New pastoral / by Thomas Buchanan Read [electronic text]

BOOK THIRTY-THIRD.

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, Half comprehended, springs? Is it that grief Stands ever at the chair of revelling joy, To fill with bitter the alternate cup, — A medicine to temper the sweet draughts

Which, else, would cloy and sicken? Let it pour! It is the great Physician who prescribes! Does disappointment lower? or yawns the grave? Not even this should overcloud us so. At all our portals death, impatient, stands; As oft, beside the door of one who feasts, The watchful bailiff waits. Who may escape? We but prolong the banquet at the best; And happy those who unbesotted rise, With vision clear, and go to their account.

O'er lands from which the driven savage flies, A direful spirit lingers, as to avenge The red man's wrongs, — to execute the curse He breathed upon the landscape when he fled. From lake and river, and low, sodden marsh, The blighting phantom, on miasma's wings, Rises, and sheds its night-brewed venom round; And from its ghostly pinions widely fans The alternate airs of dreadful fire and frost. The incautious breast, inhaling unaware, Now burns with heat, no winter's breath could quell; Now shakes with cold, no furnace blast could reach; Consuming now, as in a martyr's flame, To shiver soon as in a cave of ice. To grateful draughts now cling the fevered lips;

Now, pinched and purple, drain the scalding bowl: Such is the startling blight the autumn sees Sweep o'er the frontier homes. Here shuddering forth, Seeking the sun against his cabin wall,With trembly knees, the labourer, late so strong,Now crawls to thaw the current of his blood, Or shivers in the blazing chimney-side; And there the matron droops. Crouched o'er the hearth, Baldwin, disheartened, gazes in the flame, His sad soul aching with the internal cold. Meanwhile, his good wife, struggling, unsubdued,Holds, as with palsy-shaken arms, the child Which, like an ember, burns upon her breast.Olivia, only spared of all the house, Glides, like an anxious angel, mid the group, And fills her trebled duties all the day; While frequent sunshine of her generous faceGladdens the neighbouring doors. And Arthur oft, Himself pursuing charitable paths, Beholds her pass, and feels his love increase. Nightly, by Amy's bed, her golden hair Sheds a soft splendour; and her saint-like voice, Low as the summer-music of a brook, And mellow soul-light beaming from her eyes,

Half melt the ague from the sufferer's heart. Here Master Ethan, ever on the alert, Forgets himself, to go from couch to couch.

Now, to the fevered fancy, glowing springs —In all the brightness time and distance give, When want and pain attend the exile's bed — The charmed home, the dreamy-lighted vale, The fire-side comforts, and the wholesome air; Which once again to feel, and freely breathe, Were panacea for the mind and frame No subtle drug could match. Yet few there are, In the heroic group, whose hearts, subdued, Harbour the home-sick vision; but resist, With stubborn valour, as a forest-tree Resists the assailing blast. Beside the stream, Where the low chapel lifts its modest head, Of fresh-hewn timbers built, the first small mound Is shaped; and Baldwin's household mourns. From there The light of childhood passed; from out their door The shape, so morning-halod once, was borne, —A little form of dull and sunless dust. And now the rude inscription sanctifies The enclosed spot, and to the future speaks: — "The first pale flower here consecrates the ground."

Here Christmas comes — how different from last! The little stockings, at rude wooden jambs, Are hung again with undiminished faith; Each chest in secret turns its contents out, And, ransacked oft, gives scantly to the time. And meagre joy had crowned the prayed-for morn, Had not Olivia's busy, generous hand Oft plied the midnight needle, and, unseen, Wrought curious shapes within the flowery tray; While Arthur's dexterous knife, and ready taste, Carved wooden forms of beautiful device. The week, to happy childhood dear, departs. Now sweeps the snow, and blows the boreal blast, While winter, like a crabbed regent, rules The young, obstreperous year. On many a night, The wakeful household, shuddering with the wind — Which searches every cranny, while the snow, A powder fine, attends the inveterate gust — Shall hear, dismayed, the direful panther's cry, Startlingly human, and the adventurous wolf Howling in fearful nearness; and, in dreams, Behold the ravage wrought in bleating sheds! And oft the pioneer shall start, alarmed, And with the rifle steal into the dark

To guard the midnight fold. Such are the scenes, The hardships, and the perils which deter Full many a spirit in its eastern home, Long wishing to be gone. The trials these Which only sternest natures well can meet. The fight is hard, the battle long sustained, Ere the wild forest yields, and the broad land With unresistance wears the peaceful yoke. Bid civilization send unto her verge The frame of iron and the heart of oak, With courage, will and sinew to subdue: Let gentler natures court a gentler scene.