The Project Gutenberg eBook ofThe EmigrantThis ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.Title: The EmigrantAuthor: Frederick W. ThomasRelease date: August 4, 2009 [eBook #29606]Most recently updated: January 5, 2021Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by Bryan Ness, Katherine Ward, and the OnlineDistributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (Thisfile was produced from scans of public domain works at theUniversity of Michigan's Making of America collection.)*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE EMIGRANT ***
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
Title: The EmigrantAuthor: Frederick W. ThomasRelease date: August 4, 2009 [eBook #29606]Most recently updated: January 5, 2021Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by Bryan Ness, Katherine Ward, and the OnlineDistributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (Thisfile was produced from scans of public domain works at theUniversity of Michigan's Making of America collection.)
Title: The Emigrant
Author: Frederick W. Thomas
Author: Frederick W. Thomas
Release date: August 4, 2009 [eBook #29606]Most recently updated: January 5, 2021
Language: English
Credits: Produced by Bryan Ness, Katherine Ward, and the OnlineDistributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (Thisfile was produced from scans of public domain works at theUniversity of Michigan's Making of America collection.)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE EMIGRANT ***
THEEMIGRANT,ORREFLECTIONSWHILE DESCENDING THE OHIO.A Poem,BY FREDERICK W. THOMAS.“Westward the star of Empire takes its way.”From the original Edition of 1833, to which is added a memoir of the author.CINCINNATI:PRINTED FOR J. DRAKE.SPILLER, PRINTER.1872.Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1872: By JOSIAH DRAKE, In the office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington.
A Poem,
BY FREDERICK W. THOMAS.
“Westward the star of Empire takes its way.”
From the original Edition of 1833, to which is added a memoir of the author.
CINCINNATI:PRINTED FOR J. DRAKE.SPILLER, PRINTER.1872.
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1872: By JOSIAH DRAKE, In the office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington.
PAGE
PREFACE.
ThisPoemwas written under the circumstances which its title implies. Three years since, as the author was descending the Ohio, to become a citizen of the West, he wrote a considerable number of stanzas, expressive of his feelings, six or eight of which were published as a fragment on his arrival in Cincinnati, in the Commercial Daily Advertiser, and republished and noticed by different prints in a way that induced the author, from time to time, to add stanzas to stanzas, until they almost imperceptibly reached their present number. He wrote on, without any previous study of the style or manner in which the subject should be pursued––using the poetic license of light and shade as Fancy dictated. Being in ill health, and coming to a strange land, it was very natural for his Reflections to be of a sombre cast, without there being any thing peculiar in his situation differing from that of other Emigrants.
The reader will perceive that the metrical arrangement of the stanzas is the same as that used by Gray, in his Ode to Adversity, with this difference, that the Ode is written in lines of eight syllables, and the author has attempted the heroic measure.
iv
After thePoemhad been finished some time, the author delivered it in the Hall of the Lyceum to an assemblage of Ladies and Gentlemen. Their reception and that of the several editors (to whom he is most grateful) who noticed its delivery, and gave extracts from thePoem, induced him to publish it.
The author has by him many manuscript pieces with which he might have swelled the volume to a much greater size; but as this is his first attempt at authorship, in the shape of a volume, he offers it, tremblingly, at the ordeal of public opinion, merely as a sample of his ware.
DEDICATION.
TO CHARLES HAMMOND, ESQ.
My Dear Sir,
Before I had the pleasure of your personal acquaintance, differing from you as I do on many political points, I imbibed some of those impressions against you, which ever attach to an exalted character, when he takes a decided stand in the political arena.Permit me, Sir, in acknowledging how much those impressions were prejudices, to inscribe this volume to you, in testimony of my admiration for your talents, and respect for your virtues. And, moreover, as the first encouragement which I received, for this my first literary attempt of any length, proceeded from yourself; if it has merit, I know no one to whom I should more properly inscribe it than to the one, who being entitled to speakex cathedraon the subject, first cheered me with the hope of its success. And if it shall be found to be destitute of merit, while it shows that your judgment has for once been wrong, it will also prove that the error proceeded from a personal partiality, for which I am anxious to express my gratitude.
Before I had the pleasure of your personal acquaintance, differing from you as I do on many political points, I imbibed some of those impressions against you, which ever attach to an exalted character, when he takes a decided stand in the political arena.
Permit me, Sir, in acknowledging how much those impressions were prejudices, to inscribe this volume to you, in testimony of my admiration for your talents, and respect for your virtues. And, moreover, as the first encouragement which I received, for this my first literary attempt of any length, proceeded from yourself; if it has merit, I know no one to whom I should more properly inscribe it than to the one, who being entitled to speakex cathedraon the subject, first cheered me with the hope of its success. And if it shall be found to be destitute of merit, while it shows that your judgment has for once been wrong, it will also prove that the error proceeded from a personal partiality, for which I am anxious to express my gratitude.
I am, Sir,With the greatest respect,Your obliged friend and humble servant,THE AUTHOR.Cincinnati,April 23, 1833.
MEMOIR.
Frederick William Thomas was the oldest child of E. S. Thomas and Anna his wife. He was born at Providence Rhode Island, but spent his earlier years at Charleston South Carolina, where Mr. E. S. Thomas resided and edited and published the Charleston City Gazette.
While Frederick William was still young, Mr. Thomas removed to Baltimore Maryland, and there his son was educated and brought up to the profession of the law. Being unfortunate in business, when Frederick William was about nineteen, Mr. Thomas resolved to remove with his family to the west, which he did, making Cincinnati his place of residence. His son however, remained in Baltimore.
It was in the following year while journeying West, to join his family in their new home, that this poem––the Emigrant was suggested to him, by the associations and the romantic scenery of the Ohio river, and while descending it most, if not all the poem, was written. He was about twenty-one when it appeared. It was followed by “Clinton Bradshaw,” or the adventures of a Lawyer, published by Carey, Lee and Blanchard, of Philadelphia. This was called the best American Novel of its time. Mr. Thomas’ next venture was “East and West” which was succeeded by “Howard Pinkney.” During the years which intervenedviiibetween the writing of these books he resided in the west, principally in Cincinnati, and wrote tales, sketches, fugitive poetry, delivered lectures, and made political speeches. In 1840 when General Harrison was elected President, Mr. Thomas went to Washington City. After General Harrison’s death, Mr. Tyler gave him an office under government and he continued to reside at the Capital, but wrote little except an occasional song or story. Some years elapsed and Mr. Thomas left Washington and went south on a lecturing tour. He was engaged to write for several newspapers and continued lecturing through the South and West. His literary efforts at this period were chiefly confined to Magazine articles, short poems and songs. His song “T’is said that Absence conquers Love,” was one of the most popular of the day. He often spoke of the feeling he had in passing of a summers night through a strange city and having his own words greet him from houses whose inmates only knew of his existence through them.
Clinton Bradshaw was also very popular. An American visiting Calcutta India, wrote home of the thrill it gave him to find it on the shelves of a book store there.
Mr. Thomas was popular in society for he was amiable and entertaining. He was a fine belle letter scholar, and was remarkable for his conversationable powers––he had a fund of anecdote always at command. He was a great observer and studier of Character and a believer in human nature.
The year 1866 found him again in Washington city where after a short illness he died. Recently his remains have been brought to Cincinnati, by his brother Calvin W. Thomas and placed beside those of his parents in Spring Grove Cemetery.
9The Emigrant,ORREFLECTIONS[1]WHILE DESCENDING THE OHIO.
I.
We both are pilgrims, wild and winding river!Both wandering onward to the boundless West––But thou art given by the good All-giver,Blessing a land to be in turn most blest:[2]While, like a leaf-borne insect, floating by,Chanceful and changeful is my destiny;I needs must follow where thy currents lave––Perchance to find a home, or else, perchance a grave.
II.
Yet, dost thou bear me on to one I’ve lovedFrom Boyhood’s thoughtlessness to Manhood’s thought,In all the changes of our lives, unmoved––That young affection no regret has brought:Beloved one! when I seem Fortune’s slave,Reckless and wrecked upon the wayward wave,Bright Hope, the Halcyon, rises o’er the sea,Calming the troubled wave––bearing my heart to thee.10
III.
Alas! we parted: what a bitter sorrowClings to the memory of our last embrace!No joy to-day, no promise of to-morrow,No idol image, shall usurp thy place:For thee my holiest hope is upward given––My love for thee is with my love for Heav’n,A dedication of my heart to thine,With God to smile on both, and consecrate the shrine.
IV.
Our home, when last I saw it, was all lone;Yet my affections peopled it with thoseWhose sunny smile upon my boyhood shone;Then came reality,––the heart-spring froze:––There was the stream, the willow, and the wild wood,Where, emulous of height, in playing childhood,With hearts encircled, on the beechen tree,Dear one, I carved thy name, but then thou wert with me.
V.
Thou wert my nurse in many an hour of pain,My comforter in many an hour of sadness;And when my spirit leaped to joy again,Thou wert the one who joyed most in its gladness.Ay, more than nurse––and more than comforter––Thou taught’st my erring spirit not to err,Gave it a softness nature had not given,As now the blessed moon makes earth resemble heav’n.11
VI.
How deep the bitterness alone to grieveIn grief’s deep hour––the death-watch of the night––When Fancy can no more her day dreams weave,And there seems madness in the moon’s pale light––When sorrow holds us, like a life-long state,Not as a portion, but the whole of fate,When the mind yields, like sick men to their dreams,Who know all is not right, yet know not that which seems.
VII.
Why come such thoughts across the brow? Oh, whyCannot the soul sit firmly on her throne,And keep beside her strong Philosophy?Alas! I am a wanderer and alone.Beneath deep feeling reason’s self must sink;We cannot change the thought, yet wemustthink;And, O! how darkly come such thoughts to me––The gathered pangs of years, recounting agony.
VIII.
Who has not felt, in such a night as this,The glory and the greatness of a God,And bowed his head, in humbleness, to kissHis merciful and kindly chast’ning rod?The far off stars! how beautiful and bright!Peace seems abroad upon the world to-night;And e’en the bubble, dancing on the stream,Is glittering with hope,––a dream––a very dream!12
IX.
In sickness and in sorrow, how the breastWill garner its affections in their home!Like stricken bird that cowers within its nest,And feels no more an anxiousness to roam;While a thick darkness, like a cloud, comes o’erThe gallant spirit;––it can rise no moreTo wing its way, as if it sought the sky,But falls to earth, forlorn, as though it fell to die.
X.
And yet, there is a torturing sense of life,E’en in the feeling of the quick drawn breath,That tells of many years of woe and strife,Ekeing our being out, though bringing death:While Fancy, with a thousand thronging tales,Now in her gladness, now in woe, prevails,––Till the dark moment of o’erwhelming grief,When sorrow mourns as one who cannot find relief.
XI.
Is health returnless? Never more may IThrow by the staff on which, alas! I lean?Is the woof woven of my destiny?Shall I ne’er be again what I have been?And must th’ bodily anguish be combinedWith the intenseness of the anxious mind?The fever of the fame and of the soul,With no medicinal draught to quell it or control.13
XII.
Upon my brow I feel the furrow’s course,Deep sinking inward to the source of thought;The deeper sinking if I seek its source,Or try to crush its agony, unsought,O! tell thy secret, thou stern vampyre, Care!E’en for Philosophy thou hast a snare,For in thy quest she wears the galling chain,Making the burden more, the more she’d soothe its pain.
XIII.
Sweet solace of the life-lorn!Hope!to theeHow oft in loneliness the heart will turn,To quell the pang of its keen misery;While wailing sorrow weeps o’er memory’s urn:Rise from the ashes of my buried years!The past comes up with overflowing tears,To quench the promises that would arise:––They’re in the future far––where are they?––in the skies!
XIV.
My hopes, e’en my hopes, wither; a dark cloudHas passed between them and the glorious sun,Clothing the breathing being in a shroud––The pall is o’er them and their race is run:Their epitaph is written in my heart––The all of mem’ry that can ne’er depart––Yes, it is here! the truth of every dream,The ever-present thought, in every varying theme.14
XV.
O! who can pierce the cloud that o’er him lowers?It were as vain my wayward fate to scan;Enough, ’twill come with th’ onhurrying hours––The futile purpose or the settled plan:Or Death, perchance, e’en now each tie may sever!There’s many a grave in this bright rolling river,That’s bounding onward where the one I love,To meet my coming, now, on its far banks may rove.
XVI.
And, but that thou would’st feel a pang for me,’Twere sweet, methinks, to sleep beneath the wave;Its murmuring song, like sweetest minstrelsy,Would rest a wanderer in an early grave,Within thee, River, many a pale face sleeps––And many a redman’s ghost his vigil keeps––And many a maid has watched the dark banks over––He comes not, yet, in truth, he was a faithful lover.
XVII.
For then, perchance, thy stream ran red with blood,Then pale and red men met upon thy shore––Embracing foes they sunk within the flood,Fierce twins in death, and joined forevermore,––Forevermore in time. Eternity!Thydoom we see not, and we may not see,But God is just! to Him the red race fly,Driv’n to the pathless West, thence upward to the sky.15
XVIII.
Here once Boone trod––the hardy Pioneer––The only white man in the wilderness:[3]Oh! how he loved, alone, to hunt the deer,Alone, at eve, his simple meal to dress;No mark upon the tree, nor print, nor track,To lead him forward, or to guide him back;He roved the forest, king by main and might,And looked up to the sky and shaped his course aright.
XIX.
That mountain, there, that lifts its bald high headAbove the forest, was, perchance, his throne;There has he stood and marked the woods outspread,Like a great kingdom, that was all his own;In hunting shirt and moccassins arrayed,With bear skin cap, and pouch, and needful blade,How carelessly he leaned upon his gun!That sceptre of the wild, that had so often won.
XX.
Those western Pioneers an impulse felt.Which their less hardy sons scarce comprehend;Alone, in Nature’s wildest scenes, they dwelt,Where crag, and precipice, and torrent blend,And stretched around the wilderness, as rudeAs the red rovers of its solitude,Who watched their coming with a hate profound,And fought with deadly strife for every inch of ground.16
XXI.
To shun a greater ill sought they the wild?No! they left happier lands behind them far,And brought the nursing mother and her childTo share the dangers of the border war;The log-built cabin from the Indian barred,Their little boy, perchance, kept watch and ward,While Father ploughed with rifle at his back,Or sought the glutted foe through many a devious track.
XXII.
How cautiously, yet fearlessly, that boyWould search the forest for the wild beast’s lair,And lift his rifle with a hurried joyIf chance he spied the Indian lurking there:And should they bear him prisoner from the fight,While they are sleeping in the dead midnight,He slips the thongs that bind him to the tree,And leaving death with them, bounds home right happily.[4]
XXIII.
Before the mother, bursting through the door,The redman rushes where her infants rest;Oh God! he hurls them on the cabin floor!While she, down kneeling, clasps them to her breast.How he exults and revels in her woe,And lifts the weapon, yet delays the blow:Ha! that report! behold! he reels! he dies!And quickly to her arms the husband––father––flies.17
XXIV.
In the long winter eve, their cabin fast,The big logs blazing in the chimney wide––They’d hear the Indian howling, or the blast,And deem themselves in castellated pride:Then would the fearless forester discloseMost strange adventures with his sylvan foes,Of how his arts did over theirs prevail,And how he followed far upon their bloody trail.
XXV.
And it was happiness, they said, to stand,When summer smiled upon them in the wood,And see their little clearing there expand,And be the masters of the solitude.Danger was but excitement; and when cameThe tide of Emigration, life grew tame;Then would they seek some unknown wild anew,And soon, above the trees, the smoke was curling blue.
XXVI.
Long e’er the pale-face knew them, or their land,Here, too, the redmen met in the stern strifeOf foe to foe and bloody hand to hand––The mortal agony of life for life:How fertile is this “dark and bloody ground!”Here Death has given many a horridwound![5]Here was the victim tortured to the stake,While dark Revenge stood by, his burning thirst to slake.18
XXVII.
Methinks I see it all within yon dell,Where trembles thro’ the leaves the clear moonlight;Say, Druid Oak, can’st not the story tell?Why met they thus? and wherefore did they fight?And wept his maiden much? and who was he,Who thus so calmly bore his agony?Sang he his death song well? was he a chief?And mourned his nation long in notes of lengthened grief?
XXVIII.
Here, from the woods, he came to woo his mate,And launched, to meet her, his bark-built canoe:Who would have thought he had a soul to hateTo see him thus, all gentleness to woo?In tenderest tone he tells his deeds of war,With blandest feeling shows the ghastly scarHe joyed to take, that he might win his bride,His own, his blushing one––the dark-eyed by his side.
XXIX.
Again he goes––again she looks for him––At the death-stake her warrior-love is tied:Say, when he thought of her, did the tear swim?Shook, for an instant, that bold Indian’s pride?No! when he thought of her, it was to nerveA soul whose purpose knew not how to swerve!For this she loves him, holds him doubly dear;He knows what ’tis to love, but not what ’tis to fear.19
XXX.
O, Love what rhymer has not sung of thee?And, who, with heart so young as his who sings,Knows not thou art self-burdened as the bee,Who, loving many flowers, must needs have wings?Yes, thou art wing’d, O, Love! like passing thought,That now is with us, and now seems as nought,Until deep passion stamps thee in the brain,Like bees in folded flowers that ne’er unfold again.
XXXI.
Who does not love his early dream of love?––The passionate fondness of the happy boy,When woman’s lightest look the pulse would moveTo the wild riot of extatic joy;The tremulous whisper, mingling hopes and fears,Hervery presence, that so long endearsThe spot, on which the mutual vow was giv’n,The interchange of love, and the on-looking Heav’n.
XXXII.
This is the tale that never tires in telling––If woman listens as ye tell the tale:And then, to mark her gentle bosom swelling,And feel the fervor of your faith prevail!Her tone, the confidence of her bright eye,That looks to yours its eloquent reply!And then, her seeming doubt––spoke you in vain?O! no! she only doubts to hear you speak again!20
XXXIII.
My Mary! though I yet am young in years,’Tis like a dream, Love, of the olden time,When first they coyness yielded up its fears,And thy warm heart throbb’d tremblingly to mine,––When we exchanged the faith we loved to make,And made the promise it should never break––How happy, then, the future rose to view––Our hearts the auguries that made it seem all true.
XXXIV.
A sense of coldness, like the atmosphere,When chilled by the rude winter’s snowy blast,Has passed between us now: and––lone and sear,Like the last autumn leaf that fell at last,Though on its parent stem it fain would stay,With days, perchance, as bright as yesterday––Our hopes have fallen––yet, my Mary, yet,There is no lethean power can teach me toforget.
XXXV.
For, in that young affection’s early dream,There was the presence and the soul of joy,Which, like the stars, though clouds obscure them, beamWith hues of Heav’n, that earth cannot destroy:Dark desolation may be o’er our path,And the fierce lightnings rive it in their wrath,And scalding tears may weep their sources dry,Yet, will that love live on, on its own agony.21
XXXVI.
E’en like––if we its hopes may personate––Fall’n Marius, ’mid the ruins, when he stoodAnd pondered darkly o’er his desperate fate,Alone, in th’ o’erthrown City’s solitude.Oh! we may build a fairy home for love––But, when ’tis blasted, how can we remove?How from the ruins can the ruined part?Or how rebuild the hope that, falling, crushed the heart.
XXXVII.
And, mused I now, as that stern exile mused,’Mid fallen columns, cities overthrown,With Desolation all around diffused,I should seem less than I seem now alone––For it would be companionship; but hereThere is no sympathy with mortal tear:The skies are smiling, and the forests riseIn their green glory up, aspirers to the skies!––
XXXVIII.
And the wild river, laughing, laves its banks––A babbler––like a happy-hearted girl,Dancing along with free and frolic pranks;The leaves, o’erhanging, tremble like the curlThat plays upon her forehead as she goes––While ’mid the branches, free from human woes,The wild bird carols to its happy mate,Glad in the present hour, nor anxious for its fate.22
XXXIX.
But there is one tree blasted ’mid the green,Surrounding forest; and an eagle, there,Looks sadly o’er the gaily, glitt’ring scene,A mourner––with his bleeding bosom bare:––No more! no more! he’ll reach his eyry now,Or sport in triumph o’er the mountain’s brow;His wing may hide the death-bolt as he dies,No more shall it expand to bear him to the skies.
XL.
How like the balmy breathing of the spring,Is the unfolding of Love’s happy morn!Then our nurst hopes, anticipating, bringThe May-day breaking, that shall bear no thorn:The thorn must have its birth-day with the rose––When one is blighted, still the other grows,And grows the keener, as the seared leaves fall,And rankles in the heart when the storm scatters all.
XLI.
Be blessings on thee, Lady of my love!As many blessings as thou did’st impart,When to my breast thou cam’st like a young dove,And made thy home in my all-happy heart.Like the loved picture of his buried maid,Which the sad lover keeps, and weeps the shade,So Memory, to my early feelings true,Preserves its passionate love in bidding hope adieu!23
XLII.
No! “while there’s life there’s hope,” at least, in love;Hope that the two shall not be always twain:––Will it not find its home––that parted dove––Though severed far o’er mountain and o’er main?Though night o’ertake it, though the tempests rise,Alike, through cloudy, and through smiling skies,Onward it hastens; and, with panting breast,Nestles at home at last, and loves the more its nest.
XLIII.
Built o’er the Indian’s grave, the city, here,To all the pomp of civic pride is giv’n,While o’er the spot there falls no tribute-tear,Not e’en his kindred drop––the dew of Heav’n.How touching was the chieftain’s homily!That none would mourn for him when he should die;Soon shall the race of their last man be run––Then who will mourn for them? Alas! not one––not one!
XLIV.
They all have passed away, as thou must pass,Who now art wandering westward where they trod––An atom in the mighty human mass,Who live and die. No more. The grave-green sod,Can but be made the greener o’er the best,A flattering epitaph may tell the rest––While they who come, as come these onward waves,Forget who sleep below, and trample on their graves.24
XLV.
Yet, who, that ever trod upon this shore,Since the rude red man left it to his tread,Thinks not of him, and marks not, o’er and o’er,The contrast of the living with the dead?There the tall forest falls––that Indian moundWill soon be levelled with the ploughed-up ground––Where stands that village church, traditions hold,The war-whoop once rang loud o’er many a warrior cold.
XLVI.
Where stole the paddle-plied and tottering barkAlong the rough shores cragg’d and sedgy side,––Where the fierce hunter, from the forest dark,Pursued the wild deer o’er the mountains wild,––Now towering cities rise on either hand,And Commerce hastens by to many a strand,Not on her white wings, as upon the sea––Yet borne as bravely on, and spreading liberty.
XLVII.
And here, where once the Indian mother dwelt,Cradling her infant on the blast-rocked tree,Feeling the vengeance that her warrior felt,And teaching war to childhood on her knee––Now dwells the christian mother: O!herheartHas learned far better the maternal part––Yet, in deep love, in passion for her child,Who has surpass’d thine own, wild woman of the wild?25
XLVIII.
Our homes, and hearts, and Nature, the blue sky,Breathe these affections into all who live––The flowings of their fountains cannot dry.Who gave us life? ’Tis He, who bids them live!And they have lived, here, in this forest-bower,In all the strength, the constancy, the power,The deep devotion, the unchanging truthOf Eden’s early dawn, when Time was in his youth.
XLIX.
How patient was that red man of the wood!Not like the white man, garrulous of ill––Starving! who heard his faintest wish for food?Sleeping upon the snow-drift on the hill!Who heard him chide the blast, or say ’twas cold?His wounds are freezing! is the anguish told?Tell him his child was murdered with its mother!He seems like carved out stone that has no woe to smother.
L.
With front erect, up-looking, dignified––Behold high Hecla in eternal snows!Yet, while the raging tempest is defied,Deep in its bosom how the pent flame glows!And when it bursts forth in its fiery wrath!How melts the ice-hill from its fearful path,As on it rolls, unquench’d, and all untam’d!––Thus was it with that chief when his wild passions flam’d.26
LI.
Nature’s own statesman, by experience taught,He judged most wisely, and could act as well;With quickest glance could read another’s thought,His own, the while, the keenest could not tell;Warrior––with skill to lengthen, or combine,Lead on, or back, the desultory line;Hunter––he passed the trackless forest through,––Now on the mountain trod, now launch’d the light canoe.
LII.
To the Great Spirit, would his spirit bow,With hopes that Nature’s impulses impart;Unlike the Christian, who just says his vowWith heart enough to say it all by heart.Did we his virtues from his faults discern,’Twould teach a lesson that we well might learn:An inculcation worthiest of our creed,To tell the simple truth, and do the promised deed.
LIII.
How deeply eloquent was the debate,Beside the council fire of those red men!With language burning as his sense of hate;With gesture just, with eye of keenest ken;With illustration simple, but profound,Drawn from the sky above him, or the groundBeneath his feet; and with unfalt’ring zeal,He spoke from a warm heart and made e’en cold hearts feel.27
LIV.
And this is Eloquence. ’Tis the intense,Impassioned fervor of a mind deep fraughtWith native energy, when soul and senseBurst forth, embodied in the burning thought;When look, emotion, tone, are all combined––When the whole man is eloquent with mind––A power that comes not to the call or quest,But from the gifted soul, and the deep feeling breast.
LV.
Poor Logan had it, when he mourned that noneWere left to mourn for him;––’twas his who swayedThe Roman Senate by a look or tone;’Twas the Athenian’s, when his foes, dismayed,Shrunk from the earthquake of his trumpet call;’Twas Chatham’s, strong as either, or as all;’Twas Henry’s holiest, when his spirit wokeOur patriot fathers’ zeal to burst the British yoke.
LVI.
Isle of the beautiful! how much thou art,Now in thy desolation, like the fateOf those who came in innocence of heart,With thy green Eden to assimilate:Then Art her coronal to Nature gave,To deck thy brow; Queen of the onward wave!And woman came, the beautiful and good,And made her happy home ’mid thy embracing flood.[6]28
LVII.
Alas! another came: his blandishment,The fascination of his smooth address,That read so well the very heart’s intent,And could so well its every thought express,––[7]Won thy fair spirits to his dark design,And gave our country, too, her Cataline.He lives––the Roman traitor dared to die!Yet, in their different fates, behold the homily.
LVIII.
Rome, torn by civil feuds and anarchy,Could not endure a traitor on her heart––For ready Faction, with her argus eye,Was ever watchful when to play her part;And Freedom, with a nightmare on her breast,But show’d she liv’d by groaning when opprest;And even Cato’s energy to save,Preserved her, but awhile, to sink upon her grave.
LIX.
Far different with our Country! mark the timeWhen she threw off her trans-atlantic yoke––Throughout the wide domain of her fair clime,But one high soldier from his promise broke:In that free gathering who would not enrollWith all the patriot’s willingness of soul?Our fathers fought for sacred home and hearth!And were too young in crime to think of treason’s birth.29
LX.
And when the war had passed, and Freedom raisedHer temple to her worshippers, to blessThose who had lit her altar fires, that blazedTo light the far untrodden wilderness,All felt the worship, all confessed the God,All knew the tyrant, and all curs’d his rod––And if one heart fell from his promise then,Why, he might live like Cain, scorned of his fellow men.
LXI.
The Cain of Nations! be that sov’reignty,That shall, for any purpose, seek to severThe glorious union of the brave and free––That, but for treason, will endure forever!Her curse shall be the base redeemless lotOf the once free, who feel that they are not––Who tread their native soil as native slaves,And build their bondage house on their free fathers’ graves.
LXII.
In such a state, would not a Cæsar rise,And chain the nation to his gory car,And pluck from out the blue of our bright skies,To form his diadem, that falling star?Then, one by one, each brilliant light would fall,And primal chaos desolate them all––While Tyranny, with loud prophetic shout,Would wave his bloody sword, as each and all went out!30
LXIII.
That free born spirit who could rouse again?The dried-up fountain and the scorched up field.The breath, that withers mountain, flood, and plain,To Nature’s revolution learn to yield:As strong as ever, man may tread the soil,And sweat for others at his daily toil––But how shall he regain the gift unbought,The privilege to act the high resolve of thought?
LXIV.
Say, how shall he regain it, when ’twas giv’nWith broken vow, apostatizing breath?How stand erect, how look to the bright Heav’n,Cloth’d in the darkness of that moral death?Her rights down trod, her star-lit banner rent,O! where could Freedom find an armament?How gather, in their glory and their pride,Her own grey father-band, who, for her, nobly died.
LXV.
United hearts have made united States!What could a single, separate State have doneWithout the arms of her confederates?Without their glorious leader,Washington!They stand united, but divided fall––’Twas union that gave liberty to all!Then, who would call mad Discord from her cell,To scatter poisons there where the world’s manna fell!31
LXVI.
Proud Venice, by her Doge’s solemn rite,Was wedded to the wave o’er which she rose:Thence came her lions’ all-surpassing might––A greatness that ’twas glory to oppose.A peaceful pomp proclaimed her nuptial bands:Our Country’s bond of States, and hearts and hands,Was signed and sealed before a world amazed,While, for her nuptial torch, red Battle’s bacon blaz’d!
LXVII.
It was a bloody sacrament: Death cameUnto the bridal, like a bidden guest,The Priestess,Freedom, had but bless’d the flame,E’er the fierce furies to the revel press’d:The storm grew dark––its lightning flash’d afar––Murder and Rapine leagu’d themselves with War;Yet, proudly and triumphantly, on high,That eagle-guarded banner waved to victory.
LXVIII.
How fiercely flew that eagle o’er the plain!Then, Albion, sunk thy lion’s lordly crest;Behold! again he shakes his brist’ling mane––There is a serpent in that eagle’s nest,Seeking to sting her, in the feint to help,And give her free brood to the lion’s whelp––She strikes the reptile, headless down to earth––And thus may Treason die, let who will give it birth!32
LXIX.
Last of the Signers! a good night to thee!Alas! that such brave spirits must depart:Peace to thy ashes––to thy memoryA monument in every living heart.It gives the spirit strength, endurance, pride,A lofty purpose, unto thine allied,Tomuse upon thy glory––’tis to stand,As ’twere, upon thy hearth, and hold thee by the hand.
LXX.
And hear thee tell of thy illustrious peersWho stood beside thee, for our country, there,Fearless, amidst a host of pressing fears,And calm, where even Courage might despair.Ye staked, with this high energy indued,“Life, Fortune, Honor,” for the public good,And made your “Declaration” to the world,And, to the tyrant’s teeth, defiance sternly hurl’d.
LXXI.
Alas! the omen––in this awful hour,While Discord and Disunion rend the land!Did’st thou take with thee Freedom’s priceless dower?Did’st thou resume the gift of thine own hand,And bear the affrighted Goddess to the skies?Are there no mourners o’er thy obsequies?None, who, with high resolves, approach thy grave?Or––flits a spirit there, that frights the modern brave?33
LXXII.
Say, has our Capital no tarpeian height[8]From which to hurl the traitor? Standing now,Where once he stood, in patriotic might,With the fresh laurel wreath upon his brow,And Freedom burning on his lip of flame;Does Pity plead forgiveness for his shame?Then bear him thence, like Manlius, and be just––Or go to Vernon’s shade, and desecrate its dust.
LXXIII.
Soon must I mingle in the wordy war,Where Knavery takes in vice her sly degrees,As slip, away, not guilty, from the bar,Counsel, or client, as their Honors please.To breathe, in crowded courts, a pois’nous breath––To plead for life––to justify a death––To wrangle, jar, to twist, to twirl, to toil,––This is the lawyer’s life––a heart-consuming moil.
LXXIV.
And yet it has its honors; high of nameAnd pure of heart, and eloquent of tongue,Have kindled, there, with a most holy flame,While thousands on their glowing accents hung!And be it mine to follow where they’ve led,To praise, if not to imitate, the dead––To hail their lustre, like the distant starWhich the sad wayworn bless, and follow from afar.34
LXXV.
My friends! how often, in our social talk,Have we called up these names of spell-like power,As, arm in arm, we took the friendly walk,Or lingered out the evening’s parting hour––Or met at the debate, with joyous zest,To test our strength, and each to do his best;While pun and prank we gaily gave and took,With friendship in each heart and pleasure in each look.
LXXVI.
I recollect it well, and lov’d the time,When we were wont to meet: when last we met,I parted from you for this western clime,With the deep feeling never to forget.In the quick bustle of the busy throng,I feel that I shall miss ye, O! how long!The generous hearts who mann’d my spirit on––Who sooth’d me when I lost, and cheer’d me if I won.[9]
LXXVII.
Away! why should I muse in unsooth’d sadness!While the gay sky is smiling upon earth,Like a young mother, o’er her infant’s gladness,Blessing the early promise of its birth.The opening day-dawn breaks along the land,Like gloriousFreedom, as her hopes expand;While the far mountains tower to meet the glow,The altar fires are lit, burning on all below.35
LXXVIII.
Oh! light up every land, till, far and free,Their brave hearts come from mountain and from plain,While, with the shout of onward liberty,Old Earth to her foundation shakes again.The night is gone!––thus Tyranny recedes!––The sky is cloudless!––Freedom!––like thy deeds:A gladness beams o’er earth, and main, and Heav’n––Thus look the nations up, their chains, their chains are riv’n.
LXXIX.
Kingdoms are falling! thrones––that have withstoodThe earthquake and the tempest in their shock,And brav’d the host of battle’s fiery flood,Making of human rights the merest mock,[10]Of blood, of agony, of human tears,The daily sacrifice of countless years––Are falling: may they fall on every shore,As fell the fiend from Heav’n, no more to rise––no more.
LXXX.
Greece gathers up again her glorious band!WithFreedom’sloud hurra the Andes quake!It swells, like ocean’s wave, from land to land––Bless them, our Father! for thy children’s sake.They strike the noblest who shall strike the first––Wailing and prostrate, Tyranny accurst,Convulses earth with his fierce agonies;But, if ye strike like men, the fell dictator dies!36
LXXXI.
A tear for Poland! many tears for herWho rose so nobly, and so nobly fell!E’en at her broken shrine, a worshipper,In dust and ashes, let me say farewell!Farewell! brave spirits!––Earth! and can it be,Thy sons beheld them struggling to be free––Unaided, saw them in their blood downtrod––Nations, ye are accurst! be merciful, Oh God!
LXXXII.
MyHome! it needs no prophet voice to tellThy coming glories; they are thronging fast,Like the enchantments of the Sybil’s cell,Expanding brighter to the very last:Fulfilling all the patriot’s burning vow,Be free forever my own land as now!While the uprising nations hail thy star,And strike, for freedom, that God-sanctioned war.
LXXXIII.
And they may fall––but who shall date thy end?Lo! all the past has giv’n its light to thee:Expiring Rome, like a departing friend,Gave solemn warning to thy liberty:And e’en the empires, fabulously oldIn fruitful fable, have a moral told;What say their fallen kings and shrineless God?There is no “right divine” in the fell tyrant’s rod!37
LXXXIV.
Thou learn’dst the lesson, long ago, myHome,And taught’st it to a willing, wondering world,When thy bright stars rose o’er the ocean’s foam,And lit thy banner as it stood unfurl’d;When, from thy farthest mountain to the sea,All rose to bless that banner and be free,Where perch’d thy eagle, in victorious might,While the proud, lordly lion fled in craven flight.
LXXXV.
Thou hast my heart––and freely do I bow,To bless thee, Freedom, on thy holiest shrine,And give to thee devotion’s warmest vow;Oh! let thy spirit mingle into mine:Thy temple is my country, whose far domeCircles as high as the Almighty’s home––Here, ’mid the glories of Creation’s birth,Thy altars spread around––this is my mother earth.
LXXXVI.
Glorious! most glorious! proudly let me stand,With the rapt fervor of a Poet’s eye,And pour my blessings on my native land;Oh! for the gift to tell thy destiny,And mould it to the telling––thou should’st rise,Eternal, as the stars that bless thy skies,And sparkle in thy banner––thou should’st beAll that thy brave hearts wish’d, who will’d thee to be free.38
LXXXVII.
And noportentous, fearful meteor, there,Should blaze, and blacken, and create dismay,Shaking fierce furies from its snaky hair;No!––thou should’st light the Nations on their way,And be to them a watchword to fight well;And should they fall, as Poland’s patriots fell.Oh! cheer them with their exile-flag unfurl’d,And give them freedom here, in her own Western world.
LXXXVIII.
Auspicious Time! unroll the scroll of years––Behold our pious pilgrim fathers, whenThey launch’d their little bark and braved all fears,Those peril-seeking, freedom-loving men!Bless thee, thou Stream! abiding blessings blessThy farthest wave––Nile of the wilderness!And be thy broad lands peopled, far and wide,With hearts as free as his who now doth bless thy tide.
LXXXIX.
And may new States arise, and stretch afar,In glory, to the great Pacific shore––A galaxy, without a falling star––Freedom’s own Mecca, where the world adore.There may Art build––to Knowledge there be giv’nThe book of Nature and the light of Heav’n;There be the Statesman’s and the patriot’s shrine,And Oh! be happy there, the hearts that woo the Nine.39
XC.
There is a welcome in this Western LandLike the old welcomes, which were said to giveThe friendly heart where’er they gave the hand;Within this soil the social virtues live,Like its own forest trees, unprun’d and free––At least there is one welcome here for me:A breast that pillowed all my sorrows past,And waits my coming now, and lov’d me first and last.
XCI.
It binds my Eastern to my Western home;Then let me banish thoughts that sad would be:Not like a leaf-borne insect on the foam,But like a bark upon a glorious sea––A little bark, perchance, yet firm withal,’Midst bursting breakers that shall not appal––I’ll bide the coming of a brighter day,Or, to the far off West, pass, like the past, away.
FINIS.