LAYS OF MANY LANDS.

[The following pieces may so far be considered a series, as each is intended to be commemorative of some national recollection, popular custom, or tradition. The idea was suggested by Harder’s “Stimmen der Völker in Liedern;” the execution is, however, different, as the poems in his collection are chiefly translations.]

MOORISH BRIDAL-SONG.

[“It is a custom among the Moors, that a female who dies unmarried is clothed for interment in wedding apparel, and the bridal-song is sung over her remains before they are borne from her home.”—Narrative of a Ten Years’ Residence in Tripoli, by the Sister-in-law of Mr Tully.]

The citron-groves their fruit and flowers were strewing
Around a Moorish palace, while the sigh
Of low sweet summer winds the branches wooing
With music through their shadowy bowers went by;
Music and voices, from the marble halls
Through the leaves gleaming, and the fountain-falls.
A song of joy, a bridal-song came swelling
To blend with fragrance in those southern shades,
And told of feasts within the stately dwelling,
Bright lamps, and dancing steps, and gem-crown’d maids;
And thus it flow’d:—yet something in the lay
Belong’d to sadness, as it died away.
“The bride comes forth! her tears no more are falling
To leave the chamber of her infant years;
Kind voices from a distant home are calling;
She comes like day-spring—she hath done with tears;
Now must her dark eye shine on other flowers,
Her soft smile gladden other hearts than ours!—
Pour the rich odours round!
“We haste! the chosen and the lovely bringing;
Love still goes with her from her place of birth;
Deep, silent joy within her soul is springing,
Though in her glance the light no more is mirth!
Her beauty leaves us in its rosy years;
Her sisters weep—but she hath done with tears!—
Now may the timbrel sound!”
Know’st thou for whom they sang the bridal numbers?—
One, whose rich tresses were to wave no more!
One, whose pale cheek soft winds, nor gentle slumbers,
Nor Love’s own sigh, to rose-tints might restore!
Her graceful ringlets o’er a bier were spread.
Weep for the young, the beautiful,—the dead!

THE BIRD’S RELEASE.

[The Indians of Bengal and of the coast of Malabar bring cages filled with birds to the graves of their friends, over which they set the birds at liberty. This custom is alluded to in the description of Virginia’s funeral.—See Paul and Virginia.]

Go forth! for she is gone!
With the golden light of her wavy hair,
She is gone to the fields of the viewless air;
She hath left her dwelling lone!
Her voice hath pass’d away!
It hath pass’d away like a summer breeze,
When it leaves the hills for the far blue seas,
Where we may not trace its way.
Go forth, and like her be free!
With thy radiant wing, and thy glancing eye,
Thou hast all the range of the sunny sky,
And what is our grief to thee?
Is it aught e’en to her we mourn?
Doth she look on the tears by her kindred shed?
Doth she rest with the flowers o’er her gentle head,
Or float, on the light wind borne?
We know not—but she is gone!
Her step from the dance, her voice from the song,
And the smile of her eye from the festal throng;
She hath left her dwelling lone!
When the waves at sunset shine,
We may hear thy voice amidst thousands more,
In the scented woods of our glowing shore;
But we shall not know ’tis thine!
Even so with the loved one flown!
Her smile in the starlight may wander by,
Her breath may be near in the wind’s low sigh,
Around us—but all unknown.
Go forth! we have loosed thy chain!
We may deck thy cage with the richest flowers
Which the bright day rears in our Eastern bowers;
But thou wilt not be lured again.
Even thus may the summer pour
All fragrant things on the land’s green breast,
And the glorious earth like a bride be dress’d,
But it wins her back no more!

THE SWORD OF THE TOMB.

A NORTHERN LEGEND.

[The idea of this ballad is taken from a scene in Starkother, a tragedy by the Danish poet Ochlenschlager. The sepulchral fire here alluded to, and supposed to guard the ashes of deceased heroes, is frequently mentioned in the Northern Sagas. Severe sufferings to the departed spirit were supposed by the Scandinavian mythologists to be the consequence of any profanation of the sepulchre.—See Ochlenschlager’s Plays.]

“Voice of the gifted elder time!
Voice of the charm and the Runic rhyme!
Speak! from the shades and the depths disclose
How Sigurd may vanquish his mortal foes;
Voice of the buried past!
Voice of the grave! ’tis the mighty hour
When night with her stars and dreams hath power,
And my step hath been soundless on the snows,
And the spell I have sung hath laid repose
On the billow and the blast.”
Then the torrents of the North
And the forest pines were still,
While a hollow chant came forth
From the dark sepulchral hill.
“There shines no sun midst the hidden dead,
But where the day looks not the brave may tread;
There is heard no song, and no mead is pour’d,
But the warrior may come to the silent board
In the shadow of the night.
There is laid a sword in thy father’s tomb,
And its edge is fraught with thy foeman’s doom;
But soft be thy step through the silence deep,
And move not the urn in the house of sleep,
For the viewless have fearful might!”
Then died the solemn lay,
As a trumpet’s music dies,
By the night-wind borne away
Through the wild and stormy skies.
The fir-trees rock’d to the wailing blast,
As on through the forest the warrior pass’d—
Through the forest of Odin, the dim and old—
The dark place of visions and legends, told
By the fires of Northern pine.
The fir-trees rock’d, and the frozen ground
Gave back to his footstep a hollow sound;
And it seem’d that the depths of those awful shades,
From the dreary gloom of their long arcades,
Gave warning, with voice and sign.
But the wind strange magic knows,
To call wild shape and tone
From the gray wood’s tossing boughs,
When Night is on her throne.
The pines closed o’er him with deeper gloom,
As he took the path to the monarch’s tomb:
The Pole-star shone, and the heavens were bright
With the arrowy streams of the Northern light;
But his road through dimness lay!
He pass’d, in the heart of that ancient wood,
The dark shrine stain’d with the victim’s blood;
Nor paused till the rock, where a vaulted bed
Had been hewn of old for the kingly dead,
Arose on his midnight way.
Then first a moment’s chill
Went shuddering through his breast,
And the steel-clad man stood still
Before that place of rest.
But he cross’d at length, with a deep-drawn breath,
The threshold-floor of the hall of Death,
And look’d on the pale mysterious fire
Which gleam’d from the urn of his warrior-sire
With a strange and solemn light.
Then darkly the words of the boding strain
Like an omen rose on his soul again—
“Soft be thy step through the silence deep,
And move not the urn in the house of sleep;
For the viewless have fearful might!”
But the gleaming sword and shield
Of many a battle-day
Hung o’er that urn, reveal’d
By the tomb-fire’s waveless ray;
With a faded wreath of oak-leaves bound,
They hung o’er the dust of the far-renown’d,
Whom the bright Valkyriur’s warning voice
Had call’d to the banquet where gods rejoice,
And the rich mead flows in light.
With a beating heart his son drew near,
And still rang the verse in his thrilling ear—
“Soft be thy step through the silence deep,
And move not the urn in the house of sleep;
For the viewless have fearful might!”
And many a Saga’s rhyme,
And legend of the grave,
That shadowy scene and time
Call’d back, to daunt the brave.
But he raised his arm—and the flame grew dim,
And the sword in its light seem’d to wave and swim,
And his faltering hand could not grasp it well—
From the pale oak-wreath, with a clash it fell
Through the chamber of the dead!
The deep tomb rang with the heavy sound,
And the urn lay shiver’d in fragments round;
And a rush, as of tempests, quench’d the fire,
And the scatter’d dust of his warlike sire
Was strewn on the champion’s head.
One moment—and all was still
In the slumberer’s ancient hall,
When the rock had ceased to thrill
With the mighty weapon’s fall.
The stars were just fading one by one,
The clouds were just tinged by the early sun,
When there stream’d through the cavern a torch’s flame,
And the brother of Sigurd the valiant came
To seek him in the tomb.
Stretch’d on his shield, like the steel-girt slain,
By moonlight seen on the battle-plain,
In a speechless trance lay the warrior there;
But he wildly woke when the torch’s glare
Burst on him through the gloom.
“The morning wind blows free,
And the hour of chase is near:
Come forth, come forth with me!
What dost thou, Sigurd, here?”
“I have put out the holy sepulchral fire,
I have scatter’d the dust of my warrior-sire!
It burns on my head, and it weighs down my heart;
But the winds shall not wander without their part
To strew o’er the restless deep!
In the mantle of death he was here with me now—
There was wrath in his eye, there was gloom on his brow;
And his cold still glance on my spirit fell
With an icy ray and a withering spell—
Oh! chill is the house of sleep!”
“The morning wind blows free,
And the reddening sun shines clear;
Come forth, come forth with me!
It is dark and fearful here!”
“He is there, he is there, with his shadowy frown!
But gone from his head is the kingly crown—
The crown from his head, and the spear from his hand—
They have chased him far from the glorious land
Where the feast of the gods is spread!
He must go forth alone on his phantom steed,
He must ride o’er the grave-hills with stormy speed!
His place is no longer at Odin’s board,
He is driven from Valhalla without his sword;
But the slayer shall avenge the dead!”
That sword its fame had won
By the fall of many a crest;
But its fiercest work was done
In the tomb, on Sigurd’s breast!

VALKYRIUR SONG.

[The Valkyriur, or Fatal Sisters of Northern mythology, were supposed to single out the warriors who were to die in battle, and be received into the halls of Odin.

When a northern chief fell gloriously in war, his obsequies were honoured with all possible magnificence. His arms, gold and silver, war-horse, domestic attendants, and whatever else he held most dear, were placed with him on the pile. His dependants and friends frequently made it a point of honour to die with their leader, in order to attend on his shade in Valhalla, or the Palace of Odin. And, lastly, his wife was generally consumed with him on the same pile.—See Mallet’s Northern Antiquities, Herbert’s Helga, &c.]

“Tremblingly flash’d th’ inconstant meteor-light,
Showing thin forms like virgins of this earth;
Save that all signs of human joy or grief,
The flush of passion, smile, or tear, had seem’d
On the fix’d brightness of each dazzling cheek
Strange and unnatural.” Milman.
The Sea-king woke from the troubled sleep
Of a vision-haunted night,
And he look’d from his bark o’er the gloomy deep,
And counted the streaks of light;
For the red sun’s earliest ray
Was to rouse his bands that day
To the stormy joy of fight!
But the dreams of rest were still on earth,
And the silent stars on high,
And there waved not the smoke of one cabin hearth
Midst the quiet of the sky;
And along the twilight bay,
In their sleep the hamlets lay,
For they knew not the Norse were nigh!
The Sea-king look’d o’er the brooding wave,
He turn’d to the dusky shore,
And there seem’d, through the arch of a tide-worn cave,
A gleam, as of snow, to pour;
And forth, in watery light,
Moved phantoms, dimly white,
Which the garb of woman bore.
Slowly they moved to the billow-side;
And the forms, as they grew more clear,
Seem’d each on a tall pale steed to ride,
And a shadowy crest to rear,
And to beckon with faint hand
From the dark and rocky strand,
And to point a gleaming spear.
Then a stillness on his spirit fell,
Before th’ unearthly train,
For he knew Valhalla’s daughters well—
The Choosers of the slain!
And a sudden rising breeze
Bore, across the moaning seas,
To his ear their thrilling strain.
“There are songs in Odin’s Hall
For the brave ere night to fall!
Doth the great sun hide his ray?
He must bring a wrathful day!
Sleeps the falchion in its sheath?
Swords must do the work of death!
Regner!—Sea-king!—thee we call!—
There is joy in Odin’s Hall.
“At the feast, and in the song,
Thou shalt be remember’d long!
By the green isles of the flood,
Thou hast left thy track in blood!
On the earth and on the sea,
There are those will speak of thee!
’Tis enough,—the war-gods call,—
There is mead in Odin’s Hall!
“Regner! tell thy fair-hair’d bride
She must slumber at thy side!
Tell the brother of thy breast
Even for him thy grave hath rest!
Tell the raven steed which bore thee,
When the wild wolf fled before thee,
He too with his lord must fall,—
There is room in Odin’s Hall!
“Lo! the mighty sun looks forth—
Arm! thou leader of the North!
Lo! the mists of twilight fly—
We must vanish, thou must die!
By the sword and by the spear,
By the hand that knows no fear,
Sea-king! nobly thou shalt fall!—
There is joy in Odin’s Hall!”
There was arming heard on land and wave,
When afar the sunlight spread,
And the phantom-forms of the tide-worn cave
With the mists of morning fled;
But at eve, the kingly hand
Of the battle-axe and brand
Lay cold on a pile of dead!

THE CAVERN OF THE THREE TELLS.

A SWISS TRADITION.

[The three founders of the Helvetic Confederacy are thought to sleep in a cavern near the Lake of Lucerne. The herdsmen call them the Three Tells; and say that they lie there in their antique garb, in quiet slumber; and when Switzerland is in her utmost need, they will awaken and regain the liberties of the land.—See Quarterly Review, No. 44.

The Grütli, where the confederates held their nightly meetings, is a meadow on the shore of the Lake of Lucerne, or Lake of the Forest Cantons, here called the Forest-Sea.]

Oh! enter not yon shadowy cave,
Seek not the bright spars there,
Though the whispering pines that o’er it wave
With freshness fill the air:
For there the Patriot Three,
In the garb of old array’d,
By their native Forest-Sea
On a rocky couch are laid.
The Patriot Three that met of yore
Beneath the midnight sky,
And leagued their hearts on the Grütli shore
In the name of liberty!
Now silently they sleep
Amidst the hills they freed;
But their rest is only deep
Till their country’s hour of need.
They start not at the hunter’s call,
Nor the Lammer-geyer’s cry,
Nor the rush of a sudden torrent’s fall,
Nor the Lauwine thundering by;
And the Alpine herdsman’s lay,
To a Switzer’s heart so dear!
On the wild wind floats away,
No more for them to hear.
But when the battle-horn is blown
Till the Schreckhorn’s peaks reply,
When the Jungfrau’s cliffs send back the tone
Through their eagles’ lonely sky;
When the spear-heads light the lakes,
When trumpets loose the snows,
When the rushing war-steed shakes
The glacier’s mute repose;
When Uri’s beechen woods wave red
In the burning hamlet’s light—
Then from the cavern of the dead
Shall the sleepers wake in might!
With a leap, like Tell’s proud leap
When away the helm he flung,
And boldly up the steep
From the flashing billow sprung![312]
They shall wake beside their Forest-Sea,
In the ancient garb they wore
When they link’d the hands that made us free,
On the Grütli’s moonlight shore;
And their voices shall be heard,
And be answer’d with a shout,
Till the echoing Alps are stirr’d,
And the signal-fires blaze out.
And the land shall see such deeds again
As those of that proud day
When Winkelried, on Sempach’s plain,
Through the serried spears made way;
And when the rocks came down
On the dark Morgarten dell,
And the crownèd casques,[313] o’erthrown,
Before our fathers fell!
For the Kühreihen’s[314] notes must never sound
In a land that wears the chain,
And the vines on freedom’s holy ground
Untrampled must remain;
And the yellow harvests wave
For no stranger’s hand to reap,
While within their silent cave
The men of Grütli sleep!

[312] The point of rock on which Tell leaped from the boat of Gessler is marked by a chapel, and called the Tellensprung.

[313] Crowned Helmets, as a distinction of rank, are mentioned in Simond’s Switzerland.

[314] The Kühreihen—the celebrated Ranz des Vaches.

SWISS SONG,

ON THE ANNIVERSARY OF AN ANCIENT BATTLE.

[The Swiss, even to our days, have continued to celebrate the anniversaries of their ancient battles with much solemnity; assembling in the open air on the fields where their ancestors fought, to hear thanksgivings offered up by the priests, and the names of all who shared in the glory of the day enumerated. They afterwards walk in procession to chapels, always erected in the vicinity of such scenes, where masses are sung for the souls of the departed.—See Planta’s History of the Helvetic Confederacy.]

Look on the white Alps round!
If yet they gird a land
Where Freedom’s voice and step are found,
Forget ye not the band,—
The faithful band, our sires, who fell
Here in the narrow battle-dell!
If yet, the wilds among,
Our silent hearts may burn,
When the deep mountain-horn hath rung,
And home our steps may turn,—
Home!—home!—if still that name be dear,
Praise to the men who perish’d here!
Look on the white Alps round!
Up to their shining snows
That day the stormy rolling sound,
The sound of battle, rose!
Their caves prolong’d the trumpet’s blast,
Their dark pines trembled as it pass’d!
They saw the princely crest,
They saw the knightly spear,
The banner and the mail-clad breast,
Borne down and trampled here!
They saw—and glorying there they stand,
Eternal records to the land!
Praise to the mountain-born,
The brethren of the glen!
By them no steel array was worn,
They stood as peasant-men!
They left the vineyard and the field,
To break an empire’s lance and shield!
Look on the white Alps round!
If yet, along their steeps,
Our children’s fearless feet may bound,
Free as the chamois leaps:
Teach them in song to bless the band
Amidst whose mossy graves we stand!
If, by the wood-fire’s blaze,
When winter stars gleam cold,
The glorious tales of elder days
May proudly yet be told,
Forget not then the shepherd race.
Who made the hearth a holy place!
Look on the white Alps round!
If yet the Sabbath-bell
Comes o’er them with a gladdening sound,
Think on the battle-dell!
For blood first bathed its flowery sod,
That chainless hearts might worship God!

THE MESSENGER BIRD.

[Some of the native Brazilians pay great veneration to a certain bird that sings mournfully in the night-time. They say it is a messenger which their deceased friends and relations have sent, and that it brings them news from the other world.—See Picart’s Ceremonies and Religious Customs.]

Thou art come from the spirits’ land, thou bird!
Thou art come from the spirits’ land:
Through the dark pine grove let thy voice be heard,
And tell of the shadowy band!
We know that the bowers are green and fair
In the light of that summer shore;
And we know that the friends we have lost are there,
They are there—and they weep no more!
And we know they have quench’d their fever’s thirst
From the fountain of youth ere now,[315]
For there must the stream in its freshness burst
Which none may find below!
And we know that they will not be lured to earth
From the land of deathless flowers,
By the feast, or the dance, or the song of mirth,
Though their hearts were once with ours:
Though they sat with us by the night-fire’s blaze,
And bent with us the bow,
And heard the tales of our fathers’ days,
Which are told to others now!
But tell us, thou bird of the solemn strain!
Can those who have loved forget?
We call—and they answer not again:
Do they love—do they love us yet?
Doth the warrior think of his brother there,
And the father of his child?
And the chief of those that were wont to share
His wandering through the wild?
We call them far through the silent night,
And they speak not from cave or hill;
We know, thou bird! that their land is bright,
But say, do they love there still?[316]

[315] An expedition was actually undertaken by Juan Ponce de Leon, in the 16th century, with a view of discovering a wonderful fountain, believed by the natives of Puerto Rico to spring in one of the Lucayo Isles, and to possess the virtue of restoring youth to all who bathed in its waters.—See Robertson’s History of America.

[316] ANSWER TO “THE MESSENGER BIRD.”

BY AN AMERICAN QUAKER LADY.

Yes! I came from the spirits’ land,
From the land that is bright and fair;
I came with a voice from the shadowy band,
To tell that they love you there.
To say, if a wish or a vain regret
Could live in Elysian bowers,
’Twould be for the friends they can ne’er forget,
The beloved of their youthful hours.
To whisper the dear deserted band,
Who smiled on their tarriance here,
That a faithful guard in the dreamless land
Are the friends they have loved so dear.
’Tis true, in the silent night you call,
And they answer you not again;
But the spirits of bliss are voiceless all—
Sound only was made for pain.
That their land is bright and they weep no more,
I have warbled from hill to hill;
But my plaintive strain should have told before,
That they love, oh! they love you still.
They bid me say that unfading flowers
You’ll find in the path they trode;
And a welcome true to their deathless bowers,
Pronounced by the voice of God. 1827.

THE STRANGER IN LOUISIANA.

[An early traveller mentions people on the banks of the Mississippi who burst into tears at the sight of a stranger. The reason of this is, that they fancy their deceased friends and relations to be only gone on a journey, and, being in constant expectation of their return, look for them vainly amongst these foreign travellers.—Picart’s Ceremonies and Religious Customs.

“J’ai passé moi-même,” says Chateaubriand in his Souvenirs d’Amérique, “chez une peuplade Indienne qui se prenait à pleurer à la vue d’un voyageur, parce qu’il lui rappelait des amis partis pour la Contrée des Ames, et depuis long-tems en voyage.”]

We saw thee, O stranger! and wept.
We look’d for the youth of the sunny glance
Whose step was the fleetest in chase or dance;
The light of his eye was a joy to see,
The path of his arrows a storm to flee.
But there came a voice from a distant shore—
He was call’d—he is found midst his tribe no more
He is not in his place when the night-fires burn,
But we look for him still—he will yet return!
His brother sat with a drooping brow
In the gloom of the shadowing cypress bough:
We roused him—we bade him no longer pine,
For we heard a step—but the step was thine!
We saw thee, O stranger! and wept.
We look’d for the maid of the mournful song—
Mournful, though sweet,—she hath left us long:
We told her the youth of her love was gone,
And she went forth to seek him—she pass’d alone.
We hear not her voice when the woods are still,
From the bower where it sang, like a silvery rill.
The joy of her sire with her smile is fled,
The winter is white on his lonely head:
He hath none by his side when the wilds we track,
He hath none when we rest—yet she comes not back!
We look’d for her eye on the feast to shine,
For her breezy step—but the step was thine!
We saw thee, O stranger! and wept.
We look’d for the chief, who hath left the spear
And the bow of his battles forgotten here:
We look’d for the hunter, whose bride’s lament
On the wind of the forest at eve is sent:
We look’d for the first-born, whose mother’s cry
Sounds wild and shrill through the midnight sky!—
Where are they? Thou’rt seeking some distant coast:
Oh ask of them, stranger!—send back the lost!
Tell them we mourn by the dark-blue streams,
Tell them our lives but of them are dreams!
Tell, how we sat in the gloom to pine,
And to watch for a step—but the step was thine!

THE ISLE OF FOUNTS;

AN INDIAN TRADITION.

[“The river St Mary has its source from a vast lake or marsh, which lies between Flint and Oakmulge rivers, and occupies a space of near three hundred miles in circuit. This vast accumulation of waters, in the wet season, appears as a lake, and contains some large islands or knolls of rich high land; one of which the present generation of the Creek Indians represent to be a most blissful spot of earth. They say it is inhabited by a peculiar race of Indians, whose women are incomparably beautiful. They also tell you that this terrestrial paradise has been seen by some of their enterprising hunters, when in pursuit of game; but that in their endeavours to approach it, they were involved in perpetual labyrinths, and, like enchanted land, still as they imagined they had just gained it, it seemed to fly before them, alternately appearing and disappearing. They resolved, at length, to leave the delusive pursuit, and to return; which, after a number of difficulties, they effected. When they reported their adventures to their countrymen, the young warriors were inflamed with an irresistible desire to invade and make a conquest of so charming a country; but all their attempts have hitherto proved abortive, never having been able again to find that enchanting spot.”—Bertram’s Travels through North and South Carolina, &c.

The additional circumstances in the “Isle of Founts” are merely imaginary.]

Son of the stranger! wouldst thou take
O’er yon blue hills thy lonely way,
To reach the still and shining lake
Along whose banks the west winds play?
Let no vain dreams thy heart beguile—
Oh! seek thou not the Fountain Isle!
Lull but the mighty serpent-king,[317]
Midst the gray rocks, his old domain;
Ward but the cougar’s deadly spring,—
Thy step that lake’s green shore may gain;
And the bright Isle, when all is pass’d,
Shall vainly meet thine eye at last!
Yes! there, with all its rainbow streams,
Clear as within thine arrow’s flight,
The Isle of Founts, the isle of dreams,
Floats on the wave in golden light;
And lovely will the shadows be
Of groves whose fruit is not for thee!
And breathings from their sunny flowers,
Which are not of the things that die,
And singing voices from their bowers,
Shall greet thee in the purple sky;
Soft voices, e’en like those that dwell
Far in the green reed’s hollow cell.
Or hast thou heard the sounds that rise
From the deep chambers of the earth?
The wild and wondrous melodies
To which the ancient rocks gave birth?[318]
Like that sweet song of hidden caves
Shall swell those wood-notes o’er the waves.
The emerald waves!—they take their hue
And image from that sun-bright shore;
But wouldst thou launch thy light canoe,
And wouldst thou ply thy rapid oar,—
Before thee, hadst thou morning’s speed,
The dreamy land should still recede!
Yet on the breeze thou still wouldst hear
The music of its flowering shades,
And ever should the sound be near
Of founts that ripple through its glades;
The sound, and sight, and flashing ray
Of joyous waters in their play!
But woe for him who sees them burst
With their bright spray-showers to the lake!
Earth has no spring to quench the thirst
That semblance in his soul shall wake,
For ever pouring through his dreams
The gush of those untasted streams!
Bright, bright in many a rocky urn,
The waters of our deserts lie,
Yet at their source his lip shall burn,
Parch’d with the fever’s agony!
From the blue mountains to the main,
Our thousand floods may roll in vain.
E’en thus our hunters came of yore
Back from their long and weary quest;—
Had they not seen th’ untrodden shore?
And could they midst our wilds find rest?
The lightning of their glance was fled,
They dwelt amongst us as the dead!
They lay beside our glittering rills
With visions in their darken’d eye;
Their joy was not amidst the hills
Where elk and deer before us fly:
Their spears upon the cedar hung,
Their javelins to the wind were flung.
They bent no more the forest bow,
They arm’d not with the warrior band,
The moons waned o’er them dim and slow—
They left us for the spirits’ land!
Beneath our pines yon greensward heap
Shows where the restless found their sleep.
Son of the stranger! if at eve
Silence be midst us in thy place,
Yet go not where the mighty leave
The strength of battle and of chase!
Let no vain dreams thy heart beguile—
Oh! seek thou not the Fountain Isle!