قراءة كتاب Lays of Ancient Virginia, and Other Poems
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اللغة: English
الصفحة رقم: 3
and flowers, and royal vest,
And slowly wanders like some moon-struck thing,
Through gloomy cypress groves, and by yon haunted spring.
But time must soothe the most exquisite smart
Of love, when wounded by the dart of death;
For life would flee, should not such woe depart,
Too deeply weighing on the heart beneath.
Fair Pocahontas breathes the wonted breath
Of tranquil life, a creature darkly bright,
Decking her hair again with many a wreath,
Walking amid the high wood's gentle night,
Charming her wild, old Father's heart with strange delight.
Yet nought could make her cease to view with love,
The tender memory of the mournful past;
And once when warring clouds grew black above,
The shrieking Earth with awful night o'ercast,
And long foiled Hatred hoped to glut his fast
With English gore, with irksome steps she stole,
O'er deep morass, through tangled brake, and cast
The boon of life to each devoted soul,
Who slept within that Castle's frail and weak control.
Oh! we might marvel that her savage heart,
Would show such love to her loved father's foes;
But love like this, will act no selfish part;
Over drear earth, diffusing joy, it goes,
Its breath the fragrance of the earliest rose,
Its voice the sound of an unearthly thing,
Its form an Angel's, and as pure as those,
Who come to gladdened man on shining wing,
Which scatters round the sweets of an immortal spring.
Now when the dogwood gemmed with blossoms white,
The gorgeous grove where oak and stately pine,
Upthrew their gnarled arms of massy might,
And thus a leafy canopy did twine,
This dusky Dryad would with grace recline,
Along the mossy bank of crystal stream,
In whose smooth glass her angel beauties shine,
Beside brave Rolfe, a man of pallid gleam,
Who sighed his soul to her, and taught her love's true dream.
Beneath the silver moon, resplendent queen,
With simple rites, these mingling souls were wed;
The happy stars looked down, with brighter sheen,
To view love's wretched fears for ever fled;
The wild flowers trembled in their dewy bed,
And up a most enchanting fragrance sent;
The blissful Hours, unnoticed, onward sped;
And, with their gentle music sweetly blent,
The breathing winds and waters murmured their content.
Ah me! what deep, celestial transports thrill'd
These beating bosoms, in so sweet a scene:
What tears of tender joy their visions filled,
Scanning each other's soul-absorbing mien
And, in that bower of paradisal green,
Happy, they sighed, in accents fond and warm,
That thus enclosed Earth's primal pair had been,
Where oft they spied bright Seraph's glorious form,
And rose on high afar the grove's eternal charm.
There oft the mocking bird, a songster gay,
Would soothe their souls, with multifarious song,
Singing his farewell-hymns to dying Day,
As fade his smiles the darkening glades along;
And when the frowns of night more thickly throng,
The amorous firefly led them at that hour,
O'er wooded hills, and marshes deep and long,
To their sweet rest, which sank, with grateful power,
Along their wearied nerves, in their wild, oaken bower.
As flows the stream, with calm, unruffled wave,
O'er shining sands, to kiss the glassy main,
So flowed the life their gracious Maker gave,
Nor felt the obstructive power of obvious pain;
So deep o'er them was Passion's rapturous reign,
That mid their bower's delicious solitude,
They dreamed their hearts might never sigh again;
By love their gentle spirits were subdued,
To the deep rapture of a heavenly seeming mood.
Alas! the race of Pocahontas flow,
As waves, away, which can return no more;
No more o'er plain and peak they bear the bow,
Or shove the skiff from yonder curving shore;
Their reign, their histories, their names are o'er;
The plow insults their sires' indignant bones;
The very land disowns its look of yore;
Vast cities rise, and hark! I hear the tones
Of many mingling Tongues; and boundless labour groans.
And paler nymphs are sweetly wooed and won,
Upon this soil, and they are happy too,
But of these fairer English damsels, none
Have shown devotion more divinely true,
Than thou, untutor'd maid of dusky hue;
Nor shall thy tribes from memory vanish quite,
While beauteous deeds as angels ofttimes do,
Still sway the generous mind with heavenly might,
For thine would snatch even worse from Time's oblivious night.
The tallest fir, that decks the blooming grove,
Decays the first, the most abounding rose,
By worms is first consumed; the pearl we love
Is stolen first, the star that brightest glows
To gild the gloom, is first that sets, and those
Whose lovely lives on earth we prized the most,
And most assuaged the pangs of thronging woes,
Which—oh how oft! our fated paths have cross'd,
By all are ever mourned, "the loved and early lost."
So Rolfe's dear spouse was early snatched away,—
But left one pledge of her undying love—
(Perchance her happy spirit oft would stray
Round their dear footsteps wheresoe'er they rove)
And Europe's turf grow green her heart above.