Back, steed of the prairies!
Sweet song-bird, fly back!
Wheel hither, bald vulture!
Gray wolf, call thy pack!
The foul human vultures
Have feasted and fled;
The wolves of the Border
Have crept from the dead.
From the hearths of their cabins,
The fields of their corn,
Unwarned and unweaponed,
The victims were torn,
By the whirlwind of murder
Swooped up and swept on
To the low reedy fen-lands,
The Marsh of the Swan.
With a vain plea for mercy
No stout knee was crooked;
In the mouths of the rifles
Right manly they looked.
How paled the May sunshine,
O Marais du Cygne!
On death for the strong life,
On red grass for green!
In the homes of their rearing,
Yet warm with their lives,
Ye wait the dead only,
Poor children and wives!
Put out the red forge-fire,
The smith shall not come; Unyoke the brown oxen,
The ploughman lies dumb.
Wind slow from the Swan's Marsh,
O dreary death-train,
With pressed lips as bloodless
As lips of the slain!
Kiss down the young eyelids,
Smooth down the gray hairs;
Let tears quench the curses
That burn through your prayers.
Strong man of the prairies,
Mourn bitter and wild!
Wail, desolate woman!
Weep, fatherless child!
But the grain of God springs up
From ashes beneath,
And the crown of his harvest
Is life out of death.
Not in vain on the dial
The shade moves along,
To point the great contrasts
Of right and of wrong:
Free homes and free altars,
Free prairie and flood,
The reeds of the Swan's Marsh,
Whose bloom is of blood!
On the lintels of Kansas
That blood shall not dry;
Henceforth the Bad Angel
Shall harmless go by;
Henceforth to the sunset,
Unchecked on her way,
Shall Liberty follow
The march of the day.
T last he seemed to lose it altogether
Upon the Mississippi; where he stayed.
His course at Memphis, undecided whether
He should go back or forward. Here he strayed
One afternoon along the esplanade
And high bluff of the river-fronting town,
To watch the boats and see the sun go down.
The lyric fit had left him; but the sight
Of the strong river sweeping vast and slow, Gleaming far off, a flood of crimson light; And, darkly hung between it and the glow Of a most lovely sunset sky, the low, Interminable forests of Arkansas,
Might have inspired some very pretty stanzas.
The esplanade looks down upon the landing,
A broadly shelving bank, well trodden and bare, Called by a singular misunderstanding
The levee,
The famous landing at New Orleans, where
There is one, having fixed the name forever
For that and other landings on the river.
while there is no levee there;
Acres of merchandise, of cotton-bales,
And bales of hay, awaiting transportation;
Ploughs, household goods, and kegs of rum or nails,
Endless supplies for village and plantation,
Enclosed a scene of wondrous animation,
Of outcry and apparent wild confusion
Contrasting with the sunset's soft illusion;
The steamers lying broadside to the stream,
With delicately pillared decks, the clang
Of bells, the uproar of escaping steam;
There, tugging at some heavy rope, the gang
Of slaves that all together swayed and sang,
Their voices rising in a wild, rich chime,
To which lithe forms and lithe black arms kept time;
The shouts of negro-drivers, droves of mules,
Driven in their turn by madly yelling blacks;
Chairs, tables, kitchen-ware and farming-tools,
Carts, wagons, barrels, boxes, bales, and sacks,
Pushed, hauled, rolled, tumbled, tossed, or borne on
backs
Of files of men, across the ways of plank
Between the loading steamers and the bank!
Then as the sunlight faded from the stream,
And deepening shadows cooled the upper air,
The waves were lighted by the lurid gleam
Or flamebeaux that began to smoke and flare,
And cast a picturesque and ruddy glare
On shore and boats and men of every hue.
John Townsend Trowbridge.
HE autumn time is with us! Its approach
Was heralded, not many days ago,
By hazy skies, that veiled the brazen sun,
And sea-like murmurs from the rustling corn,
And low-voiced brooks that wandered drowsily
By purpling clusters of the juicy grape,
Swinging upon the vine. And now, 't is here!
And what a change hath passed upon the face
Of Nature, where the waving forest spreads,
Then robed in deepest green! All through the night
The subtle frost hath plied its mystic art;
And in the day the golden sun hath wrought
True wonders; and the winds of morn and even Have touched with magic breath the changing leaves. And now, as wanders the dilating eye
Athwart the varied landscape, circling far,
What gorgeousness, what blazonry, what pomp
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