S down Ohio's ever ebbing tide,
Oarless and sailless, silently they glide,
How still the scene, how lifeless, yet how fair
Was the lone land that met the stranger there!
No smiling villages or curling smoke
The busy haunts of busy men bespoke;
No solitary hut, the banks along,
Sent forth blithe labor's homely, rustic song;
No urchin gambolled on the smooth, white sand,
Or hurled the skipping-stone with playful hand,
While playmate dog plunged in the clear blue wave,
And swam, in vain, the sinking prize to save.
Where now are seen, along the river-side,
Young, busy towns, in buxom, painted pride,
And fleets of gliding boats with riches crowned,
To distant Orleans or St. Louis bound.
Nothing appeared but nature unsubdued,
One endless, noiseless woodland_solitude,
Or boundless prairie, that aye seemed to be
As level and as lifeless as the sea;
They seemed to breathe in this wide world alone,
Heirs of the earth-the land was all their own!
'T was evening now: the hour of toil was o'er, Yet still they durst not seek the fearful shore, Lest watchful Indian crew should silent creep,
And spring upon and murder them in sleep;
So through the livelong night they held their way,
And 't was a night might shame the fairest day;
So still, so bright, so tranquil was its reign,
They cared not though the day ne'er came again.
The moon high wheeled the distant hills above,
Silvered the fleecy foliage of the grove,
That as the wooing zephyrs on it fell,
Whispered it loved the gentle visit well.
That fair-faced orb alone to move appeared,
That zephyr was the only sound they heard.
No deep-mouthed hound the hunter's haunt betrayed,
No lights upon the shore or waters played,
No loud laugh broke upon the silent air,
To tell the wanderers, man was nestling there.
All, all was still, on gliding bark and shore,
As if the earth now slept to wake no more.
James Kirke Paulding.
ALL hail to thee, Ohio, lovely stream,
That sweepest, murmuring, by, in holy dream, New cities with their market-din profane, Colossal rocks and fields of golden grain!
Emblem of Time, here drifts along on thee,
Uprooted by the storm, the giant tree,
The steamer's floating palace there we view,
And yonder skims the red-man's birch canoe!
Here heardest thou the Briton's haggling word, There the poor, errant Indian's moan was heard, Thou listenest now the German's heartfelt song, That homeward floats on tide of yearning strong!
Thou sang'st my cradle-song, thou wast to me,
In youth, the mirror fair of purity,
And whisperest to my heart in manhood's hour
Full many a word of earnestness and power!
Thou see'st my father's house, so German, there, As if in airy flight such angel-pair,
As bore Loretto's house of charity,
Right from the Rhine had brought thee o'er the sea.
I greet you, ye twin Lares, I your child;
Great Frederick, thee! thee, Joseph, wise and mild!
A rose-bush, climbing, peeps through window-pane,
He too, as twig, once measured the wide main.
He sailed, one day, an Argonaut of spring,
From the safe port of home took sudden wing,
The golden sun-fleece of far springs to find,
And left his darling nightingale behind.
Thy love of home, O German! hath a glow
Like to the fiery wine's that sparkles so,
And which, o'er farthest seas transported, glows
More deeply and a richer flavor shows.
Before the house there lies a field; all round,
Stumps of felled trees stand scattered o'er the ground,
An old-world's forum, of whose columns tall
The storming foe left many a pedestal.
And in the midst, on one, his deeds to scan,
As Triumphator, sits a grave old man;
His flashing axe, the sceptre in his hand,
His plough, a conqueror's car, drove through the land!
That is my sire! His bristling host behold!
Ranged, lance to lance, and glittering all in gold!
The golden grain encamping near and far,
To guard their kernel, all arrayed for war!
Troops of the Rhine are they, whose tents he bore,
And, victor, planted on Ohio's shore;
Like homesick soldiers on a foreign strand,
They whisper of their far, dear Fatherland.
Gay swarms of humming-birds of brightest hue,
Like damsels, flutter round, the ranks to woo;
Ye wantons! leave me not unnerved, unmanned, -
One heart in all that noble foreign band!
The herd that night brings lowing to thy gate,
O hero, is thy Poet Laureate ;
Like his, their voice, when hunger wakes their cries, In loudest, loftiest strains will ever rise.
See giant trees thy axe forbore to smite,
Stretch out their arms, festooned in towering height, With wanton serpent-flowers; they suppliant stand, Envoys of peace they came from forest-land!
And nightly, when, through the old wood's dark green, Myriads of fireflies, glancing, light the scene, 'Tis the illumination's festal blaze
The captive city to its conqueror pays!
But lo, by moonlight, yonder, dead and bare,
A few old patriarchs lift their arms in air,
Like ghosts of veterans in the battle slain,
Wringing their hands and writhing on the plain !
Lo, the far billows of a fiery sea!
The camp-fire of the routed host may 't be?
As if a choir of seraphs swung on high
The flaming sword, the wood lights up the sky!
The window-rose reflects the reddening light,
She nods a greeting to the outer night,
Yet to console her, all these charms will fail,
For the familiar German nightingale.
Thou hast achieved a noble Fatherland!
Why sinks, old man, thy head upon thy hand?
Do the still roses of thy heart, too, miss
The nightingale of home to crown their bliss?
Graf von Auersperg. Tr. C. T. Brooks.
O, our waiting ark is freighted;
In its depths of oak and pine
All our household gods are gathered, —
Thine, my noble friend, and mine!
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