
Its rich delusions all has given.
The silvery sheet unbounded spread,
First melting from the waters fled;
Next the wide path of beaten gold
Flashing with fiery sparkles rolled ;—
As all its gorgeous glories died,
An amber tinge blushed o'er the tide;
Faint and more faint, as more remote,
The lessening ripples peaceful float;
And now, one ruby line alone
Trembles, is paler, and is gone,-
And from the blue wave fades away
The last life-tint of dying day?
In darkness veiled, was seen no more
Connanicut's extended shore;
Each little isle with bosom green,
Descending mists impervious screen;
One gloomy shade o'er all the woods
Of forest-fringed Aquetnet broods;
Where solemn oak was seen before
Beside the rival sycamore,
Or pine and cedar lined the height,
All in one livery brown were dight.
But lo! with orb serene on high,
The round moon climbs the eastern sky;
The stars all quench their feebler rays
Before her universal blaze.
Round moon! how sweetly dost thou smile,
Above that green reposing isle,
-Soft cradled in the illumined bay,
Where from its bank the shadows seem Melting in filmy light away.
Far does thy tempered lustre stream,
Chequering the tufted groves on high,
While glens in gloom beneath them lie,
Oft sheeted with the ghostly beam,
Mid the thick forest's mass of shade.
The shingled roof is gleaming white,
Where labour, in the cultured glade,
Has all the wild a garden made.
And there with silvery tassels bright
The serried maize is waving slow,
While fitful shadows come and go,
Swift o'er its undulating seas,
As gently breathes the evening breeze,
Solemn it is, in greenwoods deep,
That magic light o'er nature's sleep;
Where in long ranks the pillars gray
Aloft their mingling structures bear,—
Mingling, in gloom or tracery fair,
Where find the unbroken beams their way,-
Or through close trellis flickering stray,
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