[THE HERMIT OF NIAGARA.]
BY MRS. LYDIA H. SIGOURNEY.
It was the leafy month of June,
And joyous Nature, all in tune,
With wreathing buds was drest,
As toward the mighty cataract's side
A youthful stranger prest;
His ruddy cheek was blanched with awe,
And scarce he seemed his breath to draw,
While bending o'er its brim,
He marked its strong, unfathomed tide,
And heard its thunder-hymn.
His measured week too quickly fled,
Another, and another sped,
And soon the summer-rose decayed,
The moon of autumn sank in shade,
And winter hurled its dart,
Years filled their circle, brief and fair,
Yet still the enthusiast lingered there,
While deeper round his soul was wove
A mystic chain of fearful love,
That would not let him part.
When darkest midnight veiled the sky,
You'd hear his hasting step go by,
To gain the bridge beside the deep,
That where its wildest torrents leap
Hangs thread-like o'er the surge,
Just there, upon its awful verge,
His vigil-hour to keep.
And when the moon, descending low,
Hung on the flood that gleaming bow,
Which it would seem some angel's hand,
With Heaven's own pencil, tinged and spanned,
Pure symbol of a better land,
He, kneeling, poured in utterance free
The eloquence of ecstasy;
Though to his words no answer came,
Save that One, Everlasting Name,
Which since Creation's morning broke
Niagara's lip alone hath spoke.
When wintry tempests shook the sky,
And the rent pine-tree hurtled by,
Unblenching, 'mid the storm he stood,
And marked sublime the wrathful flood,
While wrought the frost-king, fierce and drear,
His palace 'mid those cliffs to rear,
And strike the massy buttress strong,
And pile his sleet the rocks among,
And wasteful deck the branches bare
With icy diamonds, rich and rare.
Nor lacked the hermit's humble shed
Such comforts as our natures ask
To fit them for life's daily task.
The cheering fire, the peaceful bed,
The simple meal in season spread,
While by the lone lamp's trembling light,
As blazed the hearth-stone, clear and bright,
O'er Homer's page he hung,
Or Maro's martial numbers scanned—
For classic lore of many a land
Flowed smoothly o'er his tongue.
Oft with rapt eye, and skill profound,
He woke the entrancing viol's sound,
Or touched the sweet guitar.
For heavenly music deigned to dwell
An inmate in his cloistered cell,
As beams the solem star,
All night, with meditative eyes
Where some lone, rock-bound fountain lies.
As through the groves, with quiet tread,
On his accustomed haunts he sped,
The mother-thrush, unstartled, sung
Her descant to her callow young,
And fearless o'er his threshold prest
The wanderer from the sparrow's nest,
The squirrel raised a sparkling eye
Nor from his kernel cared to fly
As passed that gentle hermit by.
No timid creature shrank to meet
His pensive glance, serenely sweet;
From his own kind, alone, he sought
The screen of solitary thought.
Whether the world too harshly prest
Its iron o'er a yielding breast,
Or forced his morbid youth to prove
The pang of unrequited love,
We know not, for he never said
Aught of the life he erst had led.
On Iris isle, a summer-bower
He twined with branch and vine and flower,
And there he mused on rustic seat,
Unconscious of the noonday heat,
Or 'neath the crystal waters lay,
Luxuriant, in the swimmer's play.
Yet once the whelming flood grew strong.
And bore him like a weed along,
Though with convulsive grasp of pain
And heaving breast, he strove in vain,
Then sinking 'neath the infuriate tide,
Lone, as he lived, the hermit died.
On, by the rushing current swept,
The lifeless corse its voyage kept,
To where, in narrow gorge comprest,
The whirlpool-eddies never rest,
But boil with wild tumultuous sway,
The Maelstrom of Niagara.
And there, within that rocky bound,
In swift gyrations round and round,
Mysterious course it held,
Now springing from the torrent hoarse,
Now battling, as with maniac force,
To mortal strife compelled.
Right fearful, 'neath the moonbeam bright,
It was to see that brow so white,
And mark the ghastly dead
Leap upward from his torture-bed,
As if in passion-gust,
And tossing wild with agony
Resist the omnipotent decree
Of dust to dust.
At length, where smoother waters flow,
Emerging from the abyss below,
The hapless youth they gained, and bore
Sad to his own forsaken door.
There watched his dog, with straining eye,
And scarce would let the train pass by,
Save that with instinct's rushing spell,
Through the changed cheek's empurpled hue,
And stiff and stony form, he knew
The master he had loved so well.
The kitten fair, whose graceful wile
So oft had won his musing smile,
As round his slippered foot she played,
Stretched on his vacant pillow laid.
While strewed around, on board and chair,
The last-plucked flower, the book last read,
The ready pen, the page outspread,
The water cruse, the unbroken bread—
Revealed how sudden was the snare
That swept him to the dead.
And so, he rests in foreign earth,
Who drew 'mid Albion's vales his birth:
Yet let no cynic phrase unkind
Condemn that youth of gentle mind—
Of shrinking nerve, and lonely heart,
And lettered lore, and tuneful art,
Who here his humble worship paid
In that most glorious temple-shrine,
Where to the Majesty Divine
Nature her noblest altar made.
No, blame him not, but praise the Power
Who, in the dear domestic bower,
Hath given you firmer strength to rear
The plants of love—with toil and fear—
The beam to meet, the blast to dare,
And like a faithful soldier bear;
Still with sad heart his requiem pour,
Amid the cataract's ceaseless roar,
And bid one tear of pitying gloom
Bedew that meek enthusiast's tomb.
[BURIAL OF A VOLUNTEER.]
BY PARK BENJAMIN.
'Tis eve! one brightly-beaming star
Shines from the eastern heavens afar,
To light the footsteps of the brave,
Slow marching to a comrade's grave.
The Northern wind has sunk to sleep;
The sweet South breathes; as low and deep
The martial clang is heard, the tread
Of those who bear the silent dead.
And whose the form, all stark and cold,
Thus ready for the loosened mould;
Thus stretched upon so rude a bier?
Thine, soldier, thine—the volunteer!
Poor volunteer! the shot, the blow,
Or fell disease hath laid him low—
And few his early loss deplore—
His battle done, his journey o'er.
Alas! no fond wife's arms caressed,
His cheeks no tender mother pressed,
No pitying soul was by his side,
As, lonely in his tent, he died.
He died—the volunteer—at noon;
At evening came the small platoon;
And soon they'll leave him to his rest,
With sods upon his manly breast.
Hark to their fire! his only knell,
More solemn than the passing bell;
For, ah! it tells a spirit flown
Without a prayer or sigh, alone!
His name and fate shall fade away,
Forgotten since his dying day,
And never on the roll of fame
Shall be inscribed his humble name.
Alas! like him how many more
Lie cold on Rio Grande's shore;
How many green, unnoted graves
Are bordered by those turbid waves!
Sleep, soldier, sleep! from sorrow free
And sin and strife: 'tis well with thee!
'Tis well, though not a single tear
Laments the buried volunteer.