Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
America: Vols. XXV–XXIX. 1876–79.

Southern States: Tallulah (Terrora), the River, Ga.

Tallulah

By J. M. Legaré (1823–1859)

RECOLLECT thou, in thunder

How Tallulah spoke to thee,

When thy little face with wonder

Lifted upwards, rocks asunder

Riven, shattered,

Black and battered,

Thou aloft didst see?

Downward stalking through Tempesta,

Did a giant shape appear.

All the waters leaping after

Hound-like, with their thunder-laughter

Shook the valley

Teocalli,

Hill-top bleak and bare.

Vast and ponderous, of granite,

Cloud-enwrapt his features were.

In his great calm eyes emotion

Glimmered none; and like an ocean

Billowy, tangled,

Foam bespangled,

Backward streamed his hair.

On his brow like dandelions

Nodded pines: the solid floor

Rocked and reeled beneath his treading,

Black on high a tempest spreading,

Pregnant, passive,

As with massive

Portal, closed the corridor.

Frighted, sobbing, clinging to me

In an agony of dread,

Sawest thou this form tremendous

Striding down the steep stupendous

With the torrent:

Night abhorrent

Closing overhead.

Then my heart dissembling courage,

That thine own so loudly beat,

Comfort thee, I said, poor trembler:

Providence is no dissembler.

Higher power

Guards each flower

Blooming at thy feet.

Flushed and tearful from my bosom

Thereat thou didst lift thy face.

Blue and wide thy eyes resplendent

Turned upon the phantom pendent,

Whose huge shadow

Overshadowed

All the gloomy place.

Back revolving into granite,

Foam and fall and nodding pine,

Sank the phantom. Slantwise driven

Through the storm-cloud rent and riven,

Sunshine glittered,

And there twittered—

Birds in every vine.

Then sonorous from the chasm

Pealed a voice distinct and loud:

“Innocence and God-reliance

Set all evil at defiance.

Maiden, by these

(As by snow, trees)

Evil heads are bowed.”