The kingfisher watches, while o'er him his foe The fierce hawk, sails circling, each moment more low; Now poised are those pinions and pointed that beak, His dread swoop is ready, when hark! with a shriek. His eyeballs red-blazing, high bristling his crest, His snake-like neck, arched talons drawn to his breast, With the rush of the wind-gust, the glancing of light, The Gray Forest Eagle shoots down in his flight: One blow of those talons, one plunge of that neck, The strong hawk hangs lifeless, a blood-dripping wreck; And as dives the free kingfisher, dart-like on high, With his prey soars the Eagle, and melts in the sky.
The lightning darts zigzag and forked through the gloom, And the bolt launches o'er with crash, rattle and boom; The Gray Forest Eagle, where, where has he sped? Does he shrink to his eyrie, and shiver with dread? Does the glare blind his eye? Has the terrible blast On the wing of the Sky-King a fear-fetter cast? No no, the brave Eagle! he thinks not of fright; The wrath of the tempest but rouses delight;
To the flash of the lightning his eye casts a gleam, To the shriek of the wild blast he echoes his scream, And with front like a warrior that speeds to the fray, And a clapping of pinions he's up and away!
The tempest glides o'er with its terrible train, And the splendor of sunshine is glowing again; Again smiles the soft, tender blue of the sky, Waked bird-voices warble, fanned leaf-voices sigh;
On the green grass dance shadows, streams sparkle and run, The breeze bears the odor its flower-kiss has won,
And full on the form of the Demon in flight
The rainbow's magnificence gladdens the sight!
The Gray Forest Eagle! oh, where is he now,
While the sky wears the smile of its God on its brow?
There's a dark, floating spot by yon cloud's pearly wreath, With the speed of the arrow 'tis shooting beneath; Down, nearer and nearer it draws to the gaze, Now over the rainbow, now blent with its blaze, To a shape it expands, still it plunges through air, A proud crest, a fierce eye, a broad wing are there; 'Tis the Eagle-the Gray Forest Eagle-once more He sweeps to his eyrie: his journey is o'er!
Time whirls round his circle, his years roll away, But the Gray Forest Eagle minds little his sway; The child spurns its buds for Youth's thorn-hidden bloom, Seeks Manhood's bright phantoms, finds Age and a tomb; But the Eagle's eye dims not, his wing is unbowed, Still drinks he the sunshine, still scales he the cloud!
The green tiny pine-shrub points up from the moss,
The wren's foot would cover it, tripping across;
The beech-nut, down dropping, would crush it beneath, But 'tis warmed with heaven's sunshine, and fanned by its breath; The seasons fly past it, its head is on high,
Its thick branches challenge each mood of the sky; On its rough bark the moss a green mantle creates, And the deer from his antlers the velvet-down grates; Time withers its roots, it lifts sadly in air
A trunk dry and wasted, a top jagged and bare, Till it rocks in the soft breeze, and crashes to earth, Its brown fragments strewing the place of its birth.
The Eagle has seen it up-struggling to sight, He has seen it defying the storm in its might,
Then prostrate, soil-blended, with plants sprouting o'er, But the Gray Forest Eagle is still as of yore. His flaming eye dims not, his wing is unbowed,
Still drinks he the sunshine, still scales he the cloud!
He has seen from his eyrie the forest below
In bud and in leaf, robed with crimson and snow, The thickets, deep wolf-lairs, the high crag his throne, And the shriek of the panther has answered his own. He has seen the wild red man the lord of the shades, And the smokes of his wigwams curled thick in the glades; He has seen the proud forest melt breath-like, away, And the breast of the earth lying bare to the day; He sees the green meadow-grass hiding the lair, And his crag-throne spread naked to sun and to air; And his shriek is now answered, while sweeping along, By the low of the herd and the husbandman's song; He has seen the wild red man swept off by his foes,
And he sees dome and roof where those smokes once arose ; But his flaming eye dims not, his wing is unbowed, Still drinks he the sunshine, still scales he the cloud!
An emblem of Freedom, stern, haughty, and high, Is the Gray Forest Eagle, that king of the sky! It scorns the bright scenes, the gay places of earth- By the mountain and torrent it springs into birth; There rocked by the wild wind, baptized in the foam, It is guarded and cherished, and there is its home! When its shadow steals black o'er the empires of kings, Deep terror, deep heart-shaking terror it brings; Where wicked oppression is armed for the weak, There rustles its pinion, there echoes its shriek; It's eye flames with vengeance, it sweeps on its way, And its talons are bathed in the blood of its prey.
Oh, that Eagle of Freedom! age dims not his eye, He has seen Earth's mortality spring, bloom and die! He has seen the strong nations rise, flourish and fall, He mocks at Time's changes, he triumphs o'er all; He has seen our own land with wild forests o'erspread, He sees it with sunshine and joy on its head; And his presence will bless this his own chosen clime, Till the Archangel's fiat is set upon Time.
The American Eagle has been the subject of a vast deal of cloudy declamation, of frothy and turgid writing, both in prose and verse, and emblemized ridiculousness, in sculptorial, pictured and every other species of screaming representation. Still, he is none the less a noble bird, that he has been so bragged of and "shown up." There is something left of him, notwithstanding that windy patriots have metaphorically speakingtied a string to his leg, fed him with foul meat, and turning the heart-sick, rumpled and drooping "sky-king," as Mr. Street calls him, around on a stick, have bid the gaping crowd of home-admirers near by, and the somewhat reserved outer-cir
cle of foreign nations, "obsarve the keen irish of his eye." He is still able to shoot from some 'skiey peak," and hush the singing of smaller birds with the "black gliding" of his shadow across the valley. His scream will al- ways be eminent, we imagine, among "The many-voiced sounds of the blast- smitten wood."
We have a high regard for the British lion. We think it somewhat perilous to pound him on the back, or make too free with the strange horror stirring in his mane." Crouching or rampant, there is some force in his countenance. He has a strong claim to be called king of
And shuts and opens his unruffled fans. Lazily wings the crow with solemn croak From tree-top on to tree-top. Feebly chirps
The grasshopper, and the spider's tiny clock
Ticks from his crevice."
How exquisite are those pictures! with what an appreciation, like the minute stealing in of light among leaves, does he touch upon every delicate feature! And, then, in how subtle an alembic of the mind must such language have been chrystallized! The "curiosa felicitas" cannot be so exhibited except by genius. We are not sure, moreover, that Mr. Street has not higher powers of imagination, and a greater variety of the pulses of poetry, than he has yet
manifested. In his beautifully brief and modest preface, he says:
"The early life of the author was spent in a wild and picturesque region in the southwestern part of New York-his native state. Apart from the busy haunts of mankind, his eye was caught by the strongly marked and beautiful scenes by which he was surrounded; and to the first impressions thus made, may be attributed the fact, that his subjects relate so much to Nature and so little to man. Instead, therefore, of aiming to depict the human heart, he has endeavored to sketch (however rudely and imperfectly) the features of that with which he was most familiar."
Now, though we believe if he had possessed great power of imagination or knowledge of human nature, he could not have failed of working more in those fields, yet we think we see in his volume evidences of far greater power in those directions than he has yet shown. There is hardly a gleam of true invention; but there are some touches of pathos, and very many fine liftings of imagination. Such passages are frequent, as—
"Within the broad rich west One orb-Night's first-was beating like a pulse, Splendid and large.”
Late, cold and blind, was filling rich with light."
"The little violet, -laying its slight and delicate ear to earth,
Listened for Spring's approach."
Is brightened with thine image, as the sky Is kindled by the moonlight."
Mr. Street has published too much: he should have taken a lesson from Mr. Bryant. He constantly repeats himself, too, both in subjects and expression. His volume, therefore, appears monotonous and tiresome to the reader; without retrenchment, it can hardly become popular. But we shall watch with much interest to see what he can do in other and higher spheres. Meanwhile, however, we give him the right hand of fellowship and gentle regard, for he has filled a part, at least, of one great department of the field of poetry, with as exquisite a sense, with as fine a touch, with as loving and faithful an eye, heart and pen, as any one to whom Nature has ever whispered familiar words in solitary EARLDEN. places.
OCTOBER AMONG THE CATSKILLS.
GIVE me the mountains-the dark multitude Of mountains that uplift the bending sky From snowy Corway to the grassy Roan!* When by the deep majestic stream I
Stilled by the silence of its solemn march
Seaward through groves, through fields and green defiles, Swift, like the wood-dove, homeward down the wind
Speeds to the mountain foam my Spirit free.
Whether I watch the prairie's distant line
Flame in the sunset, and await its vast
Illimitable evening or alone,
Where breaks the loud wave on the yellow sand,
See the far billows kindle in the dawn
Still, with a clear-toned memory, my heart
Is in the mountains ever. The dry paths
Of meadow-brooks once merry take me where
Streams fling their whiteness down the slippery rocks; Yea, the rent waters of the ragged chasm
Come when I burn the silent light, and make
Murmurs among my thoughts. Oh, give me then The dark uncounted mountains!-give me these Rising around me through the early mists. All hail! ye venerable Summits. Health To your green hemlocks! Calmly still ye smile Upon the morning in your silvery robes. Oh, I am joy, all joy to come again
And be your child. Some welcome have ye not For one whose love hath prompted this return? Ye have a welcome-List! along the height Softly a wandering zephyr winds the woods; Sings in its mossy cell that sweet recluse Of rocky solitudes, the waterfall:
These are your vocal" welcome-home." I come To give ye shout for shout and smile for smile. But, O ye friends of storm and the blue sky, Before I share your loftier wilderness, Commence we here upon this jutting crag, Touched by the living gold of yonder sun.
I cannot now recall those lively thoughts Which memory, busy with your image, waked In my long absence: that you rise before me With a magnificence outreaching fancy Doth them extinguish as the radiant east
Quenches the sparkling stars. But well I know
*Corway, or Chocorhua peak is perhaps the most picturesque of the mountains of New Hampshire. The Roan mountain is in Yancy Co. North Carolina. Its grassy summit, some nine miles in extent, is a fine rolling prairie. From its heights, nearly six thousand feet above the ocean, are seen the last peaks of the Alleghanies, fading in the skies of Georgia.
Mine eyes, and touch me in my deepmost heart. But for one grief, and I could feel a joy Finer than when delight first winged my feet Along your summery caps. Oh, can you not, Ye mountains, with your cliffs and wooded slopes, Tell me the new-born sorrow that will go Not all unwelcome with me these lone hours? Upon whose footsteps in your pathless moss Beside mine own now lie the mouldering leaves? Whose faces do your pools and glassy springs Image no more after the rugged meal? Beloved ones, will ye not miss them when
I steal, half-timorous, where the fierce white torrent Searches the sullen chasm? Will ye not miss Their gladness, when my solitary shout Hunts the faint echo in the far ravine? Loud was the din of voices when we scaled The perilous crag; merry the music when, Footing the pathless brink, old melodies We sung. Fresh is the verse as yesterday, Repeated while apart we picked our ways Upward, and upward still, through darkening firs. Thine was the strain full oft, O wondrous Bard Of Avon; yet more often his who sang Of" Sylvan Wye," or his who framed the wild Melodious lay of "lovely Christabel."
But these, though sweet, are saddening thoughts, and lead My feelings from the present. Let the heart Fill, for the future, from the mighty fount Around whose border bounteous Nature flings Profusion bright and rich. Mid mountain here,
I breathe the odor of the frosted balm,
Rising, like incense, through the countless tops Of the far-sloping forest. Hark! aloft
Wails in the passing mist the plaintive pine. Before me, lo! the solemn garniture Of ages and the seasons; scowling cliffs, Forms everlasting, universal rest, The snowy cloud and glittering cataract, The tinted forests-gorgeous draperies Crimson and gold, and everlasting green; But chiefly thee, O kingly peak, enthron'd Among the summits. Through the misty bars Of thy pale visor earliest dost thou see The orient blush: now lifting it, thou takʼst On thy majestic countenance the morn Like one that does her rosy coming love. And helmed with thine eternal firs, thou hail'st From out thy solitude the peopled earth;— Towns in the purple dimness-cot and tilth Couched in thy droppings-coming the white sail On the blue Hudson's line. Imperial height, Primeval grandeur hangs in thy repose. But thou dost throw thy shadow o'er a race Equal to thy destruction. Didst thou hide Within thy bosom treasure, they would pierce
« ElőzőTovább » |