Hoary again with forests; I behold The Indian warrior, whom a hand unseen Has smitten with his death-wound in the woods, And slake his death-thirst. Hark, that quick fierce cry Of battle, and a throng of savage men With naked arms and faces stained like blood, Fill the green wilderness; the long bare arms Sends forth its arrow. As is the whirlwind. Fierce the fight and short, And conquered vanish, and the dead remain Amid the deepening twilight I descry Figures of men that crouch and creep unheard, And bear away the dead. The next day's shower Shall wash the tokens of the fight away. I look again a hunter's lodge is built, With poles and boughs, beside thy crystal well, While the meek autumn stains the woods with gold, And sheds his golden sunshine. To the door 1 The red man slowly drags the enormous bear The deer from his strong shoulders. Shaggy fells Of wolf and cougar hang upon the walls, And loud the black-eyed Indian maidens laugh, So centuries passed by, and still the woods Blossomed in spring, and reddened when the year Grew chill, and glistened in the frozen rains Of winter, till the white man swung the axe Beside thee-signal of a mighty change. Then all around was heard the crash of trees, Trembling awhile and rushing to the ground, The low of ox, and shouts of men who fired The brushwood, or who tore the earth with ploughs. The grain sprang thick and tall, and hid in green The blackened hill-side; ranks of spiky maize Rose like a host embattled; the buckwheat Whitened broad acres, sweetening with its flowers The August wind. White cottages were seen With rose-trees at the windows; barns from which Came loud and shrill the crowing of the cock; Pastures where rolled and neighed the lordly horse. And white flocks browsed and bleated. A rich turf Of grasses brought from far o'ercrept thy bank, Spotted with the white clover. Blue-eyed girls Brought pails, and dipped them in thy crystal pool; And children, ruddy-cheeked and flaxen-haired, Gathered the glistening cowslip from thy edge. Since then, what steps have trod thy border! Here His sickle, as they stooped to taste thy stream. At eve, And dipped thy sliding crystal. From the wars Has seen eternal order circumscribe And bind the motions of eternal change, And from the gushing of thy simple fount Is there no other change for thee, that lurks Among the future ages? Will not man Seek out strange arts to wither and deform The pleasant landscape which thou makest green' Or shall the veins that feed thy constant stream Be choked in middle earth, and flow no more For ever, that the water-plants along Thy channel perish, and the bird in vain Alight to drink? Haply shall these green hills Sink, with the lapse of years, into the gulf Of ocean waters, and thy source be lost Amidst the bitter brine? Or shall they rise, Upheaved in broken cliffs and airy peaks, Haunts of the eagle and the snake, and thou Gush midway from the bare and barren steep? THE WINDS. I. YE winds, ye unseen currents of the air, Light blossoms, dropping on the grass like snow. II. How are ye changed! Ye take the cataract's sound; The mountain shudders as ye sweep the ground; Skyward, the whirling fragments out of sight. |