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(Excerpt)
BENEATH these gold and azure skies, | |
| The river winds through leafy glades, | |
| Save where, like battlements, arise | |
| The gray and tufted Palisades. | |
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| The fervor of this sultry time | 5 |
| Is tempered by the humid earth, | |
| And zephyrs, born of summer’s prime, | |
| Give a delicious coolness birth. | |
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| They freshen this sequestered nook | |
| With constant greetings bland and free; | 10 |
| The pages of the open book | |
| All flutter with their wayward glee. | |
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| As quicker swell their breathings soft, | |
| Cloud shadows skim along the field; | |
| And yonder dangling woodbines oft | 15 |
| Their crimson bugles gently yield. | |
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| The tulip-tree majestic stirs, | |
| Far down the water’s marge beside, | |
| And now awake the nearer firs, | |
| And toss their ample branches wide. | 20 |
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| How blithely trails the pendent vine! | |
| The grain slope lies in green repose; | |
| Through the dark foliage of the pine | |
| And lofty elms, the sunshine glows. | |
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| Like sentinels in firm array | 25 |
| The trees-of-life their shafts uprear; | |
| Red cones upon the sumach play, | |
| And ancient locusts whisper near. | |
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| From wave and meadow, cliff and sky, | |
| Let thy stray vision homeward fall; | 30 |
| Behold the mist-bloom floating nigh, | |
| And hollyhock white-edged and tall; | |
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| Its gaudy leaves, though fanned apart, | |
| Round thick and mealy stamens spring, | |
| And nestled to its crimson heart, | 35 |
| The sated bees enamored cling. | |
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| Mark the broad terrace flecked with light, | |
| That peeps through trellises of rose, | |
| And quivers with a vague delight, | |
| As each pale shadow comes and goes. | 40 |
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| The near, low gurgle of the brook, | |
| The wren’s glad chirp, the scented hay, | |
| And e’en the watch-dog’s peaceful look | |
| Our vain disquietudes allay. * * * * * | |
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