SUMMER WIND

It is a sultry day: the sun has drunk
The dew that lay upon the morning grass;
There is no rustling in the lofty elm
That canopies my dwelling, and its shade
Scarce cools me. All is silent, save the faint
And interrupted murmur of the bee,
Settling on the sick flowers, and then again
Instantly on the wing. The plants around
Feel the too potent fervors: the tall maize
Rolls up its long green leaves; the clover droops
Its tender foliage, and declines its blooms.
But far in the fierce sunshine tower the hills,
With all their growth of woods, silent and stern,
As if the scorching heat and dazzling light
Were but an element they loved. Bright clouds,
Motionless pillars of the brazen heaven-
Their bases on the mountains, their white tops
Shining in the far ether-fire the air
With a reflected radiance, and make turn
The gazer's eye away. For me, I lie
Languidly in the shade, where the thick turf,
Yet virgin from the kisses of the sun,
Retains some freshness, and I woo the wind
That still delays his coming. Why so slow,
Gentle and voluble spirit of the air?

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ΤΟ

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Oh, come and breathe upon the fainting earth
Coolness and life! Is it that in his caves
He hears me? See, on yonder woody ridge
The pine is bending his proud top; and now,
Among the nearer groves, chestnut and oak
Are tossing their green boughs about. He comes!
Lo, where the grassy meadow runs in waves!
The deep distressful silence of the scene
Breaks up with mingling of unnumbered sounds
And universal motion. He is come,
Shaking a shower of blossoms from the shrubs,
And bearing on their fragrance; and he brings
Music of birds, and rustling of young boughs,
And sound of swaying branches, and the voice

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Of distant waterfalls. All the green herbs
Are stirring in his breath; a thousand flowers,
By the road-side and the borders of the brook,
Nod gayly to each other; glossy leaves
Are twinkling in the sun, as if the dew
Were on them yet; and silver waters break
Into small waves and sparkle as he comes.

1824.

1824.

MONUMENT MOUNTAIN

Thou who wouldst see the lovely and the wild
Mingled in harmony on Nature's face,
Ascend our rocky mountains. Let thy foot

Fail not with weariness, for on their tops

The beauty and the majesty of earth,

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Spread wide beneath, shall make thee to forget

The steep and toilsome way. There, as thou stand'st,

The haunts of men below thee, and, around,

To hide their windings. Thou shalt gaze, at once,

Here on white villages and tilth and herds
And swarming roads, and there on solitudes

That only hear the torrent and the wind

And eagle's shriek. There is a precipice

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That seems a fragment of some mighty wall

Built by the hand that fashioned the old world,

To separate its nations, and thrown down

When the flood drowned them. To the north, a path
Conducts you up the narrow battlement.
Steep is the western side, shaggy and wild
With mossy trees and pinnacles of flint

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And many a hanging crag. But, to the east,
Sheer to the vale go down the bare old cliffs,
Huge pillars, that in middle heaven upbear

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Their weather-beaten capitals, here dark
With moss, the growth of centuries, and there
Of chalky whiteness where the thunderbolt
Has splintered them. It is a fearful thing
To stand upon the beetling verge and see

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Where storm and lightning, from that huge gray wall,
Have tumbled down vast blocks and at the base

Dashed them in fragments, and to lay thine ear
Over the dizzy depth and hear the sound
Of winds, that struggle with the woods below,
Come up like ocean murmurs. But the scene
Is lovely round; a beautiful river there
Wanders amid the fresh and fertile meads,

The paradise he made unto himself,
Mining the soil for ages. On each side
The fields swell upward to the hills; beyond,

Above the hills, in the blue distance, rise

The mountain columns with which earth props heaven.

There is a tale about these reverend rocks,

A sad tradition of unhappy love,

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And sorrows borne and ended, long ago,

When over these fair vales the savage sought

His game in the thick woods. There was a maid,

The fairest of the Indian maids, bright-eyed,

With wealth of raven tresses, a light form,

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And a gay heart. About her cabin door

The wide old woods resounded with her song

And fairy laughter all the summer day.

She loved her cousin; such a love was deemed,

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By the morality of those stern tribes,
Incestuous, and she struggled hard and long
Against her love, and reasoned with her heart,
As simple Indian maiden might. In vain.
Then her eye lost its lustre, and her step

Its lightness, and the gray-haired men that passed
Her dwelling wondered that they heard no more
The accustomed song and laugh of her whose looks
Were like the cheerful smile of Spring, they said,
Upon the Winter of their age. She went
To weep where no eye saw, and was not found
When all the merry girls were met to dance,

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And all the hunters of the tribe were out;

Nor when they gathered from the rustling husk
The shining ear; nor when, by the river's side,

They pulled the grape and startled the wild shades

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With sounds of mirth. The keen-eyed Indian dames
Would whisper to each other, as they saw
Her wasting form, and say, The girl will die.
One day into the bosom of a friend,

A playmate of her young and innocent years,

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She poured her griefs. "Thou know'st, and thou alone,"

She said, "for I have told thee, all my love

And guilt and sorrow. I am sick of life.
All night I weep in darkness; and the morn
Glares on me as upon a thing accursed,
That has no business on the earth. I hate
The pastimes and the pleasant toils that once
I loved; the cheerful voices of my friends
Sound in my ear like mockings, and at night
In dreams, my mother, from the land of souls,
Calls me and chides me. All that look on me
Do seem to know my shame: I cannot bear
Their eyes; I cannot from my heart root out
The love that wrings it so, and I must die."

It was a summer morning, and they went
To this old precipice. About the cliffs
Lay garlands, ears of maize, and shaggy skins
Of wolf and bear, the offerings of the tribe
Here made to the Great Spirit, for they deemed,
Like worshippers of the elder time, that God
Doth walk on the high places and affect
The earth-o'erlooking mountains. She had on
The ornaments with which her father loved
To deck the beauty of his bright-eyed girl,
And bade her wear when stranger warriors came
To be his guests. Here the friends sat them down.
And sang, all day, old songs of love and death,
And decked the poor wan victim's hair with flowers,
And prayed that safe and swift might be her way
To the calm world of sunshine, where no grief
Makes the heart heavy and the eyelids red
Beautiful lay the region of her tribe

Below her-waters resting in the embrace
Of the wide forest, and maize-planted glades
Opening amid the leafy wilderness

She gazed upon it long, and at the sight
Of her own village peeping through the trees,
And her own dwelling, and the cabin roof
Of him she loved with an unlawful love

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And came to die for, a warm gush of tears

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Ran from her eyes. But when the sun grew low

And the hill shadows long, she threw herself

From the steep rock and perished. There was scooped,
Upon the mountain's southern slope, a grave;
And there they laid her, in the very garb

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With which the maiden decked herself for death,

With the same withering wild flowers in her hair.

And o'er the mould that covered her the tribe

Built up a simple monument, a cone

Of small loose stones. Thenceforward, all who passed,
Hunter and dame and virgin, laid a stone

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In silence on the pile. It stands there yet.

And Indians from the distant West, who come
To visit where their fathers' bones are laid,
Yet tell the sorrowful tale; and to this day
The mountain where the hapless maiden died
Is called the Mountain of the Monument.

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1824.

1824.

A FOREST HYMN

The groves were God's first temples. Ere man learned

To hew the shaft and lay the architrave

And spread the roof above them, ere he framed
The lofty vault to gather and roll back

The sound of anthems, in the darkling wood,

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Amid the cool and silence, he knelt down

And offered to the Mightiest solemn thanks
And supplication; for his simple heart
Might not resist the sacred influences

Which, from the stilly twilight of the place,

ΙΟ

And from the gray old trunks that high in heaven

Mingled their mossy boughs, and from the sound