O! what is the breezy mountain?
O what is the whispering glade ?
The roar of the mighty rapid?
The dash of the light cascade?
The brooklet's tale
In the echoing vale ?—
They are tame to the melody
Of the tempest strain and the bold refrain
Of the Grand Old Harper Sea.
Thou tender accent-sacred fare thee well!
We never breathe thee when with friends we part
But on our ear thou ring'st with solemn tone,
Like the deep bell that heralds to the tomb
The ashes of the dead.
At such a season, such a sadd'ning grief
With strange emotion thrill their every nerve,
Save haply sooth'd by compensating joys,
Which round the heart may wreath with mystic power
The cherished memories of days gone by,
Or sunny hopes which brighten on their path,
Illumining in many a fancy dream
An undefined futurity.
How dear thou art, thou sweet epitome
Of purest feeling! thou artless interchange
Of burning sentiment, subdued and calm!
Thou undisputed legacy, which love
And grateful friendship treasure to the last!
But yet, farewell, thou dwellest not alway
Within the circle of our utter'd speech;
Nay, nay! for thou in "dumb significants'
Dost exercise a sympathetic power-
An eloquence which echoes in the heart,
Whose depths by smoothest phrases of the tongue
Have never yet been sounded; for when words
Are sealed up nor stir the stony lips,
Thou speakest in the pressure of the palm,
And in the starry lustre of the eye,
Floating at large upon a sea of light,
Fraught with a meaning which philosophy
Hath failed to fathom to its subtle depth.
But oh we find thee in most striking form
When life and death for final mastery strive ;
When straining lungs, to sense obedient still,
Essay in vain to breathe the vocable,—
And on the lip the sweet relaxing smile
Converges all the living faculties
To indicate in silent eloquence
The last Farewell.
A pleasant ramble 'tis along the shore,
When Spring appears, to chase with wreathing smiles
The lingering frowns of Winter all away,
And shed upon our chilly hemisphere
A generous sunshine wondrously warm.
'Twas but the other day, the Vernal Queen
Gave to our isle an earnest such as this
Of her true advent-not at all too soon.
The leaping life-blood through our branching veins
Diffused a summer sensibility;
And light of heart, and almost light of head,
As pent-up kine just loosen'd from the stall
To browse upon the virgin pasturage,
We left with bounding step and pliant limb
The genial precincts of the glowing grate,
To breathe an atmosphere more genial still.
A flight of sea-gulls wheeling in the east
Suggested well the path we should pursue;
And soon we found us by the ocean's verge;
And there we mused, and, like Demosthenes,
Alive to our defect of thicken'd speech,
Cramm'd our lank jaws with pebbles which partook
Of the sea saltness; then we talked aloud,
And gave the random volume of our thoughts
Full utterance to the voicing of the waves,
Till in our near vicinity we heard
The tittering boys most waggish in remark,
Amid their play, at our soliloquy-
Thinking, no doubt, from visual evidence,
We were half-crazed-and then we laughed in turn At our discovery and close abrupt.
But on we went, amused, as well we might,
Printing our footsteps in the sinking sand,
And stoutly tramping 'mong the rounded stones
That sprang affrighted from our leathern soles;
Then down we sate, and pick'd with curious taste
Jasper and agate stones of spot and stripe,
Translucent some, and others quite opaque;
And when our wallet was about the brim,
We fell to gleaning flowers, misnamed weeds-
The tiny branches, trees in miniature,
Some clear as crystal, others purpled o'er,-
And foot-long fronds, those pulpy shining shrubs
That grace the neriad halls and mermaid caves,
Full many a fathom down the glassy deep.
This pastime ended, then we turned our eye
In rapture round our deep-indented bay ;
Here, towering rocks in lofty grandeur rose;
There, dwarf'd so low that long before the tide
Was half the full their rugged heads were hid;
Far out at sea, where cheating distance blent
The denser element with that of air,
The ships appear'd suspended in the sky;
Nearer, we saw the fishermen return,
And heard the plunging prow and plashing oar,
And oarsmen's well-timed clack upon the wale
Here rode the gull light as the driving foam,
And plumed his breast white as the flaky snow;
There the great diver with suspicious look
Curv'd his long neck, and gracefully went down
To search for prey, then suddenly he rose,
And in his bill we saw the struggling fish,
Which soon was sent to his capacious maw,
And brought the fact of our own hunger home,
Like the sweet tinkle of the dinner-bell ;
So home we went to staunch our appetite,
And think upon our ramble by the sea.
O! the summer is coming, so gladsome and gay,
Usher'd in by the first of the "flowery May;
The song-birds are warbling, in woodland and lea,
Their welcomes, O May! to the summer and thee.
Yet thou art a niggard,
For lo! in the bowers,
Thou givest but the promise
Of foliage and flowers;
'Tis true, there are tassels of gold on the broom,
And the cowslip and primrose have burst into bloom,
But the hedge-rows are bare,
And the plot and parterre
Scarce serve for our Maying-so scant are they there.
But I haste to the May-pole, adown in the green, Where the garland is waiting to crown the May Queen I will rival the sweetest, the loveliest there,
When it wreathes round my tresses all flowing and fair And O! how delightful
"Twill be when they say, "Hail to the beautiful
Queen of the May!"
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