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LEFROY IN THE FOREST THIS region is as lavish of its flowers | |
As Heaven of its primrose blooms by night. | |
This is the Arum, which within its root | |
Folds life and death; and this the Princes Pine, | |
Fadeless as love and truththe fairest form | 5 |
That ever sun-shower washed with sudden rain. | |
This golden cradle is the Moccasin Flower, | |
Wherein the Indian hunter sees his hound; | |
And this dark chalice is the Pitcher-Plant, | |
Stored with the water of forgetfulness. | 10 |
Whoever drinks of it, whose heart is pure, | |
Will sleep for aye neath foodfull asphodel, | |
And dream of endless love. | |
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There was a time on this fair continent | |
When all things throve in spacious peacefulness. | 15 |
The prosperous forests unmolested stood, | |
For where the stalwart oak grew there it lived | |
Long ages, and then died among its kind. | |
The hoary pinesthose ancients of the earth | |
Brimful of legends of the early world, | 20 |
Stood thick on their own mountains unsubdued; | |
And all things else illumined by the sun, | |
Inland or by the lifted wave, had rest. | |
The passionate or calm pageants of the skies | |
No artist drew; but in the auburn west | 25 |
Innumerable faces of fair cloud | |
Vanished in silent darkness with the day. | |
The prairie realmvast oceans paraphrase | |
Rich in wild grasses numberless, and flowers | |
Unnamed save in mute Natures inventory, | 30 |
No civilized barbarian trenched for gain. | |
And all that flowed was sweet and uncorrupt: | |
The rivers and their tributary streams, | |
Undammed, wound on forever, and gave up | |
Their lonely torrents to weird gulfs of sea, | 35 |
And ocean wastes unshadowed by a sail. | |
And all the wild life of this western world | |
Knew not the fear of man; yet in those woods, | |
And by those plenteous streams and mighty lakes, | |
And on stupendous steppes of peerless plain, | 40 |
And in the rocky gloom of canyons deep, | |
Screened by the stony ribs of mountains hoar | |
Which steeped their snowy peaks in purging cloud, | |
And down the continent where tropic suns | |
Warmed to her very heart the mother earth, | 45 |
And in the congealed north where silence self | |
Ached with intensity of stubborn frost, | |
There lived a soul more wild than barbarous; | |
A tameless soulthe sunburnt savage free | |
Free and untainted by the greed of gain, | 50 |
Great Natures man, content with Natures food. | |
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IENAS SONG FLY far from me, | |
Even as the daylight flies, | |
And leave me in the darkness of my pain! | |
Some earlier love will come to thee again, | 55 |
And sweet new moons will rise, | |
And smile on it and thee. | |
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Fly far from me, | |
Even whilst the daylight wastes | |
Ere thy lips burn me in a last caress; | 60 |
Ere fancy quickens, and my longings press, | |
And my weak spirit hastes | |
For shelter unto thee! | |
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Fly far from me, | |
Even whilst the daylight pales | 65 |
So shall we never, never meet again! | |
Fly! for my senses swimOh, Love! Oh, Pain! | |
Help! for my spirit fails | |
I cannot fly from thee! | |
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THE BUFFALO HERDS Lefroy. We left | 70 |
The silent forest, and, day after day, | |
Great prairies swept beyond our aching sight | |
Into the measureless West: uncharted realms, | |
Voiceless and calm, save when tempestuous wind | |
Rolled the rank herbage into billows vast, | 75 |
And rushing tides, which never found a shore. | |
And tender clouds, and veils of morning mist | |
Cast flying shadows, chased by flying light, | |
Into interminable wildernesses, | |
Flushed with fresh blooms, deep perfumed by the rose, | 80 |
And murmurous with flower-fed bird and bee. | |
The deep-grooved bison-paths like furrows lay, | |
Turned by the cloven hoofs of thundering herds | |
Primeval, and still travelled as of yore. | |
And gloomy valleys opened at our feet | 85 |
Shagged with dusk cypresses and hoary pine; | |
And sunless gorges, rummaged by the wolf, | |
Which through long reaches of the prairie wound, | |
Then melted slowly into upland vales, | |
Lingering, far-stretched amongst the spreading hills. | 90 |
Brock. What charming solitudes! And life was there! | |
Lefroy. Yes, life was there! inexplicable life, | |
Still wasted by inexorable death. | |
There had the stately stage his battle-field | |
Dying for mastery among his hinds. | 95 |
There vainly sprung the affrighted antelope, | |
Beset by glittering eyes and hurrying feet. | |
The dancing grouse, at their insensate sport, | |
Heard not the stealthy footstep of the fox; | |
The gopher on his little earthwork stood, | 100 |
With folded arms, unconscious of the fate | |
That wheeled in narrowing circles overhead, | |
And the poor mouse, on heedless nibbling bent, | |
Marked not the silent coiling of the snake. | |
At length we heard a deep and solemn sound | 105 |
Erupted moanings of the troubled earth | |
Trembling beneath innumerable feet. | |
A growing uproar blending in our ears, | |
With noise tumultuous as oceans surge, | |
Of bellowings, fierce breath and battle shock, | 110 |
A multitude whose trampling shook the plains, | |
With discord of harsh sound and rumblings deep, | |
As if the swift revolving earth had struck, | |
And from some adamantine peak recoiled | |
Jarring. At length we topped a high-browed hill | 115 |
The last and loftiest of a file of such | |
And, lo! before us lay the tameless stock, | |
Slow-wending to the northward like a cloud! | |
A multitude in motion, dark and dense | |
Far as the eye could reach, and farther still, | 120 |
In countless myriads stretched for many a league. | |
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