Choice Specimens of American Literature, and Literary Reader Part 49

=_Charles Sprague, 1791-._= (Manual, p. 514.)

From "Curiosity."

=_334._= THE NEWSPAPER.

Turn to the Press--its teeming sheets survey, Big with the wonders of each pa.s.sing day; Births, deaths, and weddings, forgeries, fires, and wrecks, Harangues and hailstorms, brawls and broken necks; Where half-fledged bards, on feeble pinions, seek An immortality of near a week; Where cruel eulogists the dead restore, In maudlin praise, to martyr them once more; Where ruffian slanderers wreak their coward spite, And need no venomed dagger while they write.

Yet, sweet or bitter, hence what fountains burst, While still the more we drink the more we thirst.

Trade hardly deems the busy day begun Till his keen eye along the page has run; The blooming daughter throws her needle by, And reads her schoolmate's marriage with a sigh; While the grave mother puts her gla.s.ses on, And gives a tear to some old crony gone.

The preacher, too, his Sunday theme lays down.

To know what last new folly fills the town.

Lively or sad, life's meanest, mightiest things, The fate of fighting c.o.c.ks, or fighting kings-- Nought comes amiss; we take the nauseous stuff, Verjuice or oil, a libel or a puff.

=_Lydia H. Sigourney, 1791-1865._= (Manual, pp. 484, 523.)

=_335._= THE WIDOW AT HER DAUGHTER'S BRIDAL.

Deal gently, thou whose hand hath won The young bird from its nest away, Where, careless, 'neath a vernal sun, She gayly carolled day by day; The haunt is lone, the heart must grieve, From where her timid wing doth soar They pensive lisp at hush of eve, Yet hear her gushing song no more.

Deal gently with her; thou art dear, Beyond what vestal lips have told, And, like a lamb from fountains clear, She turns, confiding, to thy fold.

She round thy sweet, domestic bower The wreath of changeless love shall twine, Watch for thy step at vesper hour, And blend her holiest prayer with thine.

Deal gently, thou, when, far away, 'Mid stranger scenes her foot shall rove, Nor let thy tender care decay; The soul of woman lives in love.

And shouldst thou, wondering, mark a tear, Unconscious, from her eyelids break, Be pitiful, and soothe the fear That man's strong heart may ne'er partake.

A mother yields her gem to thee, On thy true breast to sparkle rare; She places 'neath thy household tree The idol of her fondest care; And, by thy trust to be forgiven When judgment wakes in terror wild, By all thy treasured hopes of heaven, Deal gently with the widow's child.

=_William O. Sutler,[80] 1793-._=

From "The Boatman's Horn."

=_336._=

O Boatman, wind that horn again; For never did the listening air Upon its lambent bosom bear So wild, so soft, so sweet a strain.

What though thy notes are sad and few, By, every simple boatman blown?

Yet is each pulse to nature true, And melody in every tone.

How oft, in boyhood's joyous day, Unmindful of the lapsing hours, I've loitered on my homeward way, By wild Ohio's bank of flowers, While some lone boatman from the deck Poured his soft numbers to that tide, As if to charm from storm and wreck The boat where all his fortunes ride!

Delighted Nature drank the sound, Enchanted Echo bore it round In whispers soft and softer still, From hill to plain, and plain to hill.

[Footnote 80: A native of Kentucky; a favorite Western poet; at one time prominent as a politician.]

=_337._= THE BATTLE-FIELD OF RAISIN.

The battle's o'er; the din is past; Night's mantle on the field is cast; The Indian yell is heard no more; The silence broods o'er Erie's sh.o.r.e.

At this lone hour I go to tread The field where valor vainly bled; To raise the wounded warrior's crest, Or warm with tears his icy breast; To treasure up his last command, And bear it to his native land.

It may one pulse of joy impart To a fond mother's bleeding heart, Or, for a moment, it may dry The tear-drop in the widow's eye.

Vain hopes, away! The widow ne'er Her warrior's dying wish shall hear.

The pa.s.sing zephyr bears no sigh; No wounded warrior meets the eye; Death is his sleep by Erie's wave; Of Raisin's snow we heap his grave.

How many hopes lie buried here-- The mother's joy, the father's pride, The country's boast, the foeman's fear, In 'wildered havoc, side by side!

Lend me, thou silent queen of night, Lend me a while thy waning light, That I may see each well-loved form That sank beneath the morning storm.

=_William Cullen Bryant, 1794-._= (Manual, pp. 487, 524.)

From his "Poems."

=_338._= LINES TO A WATER FOWL.

Whither, midst falling dew, While glow the heavens with the last steps of day, Far through their rosy depths dost thou pursue Thy solitary way?

Vainly the fowler's eye Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong, As, darkly seen against the crimson sky, Thy figure floats along.

Seek'st thou the plashy brink Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide, Or where the rocking billows rise and sink On the chafed ocean side?

There is a Power whose care Teaches thy way along that pathless coast,-- The desert and illimitable air,-- Lone wandering, but not lost.

All day thy wings have fanned, At that far height, the cold, thin atmosphere, Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land, Though the dark night is near.

And soon that toil shall end, Soon shalt thou find a summer home and rest, And scream among thy fellows; reeds shall bend Soon, o'er thy sheltered nest.

Thou'rt gone; the abyss of heaven Hath swallowed up thy form; yet on my heart Deeply hath sunk the lesson thou hast given, And shall not soon depart.

He who, from zone to zone, Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight, In the long way that I must tread alone, Will lead my steps aright.

From "The Antiquity of Freedom."

=_339._= FREEDOM IRREPRESSIBLE.

O Freedom, thou art not, as poets dream, A fair, young girl, with light and delicate limbs, And wavy tresses gushing from the cap With which the Roman master crowned his slave When he took off the gyves. A bearded man, Armed to the teeth, art thou; one mailed hand Grasps the broad shield, and one the sword; thy brow, Glorious in beauty though it be, is scarred With tokens of old wars; thy ma.s.sive limbs Are strong with struggling. Power at thee has launched His bolts, and with his lightnings smitten thee.

They could not quench the life thou hast from heaven.

Merciless power has dug thy dungeon deep, And his swart armorers, by a thousand fires, Have forged thy chain; yet, while he deems thee bound, The links are shivered, and the prison walls Fall outward; terribly thou springest forth, As springs the flame above a burning pile, And shoutest to the nations, who return Thy shoutings, while the pale oppressor flies.