The sky is spread in silvery sheen, With breaks of tenderest blue between, Through which the timid ray Struggles in faintest, meekest glow, And rests in dreamy hues below.
The southwest airs of ladened balm
Come breathing sweetly by,
And wake, amid the forest's calm,
One quick and shivering sigh,
Shaking, but dimpling not the glass
Of this smooth streamlet, as they pass,
They scarcely wheel on high
The thistle's downy, silver star,
To waft its pendent seed afar.
Sleep-like the silence, by the lapse
Of waters only broke,
And the woodpecker's fitful taps
Upon the hollow oak;
And, mingling with the insect hum,
The beatings of the partridge drum,
With now and then a croak,
As, on his flapping wing, the crow
O'er passes, heavily and slow.
A foliage world of glittering dyes
Gleams brightly on the air,
As though a thousand sunset skies,
With rainbows, blended there;
Each leaf an opal, and each tree
A bower of varied brilliancy,
And all one general glare
Of splendor that o'erwhelms the sight
With dazzling and unequalled light.
Rich gold with gorgeous crimson, here,
The birch and maple twine,
The beech its orange mingles near,
With emerald of the pine;
And even the humble bush and herb
Are glowing with those tints superb,
As though a scattered mine
Of gems upon the earth were strown,
Flashing with radiance, each its own.
All steeped in that delicious charm
Peculiar to our land,
That comes, ere Winter's frosty arm
Knits Nature's icy band;
The purple, rich, and glimmering smoke,
That forms the Indian Summer's cloak,
When, by soft breezes fanned,
For a few precious days he broods
Amid the gladdened fields and woods.
The squirrel chatters merrily,
The nut falls ripe and brown,
And, gem-like, from the jewelled tree
The leaf comes fluttering down;
And restless in his plumage gay,
From bush to bush loud screams the jay,
And on the hemlock's crown
The sentry pigeon guards from foe
The flock that dots the woods below.
See! on this edge of forest lawn,
Where sleeps the clouded beam,
A doe has led her spotted fawn
To gambol by the stream;
Beside yon mullein's braided stalk
They hear the gurgling voices talk,
While, like a wandering gleam,
The yellow-bird dives here and there,
A feathered vessel of the air.
On, through the rampart walls of rock,
The waters pitch in white,
And high, in mist, the cedars lock
Their boughs, half lost to sight
Above the whirling gulf, the dash
Of frenzied floods, that vainly lash
Their limits in their flight,
Whose roar the eagle, from his peak,
Responds to with his angriest shriek.
Stream of the wilds! the Indian here,
Free as thy chainless flow,
Has bent against thy depths his spear,
And in thy woods his bow,
The beaver built his dome; but they,
The memories of an earlier day,
Like those dead trunks, that show What once were mighty pines,
With Time's unceasing, rapid tread.
HEN cradled on thy placid breast,
In hushed content I loved to muse, Too full the heart, too sweet the rest,
For thought and speech to interfuse.
But now, when thou art shrined afar,
Like Nature's chosen urn of peace,
Remembrance, like the evening star,
Begins a vigil ne'er to cease.
Each mossy rock, each fairy isle,
Inlets with thickets overhung,
The cloud's rose-tint or fleecy pile,
And Echo's wildly frolic tongue;
The light and shade that o'er thee play,
The ripple of thy moonlit wave,
The long, calm, dreamy summer day,
The very stones thy waters lave;
The converse frank, the harmless jest,
The reverie without a sigh,
The hammock's undulating rest,
With fair companions seated by;
Yet linger, as if near thee still,
I heard, upon the fitful breeze,
The locust and the whippoorwill,
Or rustle of the swaying trees.
Hills rise in graceful curves around,
Here dark with tangled forest shade,
There yellow with the harvest-ground,
Or emerald with the open glade;
Primeval chestnuts line the strand,
And hemlocks every mountain side, While, by each passing zephyr fanned, Azalea flowers kiss the tide.
We nestle in the gliding barge,
And turn from yon unclouded sky,
To watch, along the bosky marge,
Its image in thy waters nigh.
Or, gently darting to and fro,
The insects on their face explore, With speckled minnows poised below, And tortoise on the pebbly floor.
Or turn the prow to some lone bay,
Where thick the floating leaves are spread;
How bright and queen-like the array
Of lilies in their crystal bed!
Henry Theodore Tuckerman.
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