| |
| THERE 1 is a vale far in the West, | |
| And silence hovers o’er its breast; | |
| The track of man is seldom seen | |
| Upon its yet unsullied green. | |
| The wild deer fearless roves along; | 5 |
| The red bird pours his mellow song; | |
| And the gay mock bird from on high | |
| Repeats, in playful mimicry, | |
| The varied notes, which all around, | |
| From twice ten thousand songsters rise: | 10 |
| When, waked at morn, its groves resound | |
| Their matin chorus to the skies, | |
| Its echoes never learn’d to know | |
| The cheering voice of chanticleer, | |
| Or sturdy axeman’s measured blow, | 15 |
| Along the wild wood ringing clear. | |
| But still they mock the solemn owl, | |
| And cheat the wolf with mimic howl. | |
| The cloud-capt ridge, that bounds the west, | |
| Behind it rears a snowy crest, | 20 |
| Whose evening shadows o’er it rest; | |
| And often when the morning cloud | |
| Has wrapt its mantle, like a shroud, | |
| Around the frowning giant’s form, | |
| The radiant sun is glancing warm; | 25 |
| And every songster, warbling sweet, | |
| In that lone valley at his feet. | |
| A winding stream the tribute brings | |
| Of melting snows and crystal springs, | |
| That gush along the mountain’s side, | 30 |
| And mingling there in silence glide | |
| Beneath green arbors, where the vine, | |
| The jessamine, and eglantine | |
| Their varying hues of beauty twine, | |
| With many a virgin floweret’s bloom, | 35 |
| And fill the air with sweet perfume. | |
| Hard by that stream there whilom stood | |
| A lonely hut, o’er which the wood | |
| Spread with its hundred arms on high | |
| A wild luxuriant canopy. | 40 |
| And who was he, that hermit gray, | |
| That thus in loneliness would dwell? | |
| Why did he stray thus far away, | |
| To die in that sequester’d dell? | |
| His look—his form—his speech—his mien | 45 |
| Were not of savage mould, I ween; | |
| Nor yet of that dull heavy kind, | |
| That mark so well the common mind. | |
| But such, as chain the wondering eye, | |
| Though none can tell the reason why. | 50 |
| Oft would his broken accents tell, | |
| As half unconsciously they fell, | |
| Of joys and griefs, of hopes and fears, | |
| Now lost amid the wreck of years; | |
| Of love by blood and murder crost; | 55 |
| Of home and friends for ever lost; | |
| And then, as though his very grief | |
| Were link’d with something like relief, | |
| A bitter smile was seen to play | |
| Across his deeply-furrow’d cheek, | 60 |
| And, ere the eye its cause might seek, | |
| Like evening meteors flit away. | |
| His rugged dress and scanty fare | |
| Claim’d but a passing moment’s care. | |
| The earth supplied his simple feast. | 65 |
| He stripp’d his garment from the beast; | |
| Not from the tribes of nature mild, | |
| But the fierce tyrants of the wild. | |
| It was his wont o’er hill and dale | |
| To wander forth the livelong day; | 70 |
| Till, by the star of evening pale, | |
| He turn’d to trace his homeward way. | |
| But his was not the sordid toil | |
| Of those, that range the valley wide, | |
| Or climb the mountain’s grassy side, | 75 |
| To rend from life their furry spoil. | |
| The browsing doe would raise her head, | |
| When startled by his passing tread, | |
| Would gaze perchance, with wondering eye; | |
| But had not learn’d to fear, and fly; | 80 |
| For often, when he chanced to hear | |
| The bleating of the captive deer, | |
| His ready shot would quell its foe, | |
| And lay the tyrant panther low. | |
