Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant Part 8

SONG.

Dost thou idly ask to hear At what gentle seasons Nymphs relent, when lovers near Press the tenderest reasons?

Ah, they give their faith too oft To the careless wooer; Maidens' hearts are always soft: Would that men's were truer!

Woo the fair one when around Early birds are singing; When, o'er all the fragrant ground, Early herbs are springing: When the brookside, bank, and grove, All with blossoms laden, Shine with beauty, breathe of love,-- Woo the timid maiden.

Woo her when, with rosy blush, Summer eve is sinking; When, on rills that softly gush, Stars are softly winking; When through boughs that knit the bower Moonlight gleams are stealing; Woo her, till the gentle hour Wake a gentler feeling.

Woo her when autumnal dyes Tinge the woody mountain; When the dropping foliage lies In the weedy fountain; Let the scene, that tells how fast Youth is pa.s.sing over, Warn her, ere her bloom is past, To secure her lover.

Woo her when the north winds call At the lattice nightly; When, within the cheerful hall, Blaze the f.a.gots brightly; While the wintry tempest round Sweeps the landscape h.o.a.ry, Sweeter in her ear shall sound Love's delightful story.

HYMN OF THE WALDENSES.

Hear, Father, hear thy faint afflicted flock Cry to thee, from the desert and the rock; While those, who seek to slay thy children, hold Blasphemous worship under roofs of gold; And the broad goodly lands, with pleasant airs That nurse the grape and wave the grain, are theirs.

Yet better were this mountain wilderness, And this wild life of danger and distress-- Watchings by night and perilous flight by day, And meetings in the depths of earth to pray-- Better, far better, than to kneel with them, And pay the impious rite thy laws condemn.

Thou, Lord, dost hold the thunder; the firm land Tosses in billows when it feels thy hand; Thou dashest nation against nation, then Stillest the angry world to peace again.

Oh, touch their stony hearts who hunt thy sons-- The murderers of our wives and little ones.

Yet, mighty G.o.d, yet shall thy frown look forth Unveiled, and terribly shall shake the earth.

Then the foul power of priestly sin and all Its long-upheld idolatries shall fall.

Thou shalt raise up the trampled and oppressed, And thy delivered saints shall dwell in rest.

MONUMENT MOUNTAIN.

Thou who wouldst see the lovely and the wild Mingled in harmony on Nature's face, Ascend our rocky mountains. Let thy foot Fail not with weariness, for on their tops The beauty and the majesty of earth, Spread wide beneath, shall make thee to forget The steep and toilsome way. There, as thou stand'st, The haunts of men below thee, and around The mountain-summits, thy expanding heart Shall feel a kindred with that loftier world To which thou art translated, and partake The enlargement of thy vision. Thou shalt look Upon the green and rolling forest-tops, And down into the secrets of the glens, And streams that with their bordering thickets strive To hide their windings. Thou shalt gaze, at once, Here on white villages, and tilth, and herds, And swarming roads, and there on solitudes That only hear the torrent, and the wind, And eagle's shriek. There is a precipice That seems a fragment of some mighty wall, Built by the hand that fashioned the old world, To separate its nations, and thrown down When the flood drowned them. To the north, a path Conducts you up the narrow battlement.

Steep is the western side, s.h.a.ggy and wild With mossy trees, and pinnacles of flint, And many a hanging crag. But, to the east, Sheer to the vale go down the bare old cliffs-- Huge pillars, that in middle heaven upbear Their weather-beaten capitals, here dark With moss, the growth of centuries, and there Of chalky whiteness where the thunderbolt Has splintered them. It is a fearful thing To stand upon the beetling verge, and see Where storm and lightning, from that huge gray wall, Have tumbled down vast blocks, and at the base Dashed them in fragments, and to lay thine ear Over the dizzy depth, and hear the sound Of winds, that struggle with the woods below, Come up like ocean murmurs. But the scene Is lovely round; a beautiful river there Wanders amid the fresh and fertile meads, The paradise he made unto himself, Mining the soil for ages. On each side The fields swell upward to the hills; beyond, Above the hills, in the blue distance, rise The mountain-columns with which earth props heaven.

There is a tale about these reverend rocks, A sad tradition of unhappy love, And sorrows borne and ended, long ago, When over these fair vales the savage sought His game in the thick woods. There was a maid, The fairest of the Indian maids, bright-eyed, With wealth of raven tresses, a light form, And a gay heart. About her cabin-door The wide old woods resounded with her song And fairy laughter all the summer day.

She loved her cousin; such a love was deemed, By the morality of those stern tribes, Incestuous, and she struggled hard and long Against her love, and reasoned with her heart, As simple Indian maiden might. In vain.

Then her eye lost its l.u.s.tre, and her step Its lightness, and the gray-haired men that pa.s.sed Her dwelling, wondered that they heard no more The accustomed song and laugh of her, whose looks Were like the cheerful smile of Spring, they said, Upon the Winter of their age. She went To weep where no eye saw, and was not found Where all the merry girls were met to dance, And all the hunters of the tribe were out; Nor when they gathered from the rustling husk The shining ear; nor when, by the river's side, They pulled the grape and startled the wild shades With sounds of mirth. The keen-eyed Indian dames Would whisper to each other, as they saw Her wasting form, and say, _The girl will die_.

One day into the bosom of a friend, A playmate of her young and innocent years, She poured her griefs. "Thou know'st, and thou alone,"

She said, "for I have told thee, all my love, And guilt, and sorrow. I am sick of life.

All night I weep in darkness, and the morn Glares on me, as upon a thing accursed, That has no business on the earth. I hate The pastimes and the pleasant toils that once I loved; the cheerful voices of my friends Sound in my ear like mockings, and, at night, In dreams, my mother, from the land of souls, Calls me and chides me. All that look on me Do seem to know my shame; I cannot bear Their eyes; I cannot from my heart root out The love that wrings it so, and I must die."

It was a summer morning, and they went To this old precipice. About the cliffs Lay garlands, ears of maize, and s.h.a.ggy skins Of wolf and bear, the offerings of the tribe Here made to the Great Spirit, for they deemed, Like worshippers of the elder time, that G.o.d Doth walk on the high places and affect The earth-o'erlooking mountains. She had on The ornaments with which her father loved To deck the beauty of his bright-eyed girl, And bade her wear when stranger warriors came To be his guests. Here the friends sat them down, And sang, all day, old songs of love and death, And decked the poor wan victim's hair with flowers, And prayed that safe and swift might be her way To the calm world of sunshine, where no grief Makes the heart heavy and the eyelids red.

Beautiful lay the region of her tribe Below her--waters resting in the embrace Of the wide forest, and maize-planted glades Opening amid the leafy wilderness.

She gazed upon it long, and at the sight Of her own village peeping through the trees, And her own dwelling, and the cabin roof Of him she loved with an unlawful love, And came to die for, a warm gush of tears Ran from her eyes. But when the sun grew low And the hill shadows long, she threw herself From the steep rock and perished. There was scooped, Upon the mountain's southern slope, a grave; And there they laid her, in the very garb With which the maiden decked herself for death, With the same withering wild-flowers in her hair.

And o'er the mould that covered her, the tribe Built up a simple monument, a cone Of small loose stones. Thenceforward all who pa.s.sed, Hunter, and dame, and virgin, laid a stone In silence on the pile. It stands there yet.

And Indians from the distant West, who come To visit where their fathers' bones are laid, Yet tell the sorrowful tale, and to this day The mountain where the hapless maiden died Is called the Mountain of the Monument.

AFTER A TEMPEST.

The day had been a day of wind and storm, The wind was laid, the storm was overpast, And stooping from the zenith, bright and warm, Shone the great sun on the wide earth at last.

I stood upon the upland slope, and cast Mine eye upon a broad and beauteous scene, Where the vast plain lay girt by mountains vast, And hills o'er hills lifted their heads of green, With pleasant vales scooped out and villages between.

The rain-drops glistened on the trees around, Whose shadows on the tall gra.s.s were not stirred, Save when a shower of diamonds, to the ground, Was shaken by the flight of startled bird; For birds were warbling round, and bees were heard About the flowers; the cheerful rivulet sung And gossiped, as he hastened oceanward; To the gray oak the squirrel, chiding, clung, And chirping from the ground the gra.s.shopper upsprung.

And from beneath the leaves that kept them dry Flew many a glittering insect here and there, And darted up and down the b.u.t.terfly, That seemed a living blossom of the air, The flocks came scattering from the thicket, where The violent rain had pent them; in the way Strolled groups of damsels frolicsome and fair; The farmer swung the scythe or turned the hay, And 'twixt the heavy swaths his children were at play.

It was a scene of peace--and, like a spell, Did that serene and golden sunlight fall Upon the motionless wood that clothed the fell, And precipice upspringing like a wall, And gla.s.sy river and white waterfall, And happy living things that trod the bright And beauteous scene; while far beyond them all, On many a lovely valley, out of sight, Was poured from the blue heavens the same soft golden light.

I looked, and thought the quiet of the scene An emblem of the peace that yet shall be, When o'er earth's continents, and isles between, The noise of war shall cease from sea to sea, And married nations dwell in harmony; When millions, crouching in the dust to one, No more shall beg their lives on bended knee, Nor the black stake be dressed, nor in the sun The o'erlabored captive toil, and wish his life were done.

Too long, at clash of arms amid her bowers And pools of blood, the earth has stood aghast, The fair earth, that should only blush with flowers And ruddy fruits; but not for aye can last The storm, and sweet the sunshine when 'tis past.

Lo, the clouds roll away--they break--they fly, And, like the glorious light of summer, cast O'er the wide landscape from the embracing sky, On all the peaceful world the smile of heaven shall lie.

AUTUMN WOODS.

Ere, in the northern gale, The summer tresses of the trees are gone, The woods of Autumn, all around our vale, Have put their glory on.

The mountains that infold, In their wide sweep, the colored landscape round, Seem groups of giant kings, in purple and gold, That guard the enchanted ground.

I roam the woods that crown The uplands, where the mingled splendors glow, Where the gay company of trees look down On the green fields below.

My steps are not alone In these bright walks; the sweet southwest, at play, Flies, rustling, where the painted leaves are strown Along the winding way.

And far in heaven, the while, The sun, that sends that gale to wander here, Pours out on the fair earth his quiet smile-- The sweetest of the year.

Where now the solemn shade, Verdure and gloom where many branches meet; So grateful, when the noon of summer made The valleys sick with heat?

Let in through all the trees Come the strange rays; the forest depths are bright; Their sunny colored foliage, in the breeze, Twinkles, like beams of light.

The rivulet, late unseen, Where bickering through the shrubs its waters run, Shines with the image of its golden screen, And glimmerings of the sun.