THE AMERICAN VILLAGE.[212]
Where yonder stream divides the fertile plain,
Made fertile by the labours of the swain;
And hills and woods high tow'ring o'er the rest,
Behold a village with fair plenty blest:
Each year tall harvests crown the happy field;
Each year the meads their stores of fragrance yield,
And ev'ry joy and ev'ry bliss is there,
And healthful labour crowns the flowing year.
Though Goldsmith weeps in melancholy strains,
Deserted Auburn and forsaken plains,
And mourns his village with a patriot sigh,
And in that village sees Britannia die:
Yet shall this land with rising pomp divine,
In it's own splendor and Britannia's shine.
O muse, forget to paint her ancient woes,
Her Indian battles, or her Gallic foes;
Resume the pleasures of the rural scene,
Describe the village rising on the green,
It's harmless people, born to small command,
Lost in the bosom of this western land:
So shall my verse run gentle as the floods,
So answer all ye hills, and echo all ye woods;
So glide ye streams in hollow channels pent,
Forever wasting, yet not ever spent.
Ye clust'ring boughs by hoary thickets borne!
Ye fields high waving with eternal corn!
Ye woodland nymphs the tender tale rehearse,
The fabled authors of immortal verse:
Ye Dryads fair, attend the scene I love,
And Heav'n shall centre in yon' blooming grove.
What tho' thy woods, America, contain
The howling forest, and the tiger's den,
The dang'rous serpent, and the beast of prey,
Men are more fierce, more terrible than they.
No monster with it's vile contagious breath,
No flying scorpion darting instant death;
No pois'nous adder, burning to engage,
Has half the venom or has half the rage.
What tho' the Turk protests to heav'n his ire,
With lift up hand amidst his realms of fire;
And Russia's Empress sends her fleets afar,
To aid the havock of the burning war:
Their rage dismays not, and their arms in vain,
In dreadful fury bathe with blood the plain;
Their terrors harmless, tho' their story heard,
How this one conquer'd, or was nobly spar'd:
Vain is their rage, to us their anger vain,
The deep Atlantic raves and roars between.
To yonder village then will I descend,
There spend my days, and there my ev'nings spend;
Sweet haunt of peace whose mud' wall'd sides delight,
The rural mind beyond the city bright:
Their tops with hazles or with alders wove,
Remurmur magic to the neighb'ring grove;
And each one lab'ring in his own employ,
Comes weary home at night, but comes with joy:
The soil which lay for many thousand years
O'er run by woods, by thickets and by bears;
Now reft of trees, admits the chearful light,
And leaves long prospects to the piercing sight;
Where once the lynx nocturnal sallies made,
And the tall chestnut cast a dreadful shade:
No more the panther stalks his bloody rounds,
Nor bird of night her hateful note resounds;
Nor howling wolves roar to the rising moon,
As pale arose she o'er yon eastern down.
Some prune their trees, a larger load to bear
Of fruits nectarine blooming once a year:
See groaning waggons to the village come
Fill'd with the apple, apricot or plumb;
And heavy beams suspended from a tree,
To press their juice against the winter's day:
Or see the plough torn through the new made field,
Ordain'd a harvest, yet unknown to yield.
The rising barn whose spacious floor receives
The welcome thousands of the wheaten sheaves,
And spreads it's arms to take the plenteous store,
Sufficient for its master and the poor:
For as Eumœus us'd his beggar guest
The great Ulysses in his tatters drest:
So here fair Charity puts forth her hand,
And pours her blessings o'er the greatful land:
No needy wretch the rage of winter fears,
Secure he sits and spends his aged years,
With thankful heart to gen'rous souls and kind,
That save him from the winter and the wind.
A lovely island once adorn'd the sea,
Between New-Albion and the Mexic' Bay;
Whose sandy sides washed by the ocean wave,
Scarce heard a murmur but what ocean gave:
Small it's circumference, nor high it's coast,
But shady woods the happy isle could boast;
On ev'ry side new prospects catch'd the eye,
There rose blue mountains to the arched sky:
Here thunder'd ocean in convulsive throws,
And dash'd the island as it's waters rose:
Yet peaceful all within, no tumults there,
But fearless steps of the unhunted hare;
And nightly chauntings of the fearless dove,
Or blackbird's note, the harbinger of love.
So peaceful was this haunt that nature gave,
Still as the stars, and silent as the grave;
No loud applause there rais'd the patriot breast,
No shouting armies their mad joy confest,
For battles gain'd, or trophies nobly won,
Or nations conquer'd near the rising sun;
No clam'rous crews, or wild nocturnal cheer,
Or murd'rous ruffians, for no men were here.
On it's east end a grove of oak was seen,
And shrubby hazels fill'd the space between;
Dry alders too, and aspin leaves that shook
With ev'ry wind, conspired to shade a brook,
Whose gentle stream just bubbling from the ground,
Was quickly in the salter ocean drown'd:
Beyond whose fount, the center of the isle,
Wild plumb trees flourish'd on the shaded soil.
In the dark bosom of this sacred wood,
Secluded from the world, and all it's own,
Of other lands unknowing, and unknown.
Here might the hunter have destroy'd his prey,
Transfix'd the goat before the dawn of day;
And trudging homeward with his welcome load,
The fruit of wand'rings thro' each by-way road:
Thrown down his burthen with the needless sigh,
And gladly feasted his small family.
Small fields had then suffic'd, and grateful they,
The annual labours of his hands to pay;
And free his right to search the briny flood
For fish, or slay the creatures of the wood.
Thus spent his days in labour's pleasant pain,
Had liv'd and dy'd the homely shepherd swain:
Had seen his children and his children's heirs,
The fruit of love and memory of years
To agriculture's first fair service bent,
The work of mortals, and their great intent.
So had the Sire his days of pleasure known,
And wish'd to change no country for his own:
So had he with his fair endearing wife,
Pass'd the slow circle of a harmless life;
With happy ignorance divinely blest,
The path, the centre and the home of rest.
Long might the sun have run his bright career,
And long the moon her mantled visage rear;
And long the stars their nightly vigils kept,
And spheres harmonious either sung or wept:
He had not dream'd of worlds besides his own,
And thought them only stars, beyond the moon;
Enjoy'd himself, nor hear'd of future hell,
Or heav'n, the recompence of doing well;
Had scarcely thought of an eternal state,
And left his being in the hands of fate.—
O had this isle such souls sublime contain'd,
And there for ages future sons remain'd:
But envious time conspiring with the sea,
Wash'd all it's landscapes, and it's groves away.
It's trees declining, stretch'd upon the sand,
No more their shadows throw across the land.
It's vines no more their clust'ring beauty show,
Nor sturdy oaks embrace the mountain's brow.
Bare sands alone now overwhelm the coast,
Lost in it's grandeur, and it's beauty lost.
Thus, tho' my fav'rite isle to ruin gone,
Inspires my sorrow, and demands my moan;
Yet this wide land it's place can well supply
With landscapes, hills and grassy mountains high.
O Hudson! thy fair flood shall be my theme,
Thy winding river, or thy glassy stream;
On whose tall banks tremendous rocks I spy,
Dread nature in primæval majesty.
Rocks, to whose summits clouds eternal cling,
Or clust'ring birds in their wild wood notes sing.
Hills, from whose sides the mountain echo roars,
Rebounding dreadful from the distant shores;
Or vallies, where refreshing breezes blow,
And rustic huts in fair confusion grow,
Safe from the winds, secur'd by mountains high,
That seem to hide the concave of the sky;
To whose top oft' the curious hind ascends,
And wonders where the arch'd horizon bends;
Pleas'd with the distant prospects rising new,
And hills o'er hills, a never ending view.
Through various paths with hasty step he scours,
And breathes the odours of surrounding flow'rs,
Caught from their bosoms by the fragrant breath,
Of western breezes, or the gale of death.[A]
Then low descending, seeks the humble dome,
And centres all his pleasures in his home,
'Till day returning, brings the welcome toil,
To clear the forest, or to tame the soil;
To burn the woods, or catch the tim'rous deer,
To scour the thicket, or contrive the snare.