GERTRUDE OF WYOMING. PART I. I. ON Susquehana's side, fair Wyoming, Yet thou wert once the loveliest land of all That see the Atlantic wave their morn restore. And paint thy Gertrude in her bowers of yore, Whose beauty was the love of Pensylvania's shore! II. It was beneath thy skies that, but to prune His Autumn fruits, or skim the light canoe, Perchance, along thy river calm at noon The happy shepherd swain had nought to do From morn till evening's sweeter pastime grew, Their timbrel, in the dance of forests brown When lovely maidens prankt in flowret new; And aye, those sunny mountains half way down Would echo flagelet from some romantic town. III. Then, where of Indian hills the daylight takes His leave, how might you the flamingo And playful squirrel on his nut-grown tree: And ev'ry sound of life was full of glee, From merry mock-bird's While heark'ning, fearing nought their revelry, The wild deer arch'd his neck from glades, and then Unhunted, sought his woods and wilderness again. IV. And scarce had Wyoming of war or crime Heard but in transatlantic story rung, For here the exile met from ev'ry clime, And spoke in friendship ev'ry distant tongue : Men from the blood of warring Europe sprung, Were but divided by the running brook; And happy where no Rhenish trumpet sung, On plains no sieging mine's volcano shook, The blue-ey'd German chang'd his sword to pruning-hook. V. Nor far some Andalusian saraband Would sound to many a native rondelay. But who is he that yet a dearer land Remembers, over hills and far away? Green Albyn!' what though he no more survey Thy ships at anchor on the quiet shore, Thy pellochs rolling from the mountain bay; Thy lone sepulchral cairn upon the moor, And distant isles that hear the loud Corbrechtan roar!" VI. Alas! poor Caledonia's mountaineer, That want's stern edict e'er, and feudal grief, Had forced him from a home he loved so dear! Yet found he here a home, and glad relief, a Scotland. The great whirlpool of the Western Hebrides. And plied the beverage from his own fair sheaf, That fir'd his Highland blood with mickle glee; And England sent her men, of men the chief, Who taught those sires of Empire yet to be, To plant the tree of life; to plant fair freedom's tree! VII. Here was not mingled in the city's pomp Of life's extremes the grandeur and the gloom; Sufficed where innocence was yet in bloom, C |