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;
Where, through the woodland depth, the wild deer's track
Still shows the hoof-prints leading to the brink,
And, on the opposing shore, the larger path
Worn by the prairie herds athirst; behold
One small, rude hut of bark and motley skins
Sits, like a tired hunter, on the bank,
Companionless and still. Half drawn ashore,
A rough canoe lies dreaming; and, near by,
The forest Selkirk, sitting with his dog,
Fondles his rifle and resets the flint.
He is of those who, like the venturous bees,
Herald the nation following in their wake—
An advance courier of a world of men—
A scout, from civilization's onward line,
Sent to inspect the forest's savage camp.
Silent he muses, and, athwart his brow,
Thoughts and their shadows pass like autumn-clouds
Perchance he walks, in the departed years,
Along some green New England vale,—a child,
Led by a parent, while his happy heart
Throbs, like an echo, to the Sabbath bell.
Dear faces rise, and loving voices speak;
A mother's hand smooths back his boyish hair;
A sister's glowing arms are round his neck;
Or, later, through the scented hay-field strolls,
Or sits beside the rose-embowered door,
With one whose snowy garment past his soul
Now rustles like an angel's floating robe.
Perchance—but no; his rough and sunburnt hand
Dashes the vision from his half-blurred gaze;
His swift eye sweeps the prairie to its verge,
And, like an arrow, darts through umbrous woods,
Where desolation owns him for its lord.
Hark! is't a panther leaping through the boughs?
Or wild buck flying from pursuit of wolves?
Or steeds, which never knew the curb of rein,
Neighing along the prairie? 'Tis a sound
Unusual to his startled ear. The dog
Recoils unto his master's feet, and listens.
But soon the accustomed eye discerns the cause;
And on the trapper's gaze the obnoxious gleam,
From the white covers of approaching wains,
Strikes on his spirit, like the light of ghosts,
Seen in a long abhorrent train. His soul
Shrinks from the vision, and within him cries:
“Is there no shelter from the reach of men?
Or must I, like the westward-going game,
Lie down in fear, and only wake to fly?
Or, like the tired courser of the plain,
Yield me unto the lasso, and submit
To wear the rein, and feel the daily whip
Which civilization wields, and be a slave
Where I have been so free? Or lay my hand
Against this brotherhood of trees, and be,
At last, a traitor to the wilderness?”
Sullen he stands, and notes the line approach;
And when a shout goes up among the limbs,
“Here will we pitch our camp and build our homes,”
He tears the prop from 'neath his cabin roof,
And from the ruin takes his load of skins,
Shoves his canoe from shore, and, with his dog,
Glides o'er the silent waters out of sight.