Philadelphia, 1816.
CHAPTER III
THE WEST
At the close of the Revolution, the country west of the Alleghanies was still virtually an unbroken wilderness. Boone had pushed forward into Kentucky, drawing a few settlers after him; the trading-posts in the Illinois country, which had been captured by George Rogers Clark, still dragged on a miserable existence; but these were mere pin-points in the great stretches of virgin forest, amid which the first settlers hewed out a home.
THE SETTLER
His echoing axe the settler swung
Amid the sea-like solitude,
And, rushing, thundering, down were flung
The Titans of the wood;
Loud shrieked the eagle, as he dashed
From out his mossy nest, which crashed
With its supporting bough,
And the first sunlight, leaping, flashed
On the wolf's haunt below.
Rude was the garb and strong the frame
Of him who plied his ceaseless toil:
To form that garb the wildwood game
Contributed their spoil;
The soul that warmed that frame disdained
The tinsel, gaud, and glare that reigned
Where men their crowds collect;
The simple fur, untrimmed, unstained,
This forest-tamer decked.
The paths which wound mid gorgeous trees,
The stream whose bright lips kissed their flowers,
The winds that swelled their harmonies
Through those sun-hiding bowers,
The temple vast, the green arcade,
The nestling vale, the grassy glade,
Dark cave, and swampy lair;
These scenes and sounds majestic made
His world, his pleasures, there.
His roof adorned a pleasant spot;
Mid the black logs green glowed the grain,
And herbs and plants the woods knew not
Throve in the sun and rain.
The smoke-wreath curling o'er the dell,
The low, the bleat, the tinkling bell,
All made a landscape strange,
Which was the living chronicle
Of deeds that wrought the change.