Culprit Fay and Other Poems | Page 8

has crowed, the Fays are gone.
TO A FRIEND.
"You damn me with faint praise."
YES, faint was my applause and cold my praise,
Though soul was
glowing in each polished line;
But nobler subjects claim the poet's
lays,
A brighter glory waits a muse like thine.
Let amorous fools in
love-sick measure pine;
Let Strangford whimper on, in fancied pain,


And leave to Moore his rose leaves and his vine;
Be thine the task
a higher crown to gain,
The envied wreath that decks the patriot's
holy strain.
II.
Yet not in proud triumphal song alone,
Or martial ode, or sad
sepulchral dirge,
There needs no voice to make our glories known;

There needs no voice the warrior's soul to urge
To tread the bounds of
nature's stormy verge;
Columbia still shall win the battle's prize;

But be it thine to bid her mind emerge
To strike her harp, until its
soul arise
From the neglected shade, where low in dust it lies.
III.
Are there no scenes to touch the poet's soul?
No deeds of arms to
wake the lordly strain?
Shall Hudson's billows unregarded roll?
Has
Warren fought, Montgomery died in vain?
Shame! that while every
mountain stream and plain
Hath theme for truth's proud voice or
fancy's wand,
No native bard the patriot harp hath ta'en,
But left to
minstrels of a foreign strand
To sing the beauteous scenes of nature's
loveliest land.
IV.
Oh! for a seat on Appalachia's brow,
That I might scan the glorious
prospect round,
Wild waving woods, and rolling floods below,

Smooth level glades and fields with grain embrown'd,
High heaving
hills, with tufted forests crown'd,
Rearing their tall tops to the
heaven's blue dome,
And emerald isles, like banners green unwound,

Floating along the lake, while round them roam
Bright helms of
billowy blue and plumes of dancing foam.
V.

'Tis true no fairies haunt our verdant meads,
No grinning imps
deform our blazing hearth;
Beneath the kelpie's fang no traveller
bleeds,
Nor gory vampyre taints our holy earth,
Nor spectres stalk
to frighten harmless mirth,
Nor tortured demon howls adown the gale;

Fair reason checks these monsters in their birth.
Yet have we lay of
love and horrid tale
Would dim the manliest eye and make the
bravest pale.
VI.
Where is the stony eye that hath not shed
Compassion's heart-drops
o'er the sweet Mc Rea?
Through midnight's wilds by savage bandits
led,
"Her heart is sad - her love is far away!"
Elate that lover waits
the promised day
When he shall clasp his blooming bride again -

Shine on, sweet visions! dreams of rapture, play!
Soon the cold corse
of her he loved in vain
Shall blight his withered heart and fire his
frenzied brain.
VII.
Romantic Wyoming! could none be found
Of all that rove thy Eden
groves among,
To wake a native harp's untutored sound,
And give
thy tale of wo the voice of song?
Oh! if description's cold and
nerveless tongue
From stranger harps such hallowed strains could call,

How doubly sweet the descant wild had rung,
From one who,
lingering round thy ruined wall,
Had plucked thy mourning flowers
and wept thy timeless fall.
VIII.
The Huron chief escaped from foemen nigh,
His frail bark launches
on Niagara's tides,
"Pride in his port, defiance in his eye,"
Singing
his song of death the warrior glides;
In vain they yell along the river
sides,
In vain the arrow from its sheaf is torn,
Calm to his doom the
willing victim rides,
And, till adown the roaring torrent borne,


Mocks them with gesture proud, and laughs their rage to scorn.
IX.
But if the charms of daisied hill and vale,
And rolling flood, and
towering rock sublime,
If warrior deed or peasant's lowly tale
Of
love or wo should fail to wake the rhyme,
If to the wildest heights of
song you climb,
(Tho' some who know you less, might cry, beware!)

Onward! I say - your strains shall conquer time;
Give your bright
genius wing, and hope to share
Imagination's worlds - the ocean,
earth, and air.
X.
Arouse, my friend - let vivid fancy soar,
Look with creative eye on
nature's face,
Bid airy sprites in wild Niagara roar,
And view in
every field a fairy race.
Spur thy good Pacolet to speed apace,
And
spread a train of nymphs on every shore;
Or if thy muse would woo a
ruder grace,
The Indian's evil Manitou's explore,
And rear the
wondrous tale of legendary lore.
XI.
Away! to Susquehannah's utmost springs,
Where, throned in
mountain mist, Areouski reigns,
Shrouding in lurid clouds his
plumeless wings,
And sternly sorrowing o'er his tribes remains;
His
was the arm, like comet ere it wanes
That tore the streamy lightnings
from the skies,
And smote the mammoth of the southern plains;

Wild with dismay the Creek affrighted flies,
While in triumphant
pride Kanawa's eagles rise.
XII.
Or westward far, where dark Miami wends,
Seek that fair spot as yet
to fame unknown;
Where, when the vesper dew of heaven descends,

Soft music breathes in many a melting tone,
At times so sadly

sweet it seems the moan
Of some poor Ariel penanced in the rock;

Anon a louder burst - a scream! a groan!
And now amid the tempest's
reeling shock,
Gibber, and shriek, and wail - and fiend-like laugh and
mock.
XIII.
Or climb