Selections from American poetry Part 9

Oh, but a weary wight was he When he reached the foot of the dog-wood tree.

Gashed and wounded, and stiff and sore, He laid him down on the sandy sh.o.r.e; He blessed the force of the charmed line, And he banned the water-goblins spite, For he saw around in the sweet moonshine Their little wee faces above the brine, Giggling and laughing with all their might At the piteous hap of the Fairy wight.

Soon he gathered the balsam dew From the sorrel-leaf and the henbane bud; Over each wound the balm he drew, And with cobweb lint he stanched the blood.

The mild west wind was soft and low; It cooled the heat of his burning brow, And he felt new life in his sinews shoot As he drank the juice of the calamus root.

And now he treads the fatal sh.o.r.e As fresh and vigorous as before.

Wrapped in musing stands the sprite 'Tis the middle wane of night; His task is hard, his way is far, But he must do his errand right Ere dawning mounts her beamy car, And rolls her chariot wheels of light; And vain are the spells of fairy-land, He must work with a human hand.

He cast a saddened look around; But he felt new joy his bosom swell, When glittering on the shadowed ground He saw a purple mussel-sh.e.l.l; Thither he ran, and he bent him low, He heaved at the stern and he heaved at the bow, And he pushed her over the yielding sand Till he came; to the verge of the haunted land.

She was as lovely a pleasure-boat As ever fairy had paddled in, For she glowed with purple paint without, And shone with silvery pearl within A sculler's notch in the stern he made, An oar he shaped of the bootle-blade; Then sprung to his seat with a lightsome leap, And launched afar on the calm, blue deep.

The imps of the river yell and rave They had no power above the wave, But they heaved the billow before the prow, And they dashed the surge against her side, And they struck her keel with jerk and blow, Till the gunwale bent to the rocking tide.

She wimpled about to the pale moonbeam, Like a feather that floats on a wind-tossed stream; And momently athwart her track The quad upreared his island back, And the fluttering scallop behind would float, And patter the water about the boat; But he bailed her out with his colon-bell, And he kept her trimmed with a wary tread, While on every side like lightning fell The heavy strokes of his Bootle-blade.

Onward still he held his way, Till he came where the column of moonshine lay, And saw beneath the surface dim The brown-backed sturgeon slowly swim.

Around him were the goblin train; But he sculled with all his might and main, And followed wherever the sturgeon led, Till he saw him upward point his head; "Mien he dropped his paddle-blade, And held his colen-goblet up To catch the drop in its crimson cup.

With sweeping tail and quivering fin Through the wave the sturgeon flew, And like the heaven-shot javelin He sprung above the waters blue.

Instant as the star-fall light, He plunged him in the deep again, But left an arch of silver bright, The rainbow of the moony main.

It was a strange and lovely sight To see the puny goblin there: He seemed an angel form of light, With azure wing and sunny hair, Throned on a cloud of purple fair, Circled with blue and edged with white, And sitting at the fall of even Beneath the bow of summer heaven.

A moment, and its l.u.s.tre fell; But ere it met the billow blue He caught within his crimson bell A droplet of its sparkling dew.

Joy to thee, Fay! thy task is done; Thy wings are pure, for the gem is won.

Cheerly ply thy dripping oar, And haste away to the elfin sh.o.r.e!

He turns, and to on either side The ripples on his path divide; And the track o'er which his boat must pa.s.s Is smooth as a sheet of polished gla.s.s.

Around, their limbs the sea-nymphs lave, With snowy arms half swelling out, While on the glossed and gleamy wave Their sea-green ringlets loosely float: They swim around with smile and song; They press the bark with pearly hand, And gently urge her course along, Toward the beach of speckled sand; And as he lightly leaped to land They bade adieu with nod and bow, Then gaily kissed each little hand, And dropped in the crystal deep below.

A moment stayed the fairy there: He kissed the beach and breathed a prayer; Then spread his wings of gilded blue, And on to the elfin court he flew.

As ever ye saw a bubble rise, And shine with a thousand changing dyes, Till, lessening far, through ether driven, It mingles with the hues of heaven; As, at the glimpse of morning pale, The lance-fly spreads his silken sail And gleams with bleedings soft and bright Till lost in the shades of fading night; So rose from earth the lovely Fay, So vanished far in heaven away!

FITZ-GREENE HALLECK

MARCO BOZZARIS

At midnight, in his guarded tent, The Turk was dreaming of the hour When Greece, her knee in suppliance bent, Should tremble at his power; In dreams, through camp and court he bore.

The trophies of a conqueror; In dreams his song of triumph heard; Then wore his monarch's signet ring; Then pressed that monarch's throne--a king: As wild his thoughts and gay of wing As Eden's garden bird.

At midnight, in the forest shades, Bozzaris ranged his Suliote band, True as the steel of their tried blades, Heroes in heart and hand.

There had the Persian's thousands stood, There had the glad earth drunk their blood On old Plataea's day; And now there breathed that haunted air The sons of sires who conquered there, With arm to strike, and soul to dare, As quick, as far as they.

An hour pa.s.sed on--the Turk awoke; That bright dream was his last; He woke--to hear his sentries shriek, "To arms! they come! the Greek! the Greek!"

He woke--to die midst flame and smoke, And shout and groan and sabre-stroke, And death-shots falling thick and fast As lightnings from the mountain-cloud; And heard, with voice as trumpet loud, Bozzaris cheer his band: Strike--till the last armed foe expires!

Strike--for your altars and your fires!

Strike--for the green graves of your sires, G.o.d, and your native land!"

They fought like brave men, long and well; They piled that ground with Moslem slain; They conquered--but Bozzaris fell, Bleeding at every vein.

His few surviving comrades saw His smile when rang their proud hurrah, And the red field was won; Then saw in death his eyelids close Calmly, as to a night's repose, Like flowers at set of sun.

Come to the bridal chamber, Death!

Come to the mother's when she feels, For the first time, her first-horn's breath; Come when the blessed seals That close the pestilence are broke, And crowded cities wail its stroke; Come in consumption's ghastly form, The earthquake shock, the ocean storm; Come when the heart beats high and warm With banquet-song and dance and wine; And thou art terrible--the tear, The groan, the knell, the pall, the bier, And all we know or dream or fear Of agony, are thine.

But to the hero, when his sword Has won the battle for the free, Thy voice sounds like a prophet's word, And in its hollow tones are heard The thanks of millions yet to be.

Come when his task of fame is wrought, Come with her laurel-leaf, blood-bought, Come in her crowning hour, and then Thy sunken eye's unearthly light To him is welcome as the sight Of sky and stars to prisoned men; Thy grasp is welcome as the hand Of brother in a foreign land; Thy summons welcome as the cry That told the Indian isles were nigh To the world-seeking Genoese, When the land-wind, from woods of palm And orange-groves and fields of balm, Blew oer the Haytian seas.

Bozzaris, with the storied brave Greece nurtured in her glory's time, Rest thee--there is no prouder gave.

Even in her own proud clime.

She wore no funeral-weeds for thee, Nor bade the dark hea.r.s.e wave its plume, Like torn branch from death's leafless tree, In sorrow's pomp and pageantry, The heartless luxury of the tomb.

But she remembers thee as one Long loved and for a season gone; For thee her poet's lyre is wreathed, Her marble wrought, her music breathed; For thee she rings the birthday bells; Of thee her babes' first lisping tells; For throe her evening prayer is said At palace-couch and cottage-bed; Her soldier, closing with the foe, Gives for thy sake a deadlier blow; His plighted maiden, when she fears For him, the joy of her young years, Thinks of thy fate and checks her tears; And she, the mother of thy boys, Though in her eye and faded cheek Is read the grief she will not speak, The memory of her buried joys, And even she who gave thee birth, Will, by their pilgrim-circled hearth, Talk of thy doom without a sigh, For thou art Freedom's now and Fame's, One of the few, the immortal names, That were not born to die.

ON THE DEATH OF JOSEPH RODMAN DRAKE

Green be the turf above thee, Friend of my better days!

None knew thee but to love thee, Nor named thee but to praise.

Tears fell, when thou went dying, From eyes unused to weep, And long where thou art lying, Will tears the cold turf steep.

When hearts, whose truth was proven, Like throe, are laid in earth, There should a wreath be woven To tell the world their worth;

And I, who woke each morrow To clasp thy hand in mine, Who shared thy joy and sorrow, Whose weal and woe were thine;

It should be mine to braid it Around thy faded brow, But I've in vain essayed it, And I feel I cannot now.

While memory bids me weep thee, Nor thoughts nor words are free, The grief is fixed too deeply That mourns a man like thee.

JOHN HOWARD PAYNE

HOME, SWEET HOME

Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam, Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home; A charm from the sky seems to hallow us there, Which, seek through the world, is ne'er met with elsewhere.

Home, Home, sweet, sweet Home!

There's no place like Home! there's no place like Home!

An exile from home, splendor dazzles in vain; O, give me my lowly thatched cottage again!