| |
| ’T IS a wild spot, and hath a gloomy look; | |
| The bird sings never merrily in the trees, | |
| And the young leaves seem blighted. A rank growth | |
| Spreads poisonously round, with power to taint | |
| With blistering dews the thoughtless hand that dares | 5 |
| To penetrate the covert. Cypresses | |
| Crowd on the dank, wet earth; and, stretched at length, | |
| The cayman—a fit dweller in such home— | |
| Slumbers, half buried in the sedgy grass. | |
| Beside the green ooze where he shelters him, | 10 |
| A whooping crane erects his skeleton form, | |
| And shrieks in flight. Two summer ducks, aroused | |
| To apprehension, as they hear his cry, | |
| Dash up from the lagoon, with marvellous haste, | |
| Following his guidance. Meetly taught by these, | 15 |
| And startled at our rapid, near approach, | |
| The steel-jawed monster, from his grassy bed, | |
| Crawls slowly to his slimy, green abode, | |
| Which straight receives him. You behold him now, | |
| His ridgy back uprising as he speeds, | 20 |
| In silence, to the centre of the stream, | |
| Whence his head peers alone. A butterfly, | |
| That, travelling all the day, has counted climes | |
| Only by flowers, to rest himself awhile, | |
| Lights on the monster’s brow. The surly mute | 25 |
| Straightway goes down, so suddenly that he, | |
| The dandy of the summer flowers and woods, | |
| Dips his light wings, and spoils his golden coat, | |
| With the rank water of that turbid pond. | |
| Wondering and vexed, the plumed citizen | 30 |
| Flies, with a hurried effort, to the shore, | |
| Seeking his kindred flowers: but seeks in vain,— | |
| Nothing of genial growth may there be seen, | |
| Nothing of beautiful! Wild, ragged trees, | |
| That look like felon spectres,—fetid shrubs, | 35 |
| That taint the gloomy atmosphere,—dusk shades, | |
| That gather, half a cloud, and half a fiend | |
| In aspect, lurking on the swamp’s wild edge,— | |
| Gloom with their sternness and forbidding frowns | |
| The general prospect. The sad butterfly, | 40 |
| Waving his lackered wings, darts quickly on, | |
| And, by his free flight, counsels us to speed | |
| For better lodgings, and a scene more sweet, | |
| Than these drear borders offer us to-night. | |
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