And so in mountain solitudes—o'ertaken
As by some spell divine—
Their cares dropped from them like the needles shaken
From out the gusty pine.
Lost is that camp and wasted all its fire:
And he who wrought that spell?—
Ah! towering pine and stately Kentish spire,
Ye have one tale to tell!
Lost is that camp, but let its fragrant story
Blend with the breath that thrills
With hopvines' incense all the pensive glory
That fills the Kentish hills.
And on that grave where English oak, and holly,
And laurel wreaths entwine,
Deem it not all a too presumptuous folly,—
This spray of Western pine!
Bret Harte
DOST THOU LOOK BACK ON WHAT HATH BEEN
Dost thou look back on what hath been,
As some divinely gifted man,
Whose life in low estate began
And on a simple village green;
Who breaks his birth's invidious bar,
And grasps the skirts of happy chance,
And breasts the blows of circumstance,
And grapples with his evil star;
Who makes by force his merit known,
And lives to clutch the golden keys,
To mould a mighty state's decrees,
And shape the whisper of the throne;