| |
| AY, this is freedom!—these pure skies | |
| Were never stained with village smoke; | |
| The fragrant wind, that through them flies, | |
| Is breathed from wastes by plough unbroke. | |
| Here, with my rifle and my steed, | 5 |
| And her who left the world for me, | |
| I plant me, where the red deer feed | |
| In the green desert,—and am free. | |
| |
| For here the fair savannas know | |
| No barriers in the bloomy grass; | 10 |
| Wherever breeze of heaven may blow, | |
| Or beam of heaven may glance, I pass. | |
| In pastures, measureless as air, | |
| The bison is my noble game; | |
| The bounding elk, whose antlers tear | 15 |
| The branches, falls before my aim. | |
| |
| Mine are the river-fowl that scream | |
| From the long stripe of waving sedge; | |
| The bear, that marks my weapon’s gleam, | |
| Hides vainly in the forest’s edge; | 20 |
| In vain the she-wolf stands at bay; | |
| The brinded catamount, that lies | |
| High in the boughs to watch his prey, | |
| Even in the act of springing, dies. | |
| |
| With what free growth the elm and plane | 25 |
| Fling their huge arms across my way, | |
| Gray, old, and cumbered with a train | |
| Of vines, as huge and old and gray! | |
| Free stray the lucid streams, and find | |
| No taint in these fresh lawns and shades; | 30 |
| Free spring the flowers that scent the wind | |
| Where never scythe has swept the glades. | |
| |
| Alone the Fire, when frost-winds sere | |
| The heavy herbage of the ground, | |
| Gathers his annual harvest here, | 35 |
| With roaring like the battle’s sound, | |
| And hurrying flames that sweep the plain, | |
| And smoke-streams gushing up the sky: | |
| I meet the flames with flames again, | |
| And at my door they cower and die. | 40 |
| |
| Here, from dim woods, the aged past | |
| Speaks solemnly; and I behold | |
| The boundless future in the vast | |
| And lonely river, seaward rolled. | |
| Who feeds its founts with rain and dew? | 45 |
| Who moves, I ask, its gliding mass, | |
| And trains the bordering vines, whose blue | |
| Bright clusters tempt me as I pass? | |
| |
| Broad are these streams,—my steed obeys, | |
| Plunges, and bears me through the tide. | 50 |
| Wide are these woods,—I thread the maze | |
| Of giant stems, nor ask a guide. | |
| I hunt, till day’s last glimmer dies | |
| O’er woody vale and grassy height; | |
| And kind the voice and glad the eyes, | 55 |
| That welcome my return at night. | |
| |
