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Home  »  Specimens of American Poetry  »  Samuel Webber (1797–1880)

Samuel Kettell, ed. Specimens of American Poetry. 1829.

By Logan

Samuel Webber (1797–1880)

TEN suns upon the woods had shone,

Ten times the evening star had thrown

The lustre of its steady ray

Through the dim shades of closing day,

Ere Logan turn’d him from the chase,

His wandering footsteps to retrace.

Of all the scenes through which he pass’d,

By far the loveliest was the last.

Beyond his mid-day bound the sun

Upon his circling course had run,

And on the forest’s top his rays

Pour’d in one broad unbroken blaze,

Yet fail’d to pierce the leafy screen,

Whose canopy of living green

High o’er the forest’s vast arcade

Spread its thick, deeply tinted shade.

Beneath was stern and solemn gloom,

As in some vast and vaulted tomb.

There rose the towering trunks, whose pride

The shock of ages had defied;

Vast as the pillar’d shafts that stand

’Mid Egypt’s ever shifting sand,

Where Carnac’s ruins rise sublime,

Mocking the feeble hand of Time.

Far from the earth they rose on high,

In straight, unbroken symmetry,

Then spread at once their branches wide,

Where bough met bough on every side,

And from the upward gazing eye

Shut the blue glimpses of the sky.

Beneath no humbler growth was found

With tangled copse to hide the ground,

But at their roots the greensward lay,

And flowers that loved the dubious day;

No sound was wafted on the air

To break the stillness slumbering there,

Save the deep moaning of the breeze

That struggled mid the mighty trees,

And more than stillness o’er the mind

Threw feelings deep by awe refined.

There Logan pass’d, towards the west

With firm unwavering course he press’d,

Till through the trunks upon his sight

Pour’d the full blaze of golden light;

With swifter step he hurried on,

And soon the forest’s boundary won.

Great was the contrast then! the wood

Behind in gloomy grandeur stood;

A spacious plain before him lay

Bright with the cheering beams of day.

Far westward stretch’d, in vain the eye

Its distant limits would descry;

By woods on either side embraced,

It seem’d a lake of verdure placed

Amid that dark and gloomy wild,

Where scarce a wandering sun-beam smiled.

The western breeze with balmy sigh

Waved the tall grass of sunny dye,

Whose undulations rose and fell

Like ocean’s soft and vernal swell,

When poets feign’d upon its breast

The wave-nursed Halcyon’s floating nest.

Amid that verdant lake appear’d,

Like islands ’mid the billows rear’d,

Dark tufted groves, the cool retreat

Of wild deer from the noontide heat.

There stretch’d amid the breezy shade

The timid foresters were laid,

Or bounded o’er the plain as light

As the swift swallow’s sportive flight.

—All now was light and life, the ear

A softly murmuring sound might hear,

As Nature’s various voices join’d

With notes of harmony combined.

The whispering grass, the rustling tree,

The mellow humming of the bee,

The buzz of insect tribes, in play

And sunshine sporting life away,

Floating upon the fragrant air,

As if to feed on odors there.

Slow sunk the sun, and twilight deep

Lull’d all that loved his ray to sleep.

’Mid gorgeous clouds that robed the west

The sun was sinking to his rest.

When Logan reach’d his home, with toil

Nigh wearied and his forest spoil.

While on a hill-top far aloof,

With straining gaze he mark’d the roof,

To see if through its crevice broke

The faint blue wreath of evening smoke,

That oft his longing heart had cheer’d,

When first in distance it appear’d,

And spoke of welcome that should greet

His safe return with pleasure meet.

—In vain! the thin, transparent air,

Unstain’d by vapor, rested there.

How could this be! the new moon’s bow

But once had shed its silver glow,

When from her home Oana went,

And ere one half its course was spent

She promised to return again;

—But now the moon was in its wane,

And scarcely half her orbed face

Lent to the night a mournful grace.

At other time this had been nought,

But now of late to anxious thought,

And undefined, his mind was prone;

More than himself would lightly own.

He reach’d his hut, the door was closed,

Within in stillness all reposed

As when he left it, not a change

Was there, but sameness still and strange;

As if no hand had oped the door,

Or footstep cross’d the threshold floor.

He sate him down in silence stern,

Wishing, yet fearful too, to learn

What evil tidings might await,

—Why thus his home was desolate.

He heard a footstep, at his door

One enter’d, one well known before,

Of firm, unfailing friendship proved

In times that faithless hearts had moved.

Then Logan mann’d himself to bear

All he might hear with unmoved air.

‘With thee be peace!’ the chieftain said,

His friend the greeting fair repaid.

Logan look’d keenly in his face,

As if he sought his thoughts to trace.

—Vainly; all there was cold and still

As midnight on the ice bound rill.

A moment’s pause, then calm and brief

The visitant address’d the chief.

‘Logan, I bring thee tidings dread,

The storm of war above thy head

Has burst, and thou art left alone,

For to the land of souls are gone

Thy children and thy wife,’—no more.

The flash that wakes the tempest’s roar,

Bursting around the wanderer’s head

With sheeted flames and thunder dread,

Scarcely each shrinking sense confounds,

As Logan’s now these dreadful sounds.

As one upon a rugged steep,

High beetling o’er the roaring deep,

Supported by some slender vine

Whose tendrils round the rocks entwine,

Feels when it breaks, and far beneath

He plunges living into death,

So Logan felt, his mind was toss’d,

In chaos and confusion lost,

His brain whirl’d dizzily, and sight,

And sense, and thought were banish’d quite.

All hope was reft, and far below

Roll’d the deep gulf of rayless wo.

Joys that had been, and those that he

Had fondly thought in time should be,

—All he had lost, together came

Bursting upon his mind like flame,

With the dread sense that nought could save

Or rush between them and the grave.

—’T was but an instant; like the light

Of meteor darting through the night,

So swiftly that the gazer’s eye

Scarce marks it as it passes by,

Vanish’d that tempest of the soul,

Which then resumed its self-control,

Struggling each outward sign to hide

Of softness that might shame his pride,

And stain his lofty, warrior fame

With weakness of unmanly name.

‘’T is well,’ he said and paused,—the tone

Firm and majestic was his own;

His tearless eye was calm and bright,

His dark lip show’d no tinge of white,

And his whole mien was self possess’d

As if no passion stirr’d his breast.