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(Excerpt)
A DAY in Indian Summer: here, the sky | |
| Shows a bright veil of silver; there, a shade | |
| Of soft and misty purple, with the fleece | |
| Of downy clouds, and azure streaks between. | |
| The light falls meekly, and the wooing air | 5 |
| Fans with a brisk vitality the frame. | |
| The woods have lost the bright and varied charm | |
| Of magic Autumn, and the faded leaves | |
| Hide with one robe of brown the earth that late | |
| Glowed like the fabled gardens of the East. | 10 |
| Still all around is lovely. Far the eye | |
| Pierces the naked woods, and marks the shades, | |
| Like prone black pillars with their capitals, | |
| Formed by the sprays; and rocks, ravines, and mounds | |
| (Hidden when Summer smiles), and sparkling rills, | 15 |
Trickling o’er mossy stones.
A low, stern tone | |
| Rumbles upon the air, as, winding down | |
| The gullied road, I seek the gorge where flows | |
| The stream to mingle with the river flood | |
| In the brief eastward distance. On my left | 20 |
| Are the brown waters, a high rocky isle | |
| Like a huge platform midway; and the steep | |
| Tree-columned ridge, in summer dense with shades, | |
| But ragged now with gaunt and leafless boughs, | |
| And only green where stand the kingly pines | 25 |
| And princely hemlocks. On my right the bank, | |
| Of slate and crumbling gravel, pitches down | |
| Now sheer, now hollowed out, the dark blue clay | |
| Showing its strata veins, while on the edge, | |
| High up and dwarfed by distance, cling tall trees. | 30 |
| A rocky rampart, seamed and dashed with white, | |
| Is piled before me, and the bending sky | |
| Close at its back. Advancing, with the sound | |
| Louder and louder, waters leap and gush | |
| And foam through channelled outlets; dashing now | 35 |
| O’er terraces, now flinging o’er a rock | |
| A shifting fringe of silver, shooting quick | |
| Through some deep gully, like a glassy dart, | |
| And now in one rich mass of glittering foam | |
| Sent downward, with light particles of spray | 40 |
In white smoke rising.
Like the puny wrath | |
| Of the weak child, to manhood’s passion-burst | |
| When his fierce heart is flaming; like the voice | |
| Of the low west-wind, to the mighty sweep | |
| Of the roused northern storm-blast, art thou now, | 45 |
| O rushing stream! to when the roaring rains | |
| Have swelled thy fountains, and with thundering shocks, | |
| Foaming and leaping, thou dost dash along, | |
| Restrainless in thy awful force, to rend | |
| And whirl and whelm, until a mightier wave | 50 |
| Swallows thy raging being. Bridge and tree, | |
| Torn into fragments, roll and plunge and toss, | |
| Till those that now might look on thee and smile, | |
| Turn grave and tremble. * * * * * | |
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