Upon a rock that, high and sheer,Rose from the mountain’s breast,A weary hunter of the deerHad sat him down to rest,And bared to the soft summer airHis hot red brow and sweaty hair. All dim in haze the mountains lay,With dimmer vales between;And rivers glimmered on their way,By forests faintly seen;While ever rose a murmuring […]

Earth’s children cleave to Earth–her frailDecaying children dread decay.Yon wreath of mist that leaves the vale,And lessens in the morning ray:Look, how, by mountain rivulet,It lingers as it upward creeps,And clings to fern and copsewood setAlong the green and dewy steeps:Clings to the fragrant kalmia, clingsTo precipices fringed with grass,Dark maples where the wood-thrush sings,And […]

The summer morn is bright and fresh, the birds are darting by,As if they loved to breast the breeze that sweeps the cool clear sky;Young Albert, in the forest’s edge, has heard a rustling sound,An arrow slightly strikes his hand and falls upon the ground. A dark-haired woman from the wood comes suddenly in sight;Her […]

Midst greens and shades the Catterskill leaps,From cliffs where the wood-flower clings;All summer he moistens his verdant steepsWith the sweet light spray of the mountain springs;And he shakes the woods on the mountain side,When they drip with the rains of autumn-tide. But when, in the forest bare and old,The blast of December calls,He builds, in […]

Matron! the children of whose love,Each to his grave, in youth hath passed,And now the mould is heaped aboveThe dearest and the last!Bride! who dost wear the widow’s veilBefore the wedding flowers are pale!Ye deem the human heart enduresNo deeper, bitterer grief than yours. Yet there are pangs of keener wo,Of which the sufferers never […]

‘Tis said, when Schiller’s death drew nigh,The wish possessed his mighty mind,To wander forth wherever lieThe homes and haunts of human-kind. Then strayed the poet, in his dreams,By Rome and Egypt’s ancient graves;Went up the New World’s forest streams,Stood in the Hindoo’s temple-caves; Walked with the Pawnee, fierce and stark,The sallow Tartar, midst his herds,The […]

How shall I know thee in the sphere which keepsThe disembodied spirits of the dead,When all of thee that time could wither sleepsAnd perishes among the dust we tread? For I shall feel the sting of ceaseless painIf there I meet thy gentle presence not;Nor hear the voice I love, nor read againIn thy serenest […]

Once this soft turf, this rivulet’s sands,Were trampled by a hurrying crowd,And fiery hearts and armed handsEncountered in the battle cloud. Ah! I never shall the land forgetHow gushed the life-blood of her brave–Gushed, warm with hope and courage yet,Upon the soil they fought to save. Now all is calm, and fresh, and still,Alone the […]

Fair is thy site, Sorrento, green thy shore,Black crags behind thee pierce the clear blue skies;The sea, whose borderers ruled the world of yore,As clear and bluer still before thee lies. Vesuvius smokes in sight, whose fount of fire,Outgushing, drowned the cities on his steeps;And murmuring Naples, spire o’ertopping spire,Sits on the slope beyond where […]

“Oh father, let us hence–for hark,A fearful murmur shakes the air.The clouds are coming swift and dark:–What horrid shapes they wear!A winged giant sails the sky;Oh father, father, let us fly!” “Hush, child; it is a grateful sound,That beating of the summer shower;Here, where the boughs hang close around,We’ll pass a pleasant hour,Till the fresh […]

I. Here we halt our march, and pitch our tentOn the rugged forest ground,And light our fire with the branches rentBy winds from the beeches round.Wild storms have torn this ancient wood,But a wilder is at hand,With hail of iron and rain of blood,To sweep and waste the land. II. How the dark wood rings […]

Here are old trees, tall oaks and gnarled pines,That stream with gray-green mosses; here the groundWas never trenched by spade, and flowers spring upUnsown, and die ungathered. It is sweetTo linger here, among the flitting birdsAnd leaping squirrels, wandering brooks, and windsThat shake the leaves, and scatter, as they pass,A fragrance from the cedars, thickly […]

The fresh savannas of the SangamonHere rise in gentle swells, and the long grassIs mixed with rustling hazels. Scarlet tuftsAre glowing in the green, like flakes of fire;The wanderers of the prairie know them well,And call that brilliant flower the Painted Cup. Now, if thou art a poet, tell me notThat these bright chalices were […]

[from an Unfinished Poem] The summer day is closed–the sun is set:Well they have done their office, those bright hours,The latest of whose train goes softly outIn the red West. The green blade of the groundHas risen, and herds have cropped it; the young twigHas spread its plaited tissues to the sun;Flowers of the garden […]

The earth may ring, from shore to shore,With echoes of a glorious name,But he, whose loss our tears deplore,Has left behind him more than fame. For when the death-frost came to lieOn Leggett’s warm and mighty heart,And quenched his bold and friendly eye,His spirit did not all depart. The words of fire that from his […]

Among our hills and valleys, I have knownWise and grave men, who, while their diligent handsTended or gathered in the fruits of earth,Were reverent learners in the solemn schoolOf nature. Not in vain to them were sentSeed-time and harvest, or the vernal showerThat darkened the brown tilth, or snow that beatOn the white winter hills. […]

I. Ye winds, ye unseen currents of the air,Softly ye played a few brief hours ago;Ye bore the murmuring bee; ye tossed the hairO’er maiden cheeks, that took a fresher glow;Ye rolled the round white cloud through depths of blue;Ye shook from shaded flowers the lingering dew;Before you the catalpa’s blossoms flew,Light blossoms, dropping on […]

Oh silvery streamlet of the fields,That flowest full and free!For thee the rains of spring return,The summer dews for thee;And when thy latest blossoms dieIn autumn’s chilly showers,The winter fountains gush for thee,Till May brings back the flowers. Oh Stream of Life! the violet springsBut once beside thy bed;But one brief summer, on thy path,The […]

It was a hundred years ago,When, by the woodland ways,The traveller saw the wild deer drink,Or crop the birchen sprays. Beneath a hill, whose rocky sideO’erbrowed a grassy mead,And fenced a cottage from the wind,A deer was wont to feed. She only came when on the cliffsThe evening moonlight lay,And no man knew the secret […]

FROM AN UNFINISHED POEM. ‘Tis noon. At noon the Hebrew bowed the kneeAnd worshipped, while the husbandmen withdrewFrom the scorched field, and the wayfaring manGrew faint, and turned aside by bubbling fount,Or rested in the shadow of the palm. I, too, amid the overflow of day,Behold the power which wields and cherishesThe frame of Nature. […]