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LEFROY IN THE FOREST
THIS region is as lavish of its flowers | |
| As Heaven of its primrose blooms by night. | |
| This is the Arum, which within its root | |
| Folds life and death; and this the Prince’s Pine, | |
| Fadeless as love and truth—the fairest form | 5 |
| That ever sun-shower washed with sudden rain. | |
| This golden cradle is the Moccasin Flower, | |
| Wherein the Indian hunter sees his hound; | |
| And this dark chalice is the Pitcher-Plant, | |
| Stored with the water of forgetfulness. | 10 |
| Whoever drinks of it, whose heart is pure, | |
| Will sleep for aye ’neath foodfull asphodel, | |
| And dream of endless love. | |
| |
| There was a time on this fair continent | |
| When all things throve in spacious peacefulness. | 15 |
| The prosperous forests unmolested stood, | |
| For where the stalwart oak grew there it lived | |
| Long ages, and then died among its kind. | |
| The hoary pines—those ancients of the earth— | |
| Brimful of legends of the early world, | 20 |
| Stood thick on their own mountains unsubdued; | |
| And all things else illumined by the sun, | |
| Inland or by the lifted wave, had rest. | |
| The passionate or calm pageants of the skies | |
| No artist drew; but in the auburn west | 25 |
| Innumerable faces of fair cloud | |
| Vanished in silent darkness with the day. | |
| The prairie realm—vast ocean’s paraphrase— | |
| Rich in wild grasses numberless, and flowers | |
| Unnamed save in mute Nature’s inventory, | 30 |
| No civilized barbarian trenched for gain. | |
| And all that flowed was sweet and uncorrupt: | |
| The rivers and their tributary streams, | |
| Undammed, wound on forever, and gave up | |
| Their lonely torrents to weird gulfs of sea, | 35 |
| And ocean wastes unshadowed by a sail. | |
| And all the wild life of this western world | |
| Knew not the fear of man; yet in those woods, | |
| And by those plenteous streams and mighty lakes, | |
| And on stupendous steppes of peerless plain, | 40 |
| And in the rocky gloom of canyons deep, | |
| Screened by the stony ribs of mountains hoar | |
| Which steeped their snowy peaks in purging cloud, | |
| And down the continent where tropic suns | |
| Warmed to her very heart the mother earth, | 45 |
| And in the congealed north where silence self | |
| Ached with intensity of stubborn frost, | |
| There lived a soul more wild than barbarous; | |
| A tameless soul—the sunburnt savage free— | |
| Free and untainted by the greed of gain, | 50 |
| Great Nature’s man, content with Nature’s food. | |
| |
IENA’S SONG
FLY far from me, | |
| Even as the daylight flies, | |
| And leave me in the darkness of my pain! | |
| Some earlier love will come to thee again, | 55 |
| And sweet new moons will rise, | |
| And smile on it and thee. | |
| |
| Fly far from me, | |
| Even whilst the daylight wastes— | |
| Ere thy lips burn me in a last caress; | 60 |
| Ere fancy quickens, and my longings press, | |
| And my weak spirit hastes | |
| For shelter unto thee! | |
| |
| Fly far from me, | |
| Even whilst the daylight pales— | 65 |
| So shall we never, never meet again! | |
| Fly! for my senses swim—Oh, Love! Oh, Pain!— | |
| Help! for my spirit fails— | |
| I cannot fly from thee! | |
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THE BUFFALO HERDS
Lefroy. We left | 70 |
| The silent forest, and, day after day, | |
| Great prairies swept beyond our aching sight | |
| Into the measureless West: uncharted realms, | |
| Voiceless and calm, save when tempestuous wind | |
| Rolled the rank herbage into billows vast, | 75 |
| And rushing tides, which never found a shore. | |
| And tender clouds, and veils of morning mist | |
| Cast flying shadows, chased by flying light, | |
| Into interminable wildernesses, | |
| Flushed with fresh blooms, deep perfumed by the rose, | 80 |
| And murmurous with flower-fed bird and bee. | |
| The deep-grooved bison-paths like furrows lay, | |
| Turned by the cloven hoofs of thundering herds | |
| Primeval, and still travelled as of yore. | |
| And gloomy valleys opened at our feet— | 85 |
| Shagged with dusk cypresses and hoary pine; | |
| And sunless gorges, rummaged by the wolf, | |
| Which through long reaches of the prairie wound, | |
| Then melted slowly into upland vales, | |
| Lingering, far-stretched amongst the spreading hills. | 90 |
| Brock. What charming solitudes! And life was there! | |
| Lefroy. Yes, life was there! inexplicable life, | |
| Still wasted by inexorable death. | |
| There had the stately stage his battle-field— | |
| Dying for mastery among his hinds. | 95 |
| There vainly sprung the affrighted antelope, | |
| Beset by glittering eyes and hurrying feet. | |
| The dancing grouse, at their insensate sport, | |
| Heard not the stealthy footstep of the fox; | |
| The gopher on his little earthwork stood, | 100 |
| With folded arms, unconscious of the fate | |
| That wheeled in narrowing circles overhead, | |
| And the poor mouse, on heedless nibbling bent, | |
| Marked not the silent coiling of the snake. | |
| At length we heard a deep and solemn sound— | 105 |
| Erupted moanings of the troubled earth | |
| Trembling beneath innumerable feet. | |
| A growing uproar blending in our ears, | |
| With noise tumultuous as ocean’s surge, | |
| Of bellowings, fierce breath and battle shock, | 110 |
| A multitude whose trampling shook the plains, | |
| With discord of harsh sound and rumblings deep, | |
| As if the swift revolving earth had struck, | |
| And from some adamantine peak recoiled— | |
| Jarring. At length we topped a high-browed hill— | 115 |
| The last and loftiest of a file of such— | |
| And, lo! before us lay the tameless stock, | |
| Slow-wending to the northward like a cloud! | |
| A multitude in motion, dark and dense— | |
| Far as the eye could reach, and farther still, | 120 |
| In countless myriads stretched for many a league. | |
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