Shone and awoke the strong desire

For love and knowledge reached not here, Till, freed by death, his soul of fire

Sprang to a fairer, ampler sphere.

Then-who shall tell how deep, how bright
The abyss of glory opened round?
How thought and feeling flowed like light,
Through ranks of being without bound?

THE FOUNTAIN.

FOUNTAIN, that springest on this grassy slope, Thy quick cool murmur mingles pleasantly, With the cool sound of breezes in the beach, Above me in the noontide. Thou dost wear No stain of thy dark birthplace; gushing up From the red mould and slimy roots of earth, Thou flashest in the sun. The mountain air,

In winter, is not clearer, nor the dew

That shines on mountain blossom. Thus doth God Bring, from the dark and foul, the pure and bright.

This tangled thicket on the bank above Thy basin, how thy waters keep it green!

For thou dost feed the roots of the wild vine

That trails all over it, and to the twigs

Ties fast her clusters. There the spice-bush lifts

Her leafy lances; the viburnum there,

Paler of foliage, to the sun holds up

Her circlet of green berries. In and out

The chipping sparrow, in her coat of brown,
Steals silently, lest I should mark her nest.

Not such thou wert of yore, ere yet the axe
Had smitten the old woods. Then hoary trunks
Of oak, and plane, and hickory, o'er thee held
A mighty canopy. When April winds
Grew soft, the maple burst into a flush
Of scarlet flowers. The tulip-tree, high up,
Opened, in airs of June, her multitude
Of golden chalices to humming-birds

And silken-winged insects of the sky.

Frail wood-plants clustered round thy edge in Spring. The liverleaf put forth her sister blooms

Of faintest blue. Here the quick-footed wolf,
Passing to lap thy waters, crushed the flower
Of sanguinaria, from whose brittle stem

The red drops fell like blood. The deer, too, left
Her delicate foot-print in the soft moist mould,
And on the fallen leaves. The slow-paced bear,
In such a sultry summer noon as this,

Stopped at thy stream, and drank, and leaped across.

But thou hast histories that stir the heart

With deeper feeling;

They rise before me.

while I look on thee

I behold the scene

Hoary again with forests; I behold

The Indian warrior, whom a hand unseen

Has smitten with his death-wound in the woods,

Creep slowly to thy well-known rivulet,

And slake his death-thirst. Hark, that quick fierce cry That rends the utter silence; 'tis the whoop

Of battle, and a throng of savage men

With naked arms and faces stained like blood,
Fill the green wilderness; the long bare arms
Are heaved aloft, bows twang and arrows stream;
Each makes a tree his shield, and every tree

Sends forth its arrow.

As is the whirlwind.

Fierce the fight and short,
Soon the conquerors

And conquered vanish, and the dead remain.
Mangled by tomahawks. The mighty woods.
Are still again, the frighted bird comes back
And plumes her wings; but thy sweet waters run
Crimson with blood. Then, as the sun goes down,
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

The red man slowly drags the enormous bear
Slain in the chestnut thicket, or flings down
The deer from his strong shoulders. Shaggy fells
Of wolf and cougar hang upon the walls,
And loud the black-eyed Indian maidens laugh,
That gather, from the rustling heaps of leaves,
The hickory's white nuts, and the dark fruit
That falls from the gray butternut's long boughs.

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