| |
| DARK woods of Funcheon! treading far | |
| The rugged paths of duty, | |
| Though lost to me the vesper star | |
| Now trembling o’er your beauty, | |
| Still vividly I see your glades, | 5 |
| The deep and emerald-hearted, | |
| As when from their luxuriant shades | |
| My lingering steps departed. | |
| |
| That wild autumnal morning!—well | |
| Can haunted thought remember | 10 |
| How came in gusts o’er Corrin-fell | |
| The roar of dark September, | |
| When I through that same woodland path | |
| To endless exile hasted, | |
| Where many an hour my lavish youth | 15 |
| The gold of evening wasted. | |
| |
| O for one day of that glad time! | |
| —Say, reckless heart, how is it | |
| There ’s still so many a cliff to climb, | |
| And well-known nook to visit? | 20 |
| The Filea’s spring is gurgling near, | |
| And may I not, delaying, | |
| One moment watch the glittering sand | |
| Beneath its crystal playing? | |
| |
| No!—“Onward!” cried the mighty breeze, | 25 |
| “From all thy heart rejoices!” | |
| And loud my childhood’s ancient trees | |
| Then lifted up their voices, | |
| As though they felt and mourned the loss | |
| (With heads bowed down and hoary) | 30 |
| Of him who, seated at their feet, | |
| First sang their summer glory. | |
| |
| Too like the fair beloved group | |
| From whose embrace I wended, | |
| In vain the pine-trees’ shapely troop | 35 |
| Their graceful arms extended; | |
| And vainly fast as sisters’ tears | |
| The pallid birch was weeping, | |
| While woke, like cousins’ sad blue eyes, | |
| The winkle’s flower from sleeping. | 40 |
| |
| Farewell,—I thought,—ye only friends | |
| The heart can trust in leaving, | |
| Untroubled by the primal curse, | |
| The dread of your deceiving. | |
| I shall not see at least your fall, | 45 |
| And so, when wronged and wounded, | |
| Still feel secure of peace at last, | |
| By you, old friends! surrounded. | |
| |
| And since in nature’s scenes, the grand | |
| Or beautiful or tender, | 50 |
| He who invests them with a light | |
| That sanctifies their splendor, | |
| Finding no one abiding-place; | |
| Be his the deep reliance | |
| That he for holier worlds received | 55 |
| The bard’s immortal science. | |
| |
| Green Funcheon-side! your sounding woods | |
| Heaved wide as tossing ocean | |
| When my last glance that autumn morn | |
| Turned from their billowy motion,— | 60 |
| Turned where the willow’s tresses streamed | |
| Above the river stooping, | |
| Dark as your own bright lady’s-hair | |
| Magnificently drooping. | |
| |
| Ah, in that wild tumultuous hour | 65 |
| When heaven with earth seemed warring, | |
| And swept the tempest’s demon-power, | |
| The landscape’s lustre marring, | |
| One gentle spirit (haply then | |
| Of Funcheon’s beauty thinking), | 70 |
| A fading girl, like a tired child, | |
| On Death’s calm breast was sinking. | |
| |
| They ’ve made her grave far, far from all | |
| The haunts she prized so dearly; | |
| O, place no marble o’er its turf, | 75 |
| For there shall flourish yearly | |
| Such flowers as in her Bible’s leaves | |
| She loved to fold and cherish,— | |
| Pansies and early primroses, | |
| That, as they blossom, perish. | 80 |
| |
| Rave on, loud winds, from tranquil rest | |
| Ye nevermore shall stir her; | |
| And ye, fair woods, now vanishing | |
| From memory’s darkened mirror, | |
| Farewell; what meeter time for thought, | 85 |
| The lost and loved recalling, | |
| Than in this solemn evening hour | |
| When autumn-leaves are falling! | |
| |
