English

Where a far prairie pours its yearly flood
Of verdure to a forest's dusky foot,
And where a stream to Mississippi flows
In endless vassalage; and where the beaver,
Like the red Indian and the buffalo,
Flying before the fast-encroaching plow,
The sickle and the mill, hath fled so late,
Scared by the trapper from his watery door—
While his small homestead, in the liquid plain,
With empty threshold looks abroad amazed—
And where the breastwork still retards the stream,
To hint and aid the future miller's dam;

When comes the eve—and in these antique woods
Eve comes before its time, and the deep night
With double darkness falls—then springs the blaze
Of crackling camp-fires; while the astonished trees,
Half-lighted, stand and murmur their surprise
To others crowding in the shade behind;
And many a bird with fascinated wonder,
And stealthy beast, with wide unwinking stare
And fixed amazement, gaze with silent fear,
Till night is robbed of half its dreary noise.
There stands the pastor mid his little flock,

Behold the morn! and now begins the toil.
The first loud axe alarms the forest's shade;
And there the first tree falls, and falling wide,
With spreading arms that tear their downward way
Strips the adjacent branches; the loud crash
Thunders to Heaven, and the astonished sun
Looks down the murderous gap. Thus, ever thus,
In the community of men, a wrong
To one deals injury to many more.
Hark, how the roar runs echoing through the woods.
And every oldest oak and sycamore
Thrills with prophetic feeling of its fall.

Of all the lovely seasons of the year,
None is so full of majesty as this,
When red October, like a king of old—
As wise as rich, and generous as wise—
Smiles on the untaxed garners of the land.
The fields lie cleared and brown; and all the woods
Gleam with a mellow splendour, where the gold
Vies with the purple and the crimson glory,—
The sunset of the year. Whence soon shall follow
The gusty twilight of November days;
Then the dull, rainy eve, till Winter comes,
Like a white moonlight night, and shuts the scene

The skies are clouded, and the sad winds sweep,
Wailing along the forest, like a bard
Pouring a requiem upon his harp.
All sights and sounds are dreary; and the pipe,
So long attuned to pleasurable exploits,
Breathes like a widowed night-bird unconsoled.
A melancholy wide pervades the air;
Whence falls the shadow? what invisible hand
Spreads the dusk veil? Is it that Autumn drops
Her chilly mantle, like a funeral weed,
Trailing and rustling on the gusty wind?
Or some presentiment of ill to come,

The season comes when, from her three-month's trance.
The Earth awakes: already her deep heart
Begins to stir, and send its life abroad.
On slopes, which lie adjacent to the sun,
The snows grow thin and vanish, and the air
Is scented with the odours of the mould;
For there the Spring, with warm and delicate feet,
Fresh from her hidden caverns of perfume,
Walks in the noon to wake the early flowers.
Here the first bird begins the woodland's song;
But in yon maple grove, where genial airs
Are earliest to blow, and last to leave,

Along yon rugged road which, like a stream,
Bursts through the shadowy forest to the west—
Where many a wain, like a deep-laden barge,
Sweeps with the current following the sun—
Behold to-day, with toilsome course reversed,
One lonesome team is heading to the east.
Crouched 'neath the cover, pale and sick at heart,
Like wounded sufferers from a camp of war,
The dwindled household of the pioneer
Pursues its homeward way. And when the wheel
Sinks, in the black mire stalled, 'tis Baldwin's arm,

As Cloe came into the room t'other day,
I peevish began; Where so long could you stay?
In your lifetime you never regarded your hour:
You promis'd at two; and (pray look, Child) 'tis four.
A lady's watch needs neither figures nor wheels:
'Tis enough, that 'tis loaded with bawbles and seals.
A temper so heedless no mortal can bear—
Thus far I went on with a resolute air.
Lord bless me, said she; let a body but speak:
Here's an ugly hard rose-bud fall'n into my neck;
It has hurt me, and vex'd me to such a degree—

As Chloris full of harmless thought
Beneath the willows lay,
Kind love a comely shepherd brought
To pass the time away.

She blushed to be encountered so
And chid the amorous swain,
But as she strove to rise and go,
He pulled her back again.

A sudden passion seized her heart
In spite of her disdain;
She found a pulse in every part,
And love in every vein.

"Ah, youth!" quoth she, "What charms are these
That conquer and surprise?
Ah, let me--for unless you please,
I have no power to rise."

O genile-hearied Queen of Peace, thou Daughter
Of Righteousness, to greatness dost thou raise
Cities: of counsel calm and war's mad slaughter
The master-keys thou holdest. Of thy grace
Welcome the praise
Of Aristomenes, in athlete-strife
Won at the Pythian Games. Thou knowest truly
How to receive and give in season duly
The kindly courtesies that sweeten life.

Yet thou, whenever any man hath driven
Thine heart to righteous wrath, relentlessly,
Sternly against the might of foes hast striven: