Samuel G. Goodrich

“ As the sharp hail of winter when urged by the blast.
He smiled on each shaft as it flew from the string,
Though feathered by fate, and the lightning its wing.
Unerring, unsparing, it sped to its mark,
As the mandate of destiny, certain and dark.
The mail of the warrior it severed in twain,—
The wall of the castle it shivered amain:
No shield could shelter, no prayer could save,
And Love's holy shrine no immunity gave.
A babe in the cradle—its mother bent o'er,—
The arrow is sped,—and that babe is no more! ”

“ The gem on her finger,—in Heaven her vows;
Unseen is the blow, but she sinks in the crowd,
And her bright wedding-garment is turned to a shroud!
II.
On flew the Destroyer, o'er mountain and main,—
And where there was life, there, there are the slain!
No valley so deep, no islet so lone,
But his shadow is cast, and his victims are known.
He paused not, though years rolled weary and slow,
And Time's hoary pinion drooped languid and low:
He paused not till Man from his birth-place was swept,
And the sea and the land in solitude slept. ”

“ The fruits and flowers of summer die.
The autumn winds swept o'er the hill,
And winter's breath came cold and chill.
The leaf now yielded to the blast,
And on the rushing stream was cast.
Far, far it glided to the sea,
And whirled and eddied wearily,
Till suddenly it sank to rest,
And slumbered in the ocean's breast.
Thus life begins—its morning hours,
Bright as the birthday of the flowers—
Thus passes like the leaves away,
As withered and as lost as they.
Beneath the parent roof we meet
In joyous groups, and gayly greet
The golden beams of love and light,
That dawn upon the youthful sight. ”

“ But vain was their haste, for the moonlight fleet
Had passed with the dawn, and never again
Were those fairies permitted to traverse the main.
But 'mid the groves, when the sun was high,
The Indian marked with a worshipping eye,
The HUMMING BIRDS, all unknown before,
Glancing like thoughts from flower to flower,
And seeming as if earth's loveliest things,
The brilliants and blossoms, had taken wings:
And Fancy hath whispered in numbers light,
That these are the fairies who danced that night,
And linger yet in the garb they wore,
Content in our clime and more blest than before! ”

“ And if perchance some fleeting memories steal,
Like far-off echoes to my dreaming ear,
Away, ungrasped, the cheating visions wheel,
As spectres start upon the wing of fear.
Alas! the glorious sun, which then was high,
Touching each common thing with rosy light,
Is darkly banished from the lowering sky—
And life's dull onward pathway lies, in night.
Yes—I am changed—and this gray gnarled form,
Its leaves all scattered by the rending blast,
Is but an image of my heart;—the storm—
The storm of life, doth make us such at last! ”

“ Despairing, broods o'er the uncounted graves.
And warrior tribes have come from some far land,
And made these mountains echo with their cry—
And they have mouldered—and their mighty hand
Hath writ no record on the earth or sky!
And 'mid the awful stillness of their grave,
The forest oaks have flourished; and the breath
Of years hath swept their races, wave on wave,
As ages fainted on the shores of death.
The tumbling cliff perchance hath thundered deep,
Like a rough note of music in the song
Of centuries, and the whirlwind's crushing sweep,
Hath ploughed the forest with its furrows strong. ”

“ Bright Star of the West—broad Land of the Free,
The wreath and the anthem are woven for thee!
IV.
Stern Seer of the future, thy curtain unroll,
And show to long ages our empire of peace—
Where man never bent to the despot's control,
And the spirit of liberty never shall cease.
Our Stars and our Stripes 'mid battle's loud thunder,
Were bound by our sires in the wedlock of love—
Oh! ne'er shall the spirit of strife put asunder,
The UNION thus hallowed by spirits above.
Bright Star of the West—broad Land of the Free,
The wreath and the anthem are woven for thee! ”

“ And the sumach rouged deeper, as stooping to look,
It glanced at the colors that flared in the brook.
The delicate aspen grew nervous and pale,
As the tittering forest seemed full of the tale;
And the lofty ash, though it tossed up its bough,
With a puritan air on the mountain's brow,
Bore a purple tinge o'er its leafy fold,
And the hidden revel was gayly told!
The Sea-Bird
The Sea-Bird
Far, far o'er the deep is my island throne,
Where the sea-gull roams and reigns alone ”

“ Where car and steamer make their stormy way.
Perchance some Cooper's magic art may wake
The sleeping legends of this mighty vale,
And twine fond memories round the lawn and lake,
Where Warrior fought or Lover told his tale:
And when the Red Man's form hath left these glades,
And memory's moonlight o'er his story streams,
From their dim graves shall rise heroic shades,
And fill the fancy with romantic dreams.
Then, in the city's gorgeous squares shall rise
The chiselled column to the admiring view—
To mark the spot where some stern Black Hawk lies,
Whom ages gone, our glorious grandsires slew! ”

“ With clambering step still up the steep was borne,
Too sad to smile, too pleased perchance to mourn.
And now I stood beside that rivulet's spring,
That came unbidden with a bubbling bound—
And stealing forth, a gentle trembling thing,
It seemed an infant fearing all around—
Yet clinging to its mother's breast—the ground.
But soon it bolder grew, and with a wing
It went: its carol was a joyous sound,
Making the silent woods responsive ring,
And the far forest-echoes, sighing, sing. ”

“ Perchance some lingering tone is there—
Some cherished melody of yore.
If flowers that bloom no more are here,
Their odors still around us cling—
And though the loved are lost-still dear,
Their memories may wake the string.
I strike—but lo, the wonted thrill,
Of joy in sorrowing cadence dies:
Alas! the minstrel's hand is chill,
And the sad lute, responsive, sighs.
'Tis ever thus—our life begins,
In Eden, and all fruit seems sweet—
"We taste and knowledge, with our sins,
Creeps to the heart and spoils the cheat. ”

“ They whisper, and they speak to me.
Nature hath many voices—strings
Of varied melody: and oft
Lone spirits come on breezy wings,
To wake their music sad or soft.
But in the wilderness, where Heaven
Is the wrapt listener, the tone
Is ever mournful: there is given,
A chorus for the skies, alone.
At night, when the pale moonlight falls
O'er prairies, sleeping like a grave,
And glorious through these mountain halls,
Pours in a flood its silvery wave—
I climb the cliff, and hear the song,
That o'er the breast of stillness steals:
I hear the cataract thundering strong
From far ”

“ Choice spirits were gathered from meadow and plain—
And lightly embarking from Erin's bold cliffs,
They slid o'er the wave in their moonbeam skiffs.
A ray for a rudder—a thought for a sail—
Swift, swift was each bark as the wing of the gale.
V.
Enough, that at last they came to the Isle,
Where moonlight and fragrance were rivals the while.
Not yet had those vessels from Palos been here,
To turn the bright gem to the blood-mingled tear.
Oh no! still blissful and peaceful the land,
And the merry elves flew from the sea to the strand. ”

“ Of unslippered fairies that danced in the vales—
But the lovers of scandal I leave in the lurch—
And, beside, these elves don't belong to the church.
If they danced—be it known—'twas not in the clime
Of your Mathers and Hookers, where laughter was crime;
Where sentinel virtue kept guard o'er the lip,
Though witchcraft stole into the heart by a slip!
Oh no! 'twas the land of the fruit and the flower—
Where Summer and Spring both dwelt in one bower—
Where one hung the citron, all ripe from the bough,
And the other with blossoms encircled her brow ”

“ Are lit by the moonlight, and faint with perfume.
They stray where the mangrove and clematis twine,
Where azalia and laurel in rivalry shine;
Where, tall as the oak, the passion-tree glows,
And jasmine is blent with rhodora and rose.
O'er blooming savannas and meadows of light,
'Mid regions of summer they sweep in their flight,
And gathering the fairest, they speed to their bower,
Each one with his favorite brilliant or flower.
VIII.
The hour is come, and the fairies are seen
In their plunder arrayed on the moonlit green. ”

“ Yet o'er these ghastly shapes, soft lichens wind,
And timid daisies droop, and tranquil flowers
A robe of many-colored beauty, bind,
As if some vagrant fairy claimed these bowers.
III.
Fit cradle this—Majestic Stream, for thee!
Nursed at the glacier's foot—by tempests fed—
The lightning flashing o'er thy canopy,
And thunders pealing round thine infant bed—
The pious Indian marks thy mystic birth,
'Mid storm and cloud, and nature's aspect wild—
And wondering, deems thee not a thing of earth,
But great Manitto's fair and favored child. ”

“ Swift, swift was the steed, o'er Shinar's wide sand,
But swifter the arrow that flew from Death's hand!
IV.
O'er the mountain he seems like a tempest to lower,
Triumphant and dark in the fulness of power;
And flashes of flame, that play round his crest,
Bespeak the fierce lightning that glows in his breast. ”

“ When lashed by the gale in its quivering bower:
Her arms round her lover she wildly twined,
And gazed on the sea with a wildered mind.
He bent o'er the trembler, and sheltered her form,
From the plash of the sea, and the sweep of the storm;
But woe to the lover, and woe to the maid,
Whose hopes on the treacherous deep are laid! ”

“ Blend with the cataract's solemn theme,
And the wild cadences prolong.
And often when the heart is chilled
By the deep harmony, the note
Of some light-hearted bird is trilled
Upon the breeze. How sweet its throat!
Yet, as a gem upon the finger
Of a pale corse, deepens the gloom,
By its bright rays that laugh and linger
In the dread bosom of the tomb;
So doth the note of that wild bird,
Sadden the anthem of the hills,
And my hushed bosom, spirit-stirred,
With lonelier desolation thrills.
XV.
"You bid me pray? ”

“ Point thou with reverent gaze to heaven,
And kneel in earnest prayer,
That lessons thou hast humbly given,
May lead thy pupil there.
Perennials
Life is a journey, and its fairest flowers
Lie in our path beneath pride's trampling feet ”

“ Unmarked, perchance unheeded.
And now gay groups of roses bright,
In circling thickets bound her—
Yet on she went with footsteps light,
Still gazing all around her.
And now she paused, and now she stooped,
And plucked a little flower—
A simple daisy 'twas, that drooped
Within a rosy bower.
The child did kiss the little gem,
And to her bosom pressed it;
And there she placed the fragile stem,
And with soft words caressed it.
I love to read a lesson true,
From nature's open book—
And oft I learn a lesson new,
From childhood's careless look.
Children are simple—loving—true ”

“ And o'er its breast their gorgeous image fling.
The Mississippi needs no herald now—
But here within this glen unknown to fame,
It flows content—a bubble on its brow,
A leaf upon its breast—without a name!
Banks of the Mississippi II.
Strange contrasts here—for on the glacier's height,
The tempest raves, and arrowy lightnings leap—
Yet deep beneath, the wild flowers lone and light,
On slender stems in breezeless silence sleep. ”

“ E'er gave to favored fairy's bower:
And in that hidden hermitage,
Of forest, river, lake, and dell,—
While Time himself grew gray and sage,
The lone Enchantress loved to dwell.
II.
Ages have flown,—the vagrant gales
Have swept that lonely land; the flowers
Have nodded to the breeze; the vales,
Long, long, have sheltered in their bowers,
The forest minstrels; and the race
Of mastodons hath come and gone ”

“ But to his soul, the seeming vision bore
A solemn meaning, which he could not spurn—
And Youth, perchance, may from our fable learn,
That while the beckoning passions woo and sigh,
TIME, with his ready scythe, stands listening by. ”

“ Name, fame, and fortune—each shall pass away;
And all that castle-building fancy weaves,
Shall sleep, unthinking, as the drowsy clay.
But from thy root another tree shall bloom—
With living leaves its tossing boughs shall rise ”

“ Alas! that ruthless science in these days,
To its stern crucible hath brought at last,
The cherished shapes that all so fondly gaze
Upon us from the dim poetic past!
Else might these moonlit prairies show at dawn,
The dew-swept circle of the elfin dance—
These woodlands teem with sportive fay and faun—
These grottoes glimmer with sweet Echo's glance.
Perchance a future Homer might have wrought
From out the scattered wreck of ages fled,
Some long lost Troy, where mighty heroes fought,
And made the earth re-echo with their tread! ”

“ These gossamer sprites to suspect or spy,—
So they danced 'mid the spicy groves unseen,
And mad were their merry pranks, I ween;
For the fairies, like other discreet little elves,
Are freest and fondest when all by themselves. ”

“ The night is deepened along the shore,
And I thread my way o'er the dusky heath.
But often again I shall go to that cliff,
And seek for her form on the flashing tide,
For I know she will come in her airy skiff,
And over the sea we shall swiftly ride!
[A]
The Laplanders are said to entertain the idea that the coruscations of the Aurora Borealis, are occasioned by the sports of the fishes in the polar seas.
[B]
The loss of the United States Sloop-of-War Hornet, in the Gulf of Mexico, 1829, suggested this passage. ”

“ To this far scene, perchance like mine,
And there a Forest Dreamer found,
Who walks the dell with spectral mien.
Youthful his brow, his bearing high—
Yet writhed his lip, and all subdued,
The fire that once hath lit his eye.
Wayward and sullen oft his mood;
But he perchance may deign to tell,
As he hath told to me, his tale,
In words like these,—while o'er the dell,
The autumn twilight wove its veil.
III.
"Stranger! ”