THE RUINS OF BURNSIDE.
Sadly, amid this once delightful plain,
Stern ruin broods o’er crumbling porch and wall,
And shapeless stones, with moss o’ergrown, remain
To tell, Burnside, the story of thy fall:
These ancient oaks, although decaying, green,
Like weary watchers, guard the solemn scene.
Where cowslip cup and daisy sweetly bloomed,
Hemlock and fern, in rank luxuriance spread;
Where rose and lily once the air perfumed,
Wild dock and nettle sprout, no fragrance shed:
And here no more the throstle’s mellow lay
Awakes with gladsome song the jocund day.
O’er yon church wall the ivy creeps, as fain
To shield it from thy withering touch, Decay;
No pastor ever more shall there explain
The sacred text, nor with his hearers, pray
To the Eternal Throne for grace divine;
Nor sing His praise, nor taste the bread and wine.
And here of yore the parish school-house stood,
Where flaxen-pated boys were taught to read;
At merry noon, in wild unfettered mood,
They rushed with boisterous glee to stream or mead;
The care-worn teacher homeward wends his way,
And freer feels than his free boys at play.
Yon roofless cot, which still the alders shade,
While all around is desolate and sere,
Perchance the dwelling of some village maid,
Who fondly watched her aged parents here;
And with her thrifty needle, or her wheel,
Earned for the lowly three the scanty meal.
Close by yon smithy stood the village inn,
Where farmers clinched each bargain o’er a glass;
And oft, amid mirth’s unrestricted din,
Would Time with softer foot, and swifter pass.
The husband here his noisy revel kept,
While by her lonely hearth the good wife wept.
At lazy twilight, ’neath yon ancient elm,
The village statesmen met in grave debate,
And sagely told, if at their country’s helm,
How bravely they would steer the ship of state
From treacherous quicksands or from leeward shore,
And all they said, betrayed their wondrous lore.
I’ve seen the thoughtless rustic pass thee by;
In thee, perhaps, his ancestors were bred,
And, at my question, point without a sigh,
Where calmly rest thy unremembered dead;
I asked thy fate, and, as he answered, smiled,
‘Thus looked these ruins since I was a child.’
Methinks, Burnside, I see thee in thy prime,
When thou wert blessed with innocent content,
Thy robust dwellers, prodigal of time,
Yet still with cheerful heart to labor went;
Nor envied lordly pomp, with courtly train,
Of empty rank and fruitful acres vain.
Methinks I see a summer evening pass,
When thou wert peopled, and in sinless glee
Methinks the lusty ploughman and his lass
Dance with unmeasured mirth, enraptured, free,
While seated from the joyous throng apart,
The blind musician labors at his art.
Though fancy, wayward as the vagrant wind,
May picture scenes of unambitious taste,
Yet vainly now, we look around to find
Thy early beauty mid this dreary waste;
Unmourned, unmissed, thus in thy fallen state,
Thou art an emblem of the common fate!
Before the stern destroyer all shall bow,
And sweet Burnside, like thine, ’twill be my lot
To lie a ruin, tenantless and low,
By friends unmentioned, and by foes forgot:
As earth’s uncounted millions I shall be—
No mortal think, no record speak of me!
Kenneth Rookwood.