Changeless, alone, beneath the large white dome
Among these walks lined by the frequent tombs;
For it is very wonderful. Afar
The populous city lifts its tall, bright spires,
And snowy sails are glancing on the bay,
As if in merriment, but here all sleep;
They sleep, these calm, pale people of the past :
Spring plants her rosy feet on their dim homes,
They sleep! Sweet Summer comes and calls, and calls
With all her passionate poetry of flowers
Wed to the music of the soft south-wind,
They sleep! The lonely Autumn sits and sobs
Between the cold white tombs, as if her heart
Would break, - they sleep! Wild Winter comes and
Majestical the mournful sagas learned
Far in the melancholy North, where God
Walks forth alone upon the desolate seas,
They slumber still! Sleep on, O passionless dead!
Ye make our world sublime: ye have a power
And majesty the living never hold.
Here Avarice shall forget his den of gold!
Here Lust his beautiful victim, and hot Hate
His crouching foe. Ambition here shall lean
Against Death's shaft, veiling the stern, bright eye
That, overbold, would take the height of gods,
And know Fame's nothingness. The sire shall come,
The matron and the child, through many years,
To this fair spot, whether the pluméd hearse
Moves slowly through the winding walks, or Death
For a brief moment pauses: all shall come
To feel the touching eloquence of graves.
And therefore it was well for us to clothe
The place with beauty. No daık terror here
Shall chill the generous tropic of the soul,
But Poetry and her starred comrade Art
Shall make the sacred country of the dead
Magnificent. The fragrant flowers shall smile
Over the low, green graves; the trees shall shake
Their soul-like cadences upon the tombs;
The little lake, set in a paradise
Of wood, shall be a mirror to the moon
What time she looks from her imperial tent
In long delight at all below; the sea
Shall lift some stately dirge he loves to breathe
Over dead nations, while calm sculptures stand
On every hill, and look like spirits there
That drink the harmony. Oh, it is well!
Why should a darkness scowl on any spot
Where man grasps immortality? Light, light,
And art, and poetry, and eloquence,
And all that we call glorious are its dower.
Callicoon, the River, N. Y.
THE CALLICOON IN AUTUMN.
A CHARMING forest stream of Sullivan County, uniting with the Willewemoc and flowing into the Delaware.
DAR in the forest's heart, unknown
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!
Now, stealing through its thickets deep
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.
Nature, in her autumnal dress
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.
The southwest airs of ladened balm
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.
Sleep-like the silence, by the lapse
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.
A foliage world of glittering dyes
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.
Rich gold with gorgeous crimson, here,
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.
All steeped in that delicious charm
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 squirrel chatters merrily,
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
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