Delightful Wyoming! beneath thy skies,
The happy shepherd swains had nought to do
But feed their flocks on green declivities,
Or skim perchance thy lake with light canoe,
From morn, till evening's sweeter pastime grew,
With timbrel, when beneath the forests brown,
Thy lovely maidens would the dance renew;
And aye those sunny mountains half-way down
Would echo flagelet from some romantic town.
Then, where of Indian hills the daylight takes
His leave, how might you the flamingo see
Disporting like a meteor on the lakes-
And playful squirrel on his nut-grown tree:
And ev'ry sound of life was full of glee,
From merry mock-bird's song, or hum of men;
While heark'ning, fearing nought their revelry,
The wild deer arch'd his neck from glades, and then
Unhunted, sought his woods and wilderness again,
And scarce had Wyoming of war or crime
Heard, but in transatlantic story rung,
For here the exile met from ev'ry clime,
And spoke in friendship ev'y distant tongue :
Men from the blood of warring Europe sprung,
Were but divided by the running brook ;
And happy where no Rhenish trumpet sung,
On plains no sieging mine's volcano shook,
The blue-ey'd German chang'd his sword to pruning
Nor far some Andalusian saraband
Would sound to many a native roundelay
But who is he that yet a dearer land
Remembers, over hills and far away?
Green Albyn! what though he no more survey
Thy ships at anchor on the quiet shore,
Thy pellochs rolling from the mountain bay,
Thy lone sepulchral cairn upon the moor,
And distant isles that hear the loud Corbrechtan roar! 3
2 The Gaelic appellation for the porpoise. 3 The great whirlpool of the Western Hebrides.
Caledonia's mountaineer,
That want's stern edict e'er, and feudal grief,
Had forc'd him from a home he lov'd so dear!
Yet found he here a home, and glad relief,
And plied the beverage from his own fair sheaf,
That fir'd his Highland blood with mickle glee:
And England sent her men, of men the chief,
Who taught those sires of Empire yet to be,
To plant the tree of life,-to plant fair freedom's tree!
Here was not mingled in the city's pomp
Of life's extremes the grandeur and the gloom;
Judgment awoke not here her dismal tromp,
Nor seal'd in blood a fellow creature's doom,
Nor mourn'd the captive in a living tomb.
One venerable man, belov'd of all,
Suffic'd where innocence was yet in bloom,
To sway the strife, that seldom might befall:
And Albert was their judge in patriarchal hall.
How rev'rend was the look, serenely ag'd,
He bore, this gentie Pennsylvanian sire,
Where all but kindly fervors were assuag'd,
Undimm'd by weakness' shade, or turbid ire:
And though amidst the calm of thought entire,
Some high and haughty features might betray
A soul impetuous once, 'twas earthly fire
That fled composure's intellectual ray,
As Ætna's fires grow dim before the rising day.
I boast no song in magic wonders rife,
But yet, oh Nature! is there nought to prize,
Familiar in thy bosom scenes of life?
And dwells in day-light truth's salubrious skies
No form with which the soul may sympathise?
Young, innocent, on whose sweet forehead mild
The parted ringlet shone in simplest guise,
An inmate in the home of Albert smil'd,
Or blest his noonday walk-she was his only child.
The rose of England bloom'd on Gertrude's cheek-
What though these shades had seen her birth, her sire
A Briton's independence taught to seek
Far western worlds; and there his household fire
The light of social love did long inspire,
And many a halcyon day he liv'd to see
Unbroken, but by one misfortune dire,
When fate had reft his mutual heart-but she
Was gone-and Gertrude climb'd a widow'd father's
A lov'd bequest,—and I may half impart—
To them that feel the strong paternal tie,
How like a new existence to his heart
That living flow'r uprose beneath his eye,
Dear as she was from cherub infancy,
From hours when she would round his garden play; To time when as the rip'ning years went by,
Her lovely mind could culture well repay,
And more engaging grew, from pleasing day to day.
|