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| THERE 1 was a time, and that within the span | |
| Of the brief memory of short-lived man, | |
| When, close confined along the Atlantic seas, | |
| The timid settler heard the western breeze, | |
| And shrunk, expectant of the savage dart, | 5 |
| Or whizzing arrow, at his beating heart. | |
| The western Mountains stood in awful forms, | |
| Like clouds surcharged with tempest, fire and storms, | |
| Whence the red bolt of rapid death might fly, | |
| And whirlwinds rend the ocean and the sky; | 10 |
| For there did lurk the white-man’s deadliest foe, | |
| Gathering to burst upon the vales below. | |
| A solemn race—a dark relentless clan, | |
| That own’d no ties of blood with civil man; | |
| A fearful foe—combining human art, | 15 |
| The wiles of serpents, and the tiger’s heart: | |
| Their sternest joy to daunt and scourge a race, | |
| Soften’d by love—refined by Christian grace; | |
| In tangled dells, where not heaven’s light had shined, | |
| They held their home—apt emblem of their mind. | 20 |
| Here many a beauteous stream majestic pours, | |
| From distant mountains, to the ocean shores, | |
| And in their course, enrich the earth in vain— | |
| All unexplored, or hill, or vale, or plain, | |
| And he was passing bold, who dared advance | 25 |
| Up toward their source, or e’en a thought to glance. | |
| The soil was held by unresisted might, | |
| The tiger’s and the wolf’s prescriptive right; | |
| Nay e’en more awful images might wake— | |
| Thick swarming skiffs along the stream and lake, | 30 |
| With desp’rate skill against the rapids glide, | |
| Or down the cataract’s tumultuous tide; | |
| And hark! the warwhoop o’er the valley floats;— | |
| The wolf’s wild howls are music’s softest notes. | |
| But light at length prevails; darkness retreats, | 35 |
| To fix, in distant dens, her gloomy seats: | |
| Improving nature, at this long delay | |
| Indignant, from her barriers bursts away, | |
| Shakes off the savage forms, by which oppress’d | |
| She languish’d long, and with new charms is dress’d. | 40 |
| The dark, cold tribes, less boldly urge the strife, | |
| And melt before the light of civil life: | |
| And gathering courage now, the heroic swain | |
| Pursues them far toward the western main; | |
| Nor yet the flight, nor the pursuit gives o’er, | 45 |
| Until their strength and terrors are no more: | |
| Then turns to peaceful homes, and brightning plains, | |
| Where life to long-protracted age remains. | |
| The yeomen still survive, whose eye can trace | |
| Successive changes on our country’s face: | 50 |
| Where forests frown’d, are shining cities seen, | |
| And fields with Eden’s bounty smile serene: | |
| And many a soldier lives to tell the tales | |
| Of deadly strife, ’mid yonder hills and vales; | |
| Can point the spot where raging battle stood, | 55 |
| The very turf that drank his father’s blood; | |
| Can show the lake or stream where brothers bled, | |
| Whose bones, scarce whiten’d, pave their lowly bed. | |
| Perhaps some hero lives, who led the brave, | |
| To freedom’s boon, or honor’s hallow’d grave; | 60 |
| His locks scarce changed—scarce lost their raven hue | |
| Still firm in strength—in thought and memory true; | |
| Come fancy! come! the image fair portray | |
| Of some firm vet’ran, bending back his way | |
| To yonder fields, the arena of his strife, | 65 |
| For home and country, liberty and life. | |
| Bright in his memory is the open glade, | |
| Remotest trace that industry had made; | |
| And fresh the image of the forest fierce, | |
| Deep tangled, not meridian suns could pierce, | 70 |
| Where the grim savage, turning from his prey, | |
| Slunk, like the wolf, and shunn’d the face of day. | |
| Onward the veteran moves; but where ’s that lawn, | |
| Once the last line that civil man had drawn? | |
| And where that wild wood rising dark and high, | 75 |
| Like strong embattled fortress to the sky? | |
| Lo! other fields in endless prospect rise, | |
| And like the horizon, still the forest flies. | |
| Yet sure ’t was here opposing armies stood; | |
| That is the stream that redden’d with his blood; | 80 |
| It was from thence the wild man’s warwhoop rose, | |
| And here he stemm’d the onset of the foes; | |
| But lo! the plain, hill, valley, all around, | |
| With the bright Populous Village now are crown’d | |
| There, where the Indian often earth’d the wolf, | 85 |
| Along the brink of yonder tumbling gulph, | |
| The rocks have yielded to the workman’s hand, | |
| And there in splendid palaces they stand. | |
| Where the brisk waterfall, whose music found | |
| No ear but echo once, to catch the sound, | 90 |
| Now, all its aid to human arts applied, | |
| Prepares our food, and dress, and wealth beside: | |
| See wheels on wheels, in mystic motion there! | |
| The rattling engines of Minerva’s care. | |
| On yonder well-remember’d rising ground, | 95 |
| Where tallest firs with deepest shadows frown’d, | |
| There now the noble Church sends up her spire, | |
| To catch day’s latest, and his earliest fire. | |
| There, where the solitary wigwam stood, | |
| Uncouthly form’d of stakes and leaves and mud, | 100 |
| Whose door stood wide, because it could not close, | |
| To welcome weary wild men to repose; | |
| Or ’mid the clouds of smoke and filth, to share | |
| The half-seeth’d members of the savage bear; | |
| There now the stately Inn, a spacious seat, | 105 |
| Invites the weary to refined retreat. | |
| Around where ignorance had taken her stand, | |
| With reign primeval, o’er the darken’d land, | |
| See learning’s nurseries at every turn, | |
| Where every urchin finds the means to learn; | 110 |
| And onward, see the high school’s spacious halls, | |
| And onward, still, the prouder college walls. | |
| Here bustling trade is laden with his bales; | |
| There commerce spreads her wings, unfolds her sails; | |
| Here on canals, deep freighted barges toil; | 115 |
| There groaning wains with products of the soil; | |
| The thronging streets what busy numbers fill! | |
| What tides of passengers roll onward still! | |
| Not fled from want, but drawn by interest’s bond, | |
| To visit peopled regions far beyond. | 120 |
| There, where the guard-house frown’d upon yon height, | |
| And weary sentinels wore out the night | |
| With painful vigils, on their loaded arms, | |
| To save the sleeping hamlet from alarms; | |
| There now the green-house, shaded with the vine, | 125 |
| And summer flowers, with evergreens entwine. | |
| The terrors of the wilderness are fled, | |
| And Niagara’s thunders lose their dread; | |
| Down its deep chasm, no hazard of his life, | |
| Goes the soft cit, and e’en his softer wife. | 130 |
| And Huron’s shadowy shore lights up its brow, | |
| And wild Oswego does but tinkle now, | |
| Whose very name but sounded, once would dart | |
| A nervous terror through a foreign heart. | |
| All these are fled, and peace and plenty reign | 135 |
| O’er rising town and cultivated plain. * * * * | |
| Now to the decent church our thoughts return, | |
| Whither our willing feet have often borne, | |
| When solemn themes moved our vibrating strings, | |
| And hope was pregnant with immortal things. | 140 |
| ’Tis not alone, that village prospects round, | |
| Are fill’d and finish’d by that spire—and crown’d | |
| ’T is not alone the evidence that prayer, | |
| And meek devotion, do not languish there; | |
| A thousand prouder monuments may stand | 145 |
| Of wrested tithes from patient labor’s hand; | |
| Yet, with abated pleasure, freemen see | |
| The loftiest piles, where not the heart is free; | |
| ’T is this that clothes thy fabric with its charms— | |
| The free-will offering—shed from bounty’s arms. | 150 |
| In gilded domes proud prelates may be found, | |
| To cheat the hungry soul, with unknown sound; | |
| But nought can win us, or delights impart, | |
| Save truth’s free breast, and language of the heart | |
| In native dignity, thy preacher stands, | 155 |
| More than the dignity of robes and bands; | |
| Nor needs a surplice to convince your mind | |
| His head can teach, his life can lead mankind: | |
| Nor seeks a sacred office he, to hide | |
| An infidel’s false heart, or worldling’s pride; | 160 |
| Nor shows the crackling flames of fiery zeal, | |
| The bigot’s selfish feelings to conceal. | |
| On superstition’s aid he rests no claim, | |
| To wake devotion, or increase its flame; | |
| One word of wisdom awes with truer grace | 165 |
| Than Endor’s dame, with all her sickly race. | |
| No prude, to rail at fashions of the times, | |
| And pick at peccadilloes—while the crimes | |
| That strike within, and deepest stains impart, | |
| And damn the soul, scarce shock his tender heart; | 170 |
| No tyrant he, to rule the church with fear, | |
| Nor lean upon her strength, to domineer: | |
| When meek persuasion’s force is fruitless seen, | |
| His duty is discharged, his hands are clean. | |
| His form and mien no sensualist betray, | 175 |
| Whose body o’er his soul usurps the sway; | |
| Whose fair, smooth brow, and florid cheek declare, | |
| No cure of souls, no love of learning there; | |
| But comely paleness, decent leanness, shew | |
| The scholar’s patience, and the pastor’s too— | 180 |
| To him philosophy’s best light has shined, | |
| Not to bewilder and mislead his mind, | |
| Not his warm love to chill, or to recall | |
| From that High King “who ruleth over all,” | |
| Nor plunge in Nature’s causes, and refine, | 185 |
| To miss the traces of the hand Divine; | |
| To push him on to doubt, and dark despair, | |
| To feed his lambs with nature’s stinted fare; | |
| Though wise in nature, he on grace relies, | |
| To lead his flock, and win them to the skies. * * * * | 190 |
| But see! above, and onward, and around, | |
| What scenes of village pleasure still abound! | |
| The open hill, the wood beyond the glade, | |
| The broken chasm the trickling brook has made; | |
| There youth and age, and friends and lovers stray, | 195 |
| When o’er the scene the earliest zephyrs play. | |
| The seats of living rock, the shady bower, | |
| For summer’s noon, or evening’s balmy hour; | |
| The boughs of Autumn, with their fruits o’erborne; | |
| The golden promise of the ripening corn; | 200 |
| The thousand pleasures that relieve the night, | |
| When winter suns too soon withdraw their light; | |
| The youthful bands, with rural relish still, | |
| Glide like the arrow down the ice-clad hill; | |
| Their graver sires, who deeper interests feel, | 205 |
| In councils sitting, on the public weal; | |
| The assembly’s hall, where polish’d wit beguiles, | |
| Or festive innocence presides and smiles; | |
| The long processions o’er the frozen lakes, | |
| And the light joy that winter’s music wakes. | 210 |
| How have we seen the purest of delight | |
| Kindle and spread on many a bridal night! | |
| Amidst the gay-dress’d group, the happy pair, | |
| Smiled on by eager swain, and blushing fair; | |
| The bridegroom, joyful that this day has come— | 215 |
| The bride still press’d with lingering thoughts of home— | |
| Parental cares, so oft foreboding ill— | |
| Parental hope, that bids those fears be still; | |
| E’en wrinkled brows with smiles unwonted shine, | |
| As in the sports of youth the grandsires join; | 220 |
| The reverend pastor, fondly bent to call | |
| Heaven’s choicest blessings on his children all; | |
| His hand not much conversant with the gold, | |
| That children of this world intensely hold; | |
| Pardon’d the more, if now his heart might be | 225 |
| Some trifle lighter for the marriage fee. | |
