Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant Part 25

THE HUNTER OF THE PRAIRIES.

Ay, this is freedom!--these pure skies Were never stained with village smoke: The fragrant wind, that through them flies, Is breathed from wastes by plough unbroke.

Here, with my rifle and my steed, And her who left the world for me, I plant me, where the red deer feed In the green desert--and am free.

For here the fair savannas know No barriers in the bloomy gra.s.s; Wherever breeze of heaven may blow, Or beam of heaven may glance, I pa.s.s.

In pastures, measureless as air, The bison is my n.o.ble game; The bounding elk, whose antlers tear The branches, falls before my aim.

Mine are the river-fowl that scream From the long stripe of waving sedge; The bear that marks my weapon's gleam, Hides vainly in the forest's edge; In vain the she-wolf stands at bay; The brinded catamount, that lies High in the boughs to watch his prey, Even in the act of springing, dies.

With what free growth the elm and plane Fling their huge arms across my way, Gray, old, and c.u.mbered with a train Of vines, as huge, and old, and gray!

Free stray the lucid streams, and find No taint in these fresh lawns and shades; Free spring the flowers that scent the wind Where never scythe has swept the glades.

Alone the Fire, when frost-winds sere The heavy herbage of the ground, Gathers his annual harvest here, With roaring like the battle's sound, And hurrying flames that sweep the plain, And smoke-streams gushing up the sky: I meet the flames with flames again, And at my door they cower and die.

Here, from dim woods, the aged past Speaks solemnly; and I behold The boundless future in the vast And lonely river, seaward rolled.

Who feeds its founts with rain and dew?

Who moves, I ask, its gliding ma.s.s, And trains the bordering vines, whose blue Bright cl.u.s.ters tempt me as I pa.s.s?

Broad are these streams--my steed obeys, Plunges, and bears me through the tide.

Wide are these woods--I thread the maze Of giant stems, nor ask a guide.

I hunt till day's last glimmer dies O'er woody vale and gra.s.sy height; And kind the voice and glad the eyes That welcome my return at night.

SEVENTY-SIX.

What heroes from the woodland sprung, When, through the fresh-awakened land, The thrilling cry of freedom rung, And to the work of warfare strung The yeoman's iron hand!

Hills flung the cry to hills around, And ocean-mart replied to mart, And streams, whose springs were yet unfound, Pealed far away the startling sound Into the forest's heart.

Then marched the brave from rocky steep, From mountain-river swift and cold; The borders of the stormy deep, The vales where gathered waters sleep, Sent up the strong and bold,--

As if the very earth again Grew quick with G.o.d's creating breath, And, from the sods of grove and glen, Rose ranks of lion-hearted men To battle to the death.

The wife, whose babe first smiled that day, The fair fond bride of yestereve, And aged sire and matron gray, Saw the loved warriors haste away, And deemed it sin to grieve.

Already had the strife begun; Already blood, on Concord's plain, Along the springing gra.s.s had run, And blood had flowed at Lexington, Like brooks of April rain.

That death-stain on the vernal sward Hallowed to freedom all the sh.o.r.e; In fragments fell the yoke abhorred-- The footstep of a foreign lord Profaned the soil no more.

THE LIVING LOST.

Matron! the children of whose love, Each to his grave, in youth have pa.s.sed; And now the mould is heaped above The dearest and the last!

Bride! who dost wear the widow's veil Before the wedding flowers are pale!

Ye deem the human heart endures No deeper, bitterer grief than yours.

Yet there are pangs of keener woe, Of which the sufferers never speak, Nor to the world's cold pity show The tears that scald the cheek, Wrung from their eyelids by the shame And guilt of those they shrink to name, Whom once they loved with cheerful will, And love, though fallen and branded, still.

Weep, ye who sorrow for the dead, Thus breaking hearts their pain relieve, And reverenced are the tears they shed, And honored ye who grieve.

The praise of those who sleep in earth, The pleasant memory of their worth, The hope to meet when life is past, Shall heal the tortured mind at last.

But ye, who for the living lost That agony in secret bear, Who shall with soothing words accost The strength of your despair?

Grief for your sake is scorn for them Whom ye lament and all condemn; And o'er the world of spirits lies A gloom from which ye turn your eyes.

CATTERSKILL FALLS.

Midst greens and shades the Catterskill leaps, From cliffs where the wood-flower clings; All summer he moistens his verdant steeps, With the sweet light spray of the mountain-springs, And he shakes the woods on the mountain-side, When they drip with the rains of autumn-tide.

But when, in the forest bare and old, The blast of December calls, He builds, in the starlight clear and cold, A palace of ice where his torrent falls, With turret, and arch, and fretwork fair, And pillars blue as the summer air.

For whom are those glorious chambers wrought, In the cold and cloudless night?

Is there neither spirit nor motion of thought In forms so lovely, and hues so bright?

Hear what the gray-haired woodmen tell Of this wild stream and its rocky dell.

'Twas. .h.i.ther a youth of dreamy mood, A hundred winters ago, Had wandered over the mighty wood, When the panther's track was fresh on the snow, And keen were the winds that came to stir The long dark boughs of the hemlock-fir.

Too gentle of mien he seemed and fair, For a child of those rugged steeps; His home lay low in the valley where The kingly Hudson rolls to the deeps; But he wore the hunter's frock that day, And a slender gun on his shoulder lay.

And here he paused, and against the trunk Of a tall gray linden leant, When the broad clear orb of the sun had sunk, From his path in the frosty firmament, And over the round dark edge of the hill A cold green light was quivering still.

And the crescent moon, high over the green, From a sky of crimson shone, On that icy palace, whose towers were seen To sparkle as if with stars of their own, While the water fell with a hollow sound, 'Twixt the glistening pillars ranged around.

Is that a being of life, that moves Where the crystal battlements rise?

A maiden watching the moon she loves, At the twilight hour, with pensive eyes?

Was that a garment which seemed to gleam Betwixt the eye and the falling stream?

'Tis only the torrent tumbling o'er, In the midst of those gla.s.sy walls, Gushing, and plunging, and beating the floor Of the rocky basin in which it falls.

'Tis only the torrent--but why that start?

Why gazes the youth with a throbbing heart?

He thinks no more of his home afar, Where his sire and sister wait.

He heeds no longer how star after star Looks forth on the night as the hour grows late.

He heeds not the snow-wreaths, lifted and cast From a thousand boughs, by the rising blast.

His thoughts are alone of those who dwell In the halls of frost and snow, Who pa.s.s where the crystal domes upswell From the alabaster floors below, Where the frost-trees shoot with leaf and spray, And frost-gems scatter a silvery day.

"And oh that those glorious haunts were mine!"

He speaks, and throughout the glen Thin shadows swim in the faint moonshine, And take a ghastly likeness of men, As if the slain by the wintry storms Came forth to the air in their earthly forms.