| |
| TEN 1 suns upon the woods had shone, | |
| Ten times the evening star had thrown | |
| The lustre of its steady ray | |
| Through the dim shades of closing day, | |
| Ere Logan turn’d him from the chase, | 5 |
| His wandering footsteps to retrace. | |
| Of all the scenes through which he pass’d, | |
| By far the loveliest was the last. | |
| Beyond his mid-day bound the sun | |
| Upon his circling course had run, | 10 |
| And on the forest’s top his rays | |
| Pour’d in one broad unbroken blaze, | |
| Yet fail’d to pierce the leafy screen, | |
| Whose canopy of living green | |
| High o’er the forest’s vast arcade | 15 |
| Spread its thick, deeply tinted shade. | |
| Beneath was stern and solemn gloom, | |
| As in some vast and vaulted tomb. | |
| There rose the towering trunks, whose pride | |
| The shock of ages had defied; | 20 |
| Vast as the pillar’d shafts that stand | |
| ’Mid Egypt’s ever shifting sand, | |
| Where Carnac’s ruins rise sublime, | |
| Mocking the feeble hand of Time. | |
| Far from the earth they rose on high, | 25 |
| In straight, unbroken symmetry, | |
| Then spread at once their branches wide, | |
| Where bough met bough on every side, | |
| And from the upward gazing eye | |
| Shut the blue glimpses of the sky. | 30 |
| Beneath no humbler growth was found | |
| With tangled copse to hide the ground, | |
| But at their roots the greensward lay, | |
| And flowers that loved the dubious day; | |
| No sound was wafted on the air | 35 |
| To break the stillness slumbering there, | |
| Save the deep moaning of the breeze | |
| That struggled mid the mighty trees, | |
| And more than stillness o’er the mind | |
| Threw feelings deep by awe refined. | 40 |
| There Logan pass’d, towards the west | |
| With firm unwavering course he press’d, | |
| Till through the trunks upon his sight | |
| Pour’d the full blaze of golden light; | |
| With swifter step he hurried on, | 45 |
| And soon the forest’s boundary won. | |
| Great was the contrast then! the wood | |
| Behind in gloomy grandeur stood; | |
| A spacious plain before him lay | |
| Bright with the cheering beams of day. | 50 |
| Far westward stretch’d, in vain the eye | |
| Its distant limits would descry; | |
| By woods on either side embraced, | |
| It seem’d a lake of verdure placed | |
| Amid that dark and gloomy wild, | 55 |
| Where scarce a wandering sun-beam smiled. | |
| The western breeze with balmy sigh | |
| Waved the tall grass of sunny dye, | |
| Whose undulations rose and fell | |
| Like ocean’s soft and vernal swell, | 60 |
| When poets feign’d upon its breast | |
| The wave-nursed Halcyon’s floating nest. | |
| Amid that verdant lake appear’d, | |
| Like islands ’mid the billows rear’d, | |
| Dark tufted groves, the cool retreat | 65 |
| Of wild deer from the noontide heat. | |
| There stretch’d amid the breezy shade | |
| The timid foresters were laid, | |
| Or bounded o’er the plain as light | |
| As the swift swallow’s sportive flight. | 70 |
| —All now was light and life, the ear | |
| A softly murmuring sound might hear, | |
| As Nature’s various voices join’d | |
| With notes of harmony combined. | |
| The whispering grass, the rustling tree, | 75 |
| The mellow humming of the bee, | |
| The buzz of insect tribes, in play | |
| And sunshine sporting life away, | |
| Floating upon the fragrant air, | |
| As if to feed on odors there. | 80 |
| Slow sunk the sun, and twilight deep | |
| Lull’d all that loved his ray to sleep. | |
| ’Mid gorgeous clouds that robed the west | |
| The sun was sinking to his rest. | |
| When Logan reach’d his home, with toil | 85 |
| Nigh wearied and his forest spoil. | |
| While on a hill-top far aloof, | |
| With straining gaze he mark’d the roof, | |
| To see if through its crevice broke | |
| The faint blue wreath of evening smoke, | 90 |
| That oft his longing heart had cheer’d, | |
| When first in distance it appear’d, | |
| And spoke of welcome that should greet | |
| His safe return with pleasure meet. | |
| —In vain! the thin, transparent air, | 95 |
| Unstain’d by vapor, rested there. | |
| How could this be! the new moon’s bow | |
| But once had shed its silver glow, | |
| When from her home Oana went, | |
| And ere one half its course was spent | 100 |
| She promised to return again; | |
| —But now the moon was in its wane, | |
| And scarcely half her orbed face | |
| Lent to the night a mournful grace. | |
| At other time this had been nought, | 105 |
| But now of late to anxious thought, | |
| And undefined, his mind was prone; | |
| More than himself would lightly own. | |
| He reach’d his hut, the door was closed, | |
| Within in stillness all reposed | 110 |
| As when he left it, not a change | |
| Was there, but sameness still and strange; | |
| As if no hand had oped the door, | |
| Or footstep cross’d the threshold floor. | |
| He sate him down in silence stern, | 115 |
| Wishing, yet fearful too, to learn | |
| What evil tidings might await, | |
| —Why thus his home was desolate. | |
| He heard a footstep, at his door | |
| One enter’d, one well known before, | 120 |
| Of firm, unfailing friendship proved | |
| In times that faithless hearts had moved. | |
| Then Logan mann’d himself to bear | |
| All he might hear with unmoved air. | |
| ‘With thee be peace!’ the chieftain said, | 125 |
| His friend the greeting fair repaid. | |
| Logan look’d keenly in his face, | |
| As if he sought his thoughts to trace. | |
| —Vainly; all there was cold and still | |
| As midnight on the ice bound rill. | 130 |
| A moment’s pause, then calm and brief | |
| The visitant address’d the chief. | |
| ‘Logan, I bring thee tidings dread, | |
| The storm of war above thy head | |
| Has burst, and thou art left alone, | 135 |
| For to the land of souls are gone | |
| Thy children and thy wife,’—no more. | |
| The flash that wakes the tempest’s roar, | |
| Bursting around the wanderer’s head | |
| With sheeted flames and thunder dread, | 140 |
| Scarcely each shrinking sense confounds, | |
| As Logan’s now these dreadful sounds. | |
| As one upon a rugged steep, | |
| High beetling o’er the roaring deep, | |
| Supported by some slender vine | 145 |
| Whose tendrils round the rocks entwine, | |
| Feels when it breaks, and far beneath | |
| He plunges living into death, | |
| So Logan felt, his mind was toss’d, | |
| In chaos and confusion lost, | 150 |
| His brain whirl’d dizzily, and sight, | |
| And sense, and thought were banish’d quite. | |
| All hope was reft, and far below | |
| Roll’d the deep gulf of rayless wo. | |
| Joys that had been, and those that he | 155 |
| Had fondly thought in time should be, | |
| —All he had lost, together came | |
| Bursting upon his mind like flame, | |
| With the dread sense that nought could save | |
| Or rush between them and the grave. | 160 |
| —’T was but an instant; like the light | |
| Of meteor darting through the night, | |
| So swiftly that the gazer’s eye | |
| Scarce marks it as it passes by, | |
| Vanish’d that tempest of the soul, | 165 |
| Which then resumed its self-control, | |
| Struggling each outward sign to hide | |
| Of softness that might shame his pride, | |
| And stain his lofty, warrior fame | |
| With weakness of unmanly name. | 170 |
| ‘’T is well,’ he said and paused,—the tone | |
| Firm and majestic was his own; | |
| His tearless eye was calm and bright, | |
| His dark lip show’d no tinge of white, | |
| And his whole mien was self possess’d | 175 |
| As if no passion stirr’d his breast. | |
