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(From The New Pastoral)
LO, our waiting ark is freighted; | |
| In its depths of oak and pine | |
| All our household gods are gathered, | |
| Thine, my noble friend, and mine! | |
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| Here the laughter-loving children | 5 |
| Gaze, with wonder-filling eyes, | |
| With the maidens whose emotions, | |
| Like the waters, fall and rise. | |
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| Here are youths whose westward fancies | |
| Chase the forest-sheltered game; | 10 |
| Here are men with soul and sinew | |
| Which no wilderness can tame. | |
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| Here are matrons, full of courage,— | |
| Worthy these the pioneers,— | |
| And the patriarch lends a sanction | 15 |
| In the wisdom of his years. | |
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| Axe and team, and plough and sickle, | |
| In the hold are gathered all; | |
| And, methinks, I hear the woodlands, | |
| Mid their thundering echoes, fall. | 20 |
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| And behold the great logs blazing, | |
| Till the ashen fields are bare, | |
| And a boundless harvest springing,— | |
| The response of toil and prayer! | |
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| Draw the foot-board, loose the cables, | 25 |
| Free the wharf, and man the oars; | |
| Give the broad keel to the river, | |
| Bid adieu to crowded shores: | |
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| Wharves where Europe’s venturous exiles | |
| Throng with all their hopes and cares,— | 30 |
| Sires of future states of freemen, | |
| Standing mid their waiting wares. | |
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| Bid adieu the Iron City, | |
| With its everlasting roar, | |
| Whose Niagara of traffic | 35 |
| Flows to westward evermore. | |
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| Where the cloud swings into heaven, | |
| And the furnace flames disgorge, | |
| With the multitudinous clamor | |
| Of the factory and the forge. | 40 |
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| In yon mountains, like the eagles, | |
| Brood the rivers at their springs, | |
| Then descend, with sudden swooping, | |
| On their far and flashing wings. | |
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| Here the dashing Alleghany | 45 |
| And Monongahela meet, | |
| And a moment whirl and dally | |
| Round the city’s crowded feet; | |
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| Till, anon, with wedded pinions, | |
| How they sweep the shores as one, | 50 |
| Driving westward, ever westward, | |
| In the pathway of the sun. | |
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| Like a cloud upon the storm-wind, | |
| Now our heaving ark careers; | |
| Or some great bridge which a freshet | 55 |
| Bears in triumph from its piers. | |
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| Down we sweep; and yonder steamer | |
| Smoking round the distant hill, | |
| With its swift wheel flashing splendor, | |
| Like the loud wheel of a mill, | 60 |
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| Shall not fright us, though the waters | |
| Sweep our deck with foamy force, | |
| While the angel of Adventure, | |
| With true courage, guides our course. | |
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| And the river, like our purpose, | 65 |
| Brooks no voice which bids it wait, | |
| Bearing onward, ever onward, | |
| Where the forest opes its gate; | |
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| Opes the gate that hung for ages, | |
| Rusting in its old repose, | 70 |
| Which, once swung upon its hinges, | |
| There ’s no giant hand can close. | |
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| Far beyond that ancient portal | |
| We will pitch our camp, nor rest | |
| Till from out our forest cabins | 75 |
| Spring the homesteads of the West. | |
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