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(Excerpt)
ALL day the darkness and the cold | |
| Upon my heart have lain, | |
| Like shadows on the winter sky, | |
| Like frost upon the pane; | |
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| But now my torpid fancy wakes, | 5 |
| And, on thy eagle’s plume, | |
| Rides forth, like Sindbad on his bird, | |
| Or witch upon her broom! | |
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| Below me roar the rocking pines, | |
| Before me spreads the lake | 10 |
| Whose long and solemn-sounding waves | |
| Against the sunset break. | |
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| I hear the wild rice-eater thresh | |
| The grain he has not sown; | |
| I see, with flashing scythe of fire, | 15 |
| The prairie harvest mown! | |
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| I hear the far-off voyager’s horn; | |
| I see the Yankee’s trail,— | |
| His foot on every mountain-pass, | |
| On every stream his sail. | 20 |
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| By forest, lake, and waterfall, | |
| I see his pedler show; | |
| The mighty mingling with the mean, | |
| The lofty with the low. | |
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| He ’s whittling by St. Mary’s Falls, | 25 |
| Upon his loaded wain; | |
| He ’s measuring o’er the Pictured Rocks, | |
| With eager eyes of gain. | |
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| I hear the mattock in the mine, | |
| The axe-stroke in the dell, | 30 |
| The clamor from the Indian lodge, | |
| The Jesuit chapel bell! | |
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| I see the swarthy trappers come | |
| From Mississippi’s springs; | |
| And war-chiefs with their painted brows, | 35 |
| And crests of eagle wings. | |
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| Behind the scared squaw’s birch canoe | |
| The steamer smokes and raves; | |
| And city lots are staked for sale | |
| Above old Indian graves. | 40 |
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| I hear the tread of pioneers | |
| Of nations yet to be; | |
| The first low wash of waves, where soon | |
| Shall roll a human sea. | |
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| The rudiments of empire here | 45 |
| Are plastic yet and warm; | |
| The chaos of a mighty world | |
| Is rounding into form! | |
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| Each rude and jostling fragment soon | |
| Its fitting place shall find,— | 50 |
| The raw material of a State, | |
| Its muscle and its mind! | |
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| And, westering still, the star which leads | |
| The New World in its train | |
| Has tipped with fire the icy spears | 55 |
| Of many a mountain chain. | |
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| The snowy cones of Oregon | |
| Are kindling on its way; | |
| And California’s golden sands | |
| Gleam brighter in its ray! | 60 |
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| Then blessings on thy eagle quill, | |
| As, wandering far and wide, | |
| I thank thee for this twilight dream | |
| And Fancy’s airy ride! * * * * * | |
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