Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
America: Vols. XXV–XXIX. 1876–79.
The Callicoon in Autumn
By Alfred Billings Street (1811–1881)
F
Except to sun and breeze,
Where Solitude her dreaming throne
Has held for centuries;
Chronicled by the rings and moss
That tell the flight of years across
The seamed and columned trees,
This lovely streamlet glides along
With tribute of eternal song!
In which the wood-duck hides;
Now, picturing in its basin sleep
Its green, pool-hollowed sides;
Here, through the pebbles slow it creeps,
There, in some wild abyss it sweeps,
And, foaming, hoarsely chides:
Then slides so still, its gentle swell
Scarce ripples round the lily’s bell.
Magnificent and gay,
Displays her brightest loveliness,
Though nearest her decay;
The sky is spread in silvery sheen,
With breaks of tenderest blue between,
Through which the timid ray
Struggles in faintest, meekest glow,
And rests in dreamy hues below.
Come breathing sweetly by,
And wake, amid the forest’s calm,
One quick and shivering sigh,
Shaking, but dimpling not the glass
Of this smooth streamlet, as they pass,
They scarcely wheel on high
The thistle’s downy, silver star,
To waft its pendent seed afar.
Of waters only broke,
And the woodpecker’s fitful taps
Upon the hollow oak;
And, mingling with the insect hum,
The beatings of the partridge drum,
With now and then a croak,
As, on his flapping wing, the crow
O’er passes, heavily and slow.
Gleams brightly on the air,
As though a thousand sunset skies,
With rainbows, blended there;
Each leaf an opal, and each tree
A bower of varied brilliancy,
And all one general glare
Of splendor that o’erwhelms the sight
With dazzling and unequalled light.
The birch and maple twine,
The beech its orange mingles near,
With emerald of the pine;
And even the humble bush and herb
Are glowing with those tints superb,
As though a scattered mine
Of gems upon the earth were strown,
Flashing with radiance, each its own.
Peculiar to our land,
That comes, ere Winter’s frosty arm
Knits Nature’s icy band;
The purple, rich, and glimmering smoke,
That forms the Indian Summer’s cloak,
When, by soft breezes fanned,
For a few precious days he broods
Amid the gladdened fields and woods.
The nut falls ripe and brown,
And, gem-like, from the jewelled tree
The leaf comes fluttering down;
And restless in his plumage gay,
From bush to bush loud screams the jay,
And on the hemlock’s crown
The sentry pigeon guards from foe
The flock that dots the woods below.
Where sleeps the clouded beam,
A doe has led her spotted fawn
To gambol by the stream;
Beside yon mullein’s braided stalk
They hear the gurgling voices talk,
While, like a wandering gleam,
The yellow-bird dives here and there,
A feathered vessel of the air.
The waters pitch in white,
And high, in mist, the cedars lock
Their boughs, half lost to sight
Above the whirling gulf,—the dash
Of frenzied floods, that vainly lash
Their limits in their flight,
Whose roar the eagle, from his peak,
Responds to with his angriest shriek.
Free as thy chainless flow,
Has bent against thy depths his spear,
And in thy woods his bow,—
The beaver built his dome; but they,
The memories of an earlier day,—
Like those dead trunks, that show
What once were mighty pines,—have fled
With Time’s unceasing, rapid tread.