Perhaps 'twas boyish fancy,—for the reader
Was youngest of them all,—
But, as he read, from clustering pine and cedar
A silence seemed to fall; 20
The fir-trees, gathering closer in the shadows,
Listened in every spray,
While the whole camp, with "Nell," on English meadows
Wandered and lost their way.
And so in mountain solitudes—o'ertaken 25
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?— 30
Ah, towering pine and stately Kentish spire,[4]
Ye have one tale[5] to tell!
Lost is that camp! but let its fragrant story[6]
Blend with the breath that thrills
With hop-vines' incense[7] all the pensive glory 35
That fills the Kentish hills.
And on that grave where English oak and holly
And laurel wreaths intwine,[8]
Deem it not all a too presumptuous folly,—
This spray of Western pine. 40
—Harte.
[1] Sierra. A Spanish term, meaning a mountain range. The name Sierra was applied, of course, to a great many different ranges.
[2] the Master. Dickens.
[3] Little Nell. The heroine of Dickens' novel, The Old Curiosity Shop.