Yet when the winds rude violence is past,

181

Look what a wreck the scattered fields display ! See on the ground the withering blossoms cast! And hear sad Philomel with piteous lay Deplore the tempest's rage that swept her young away

The tears capricious beauty loves to shed,
The pouting lip the sullen silent tongue,
May wake the impassioned lover's tender dread,
And touch the string that clasps his soul so strong;
But Ah, beware! the gentle power too long
Will not endure the frown of angry strife;
He shuns contention, and the gloomy throng
Who blast the joys of calm domestic life,

And flies when discord shakes her brand with quarrels rife.

Oh! he will tell you that these quarrels bring"

The ruin, not renewal of his flame;

If oft repeated, lo! on rapid wing

He flies to hide his fair but tender frame;
From violence, reproach or peevish blame,

Irrevocably flies. Lament in vain !

Indifference comes the abandoned heart to claim, Asserts forever her repulsive reign,

Close followed by Disgust and all her chilling train.

Indifference, dreaded power! what art shall save The good so cherished from thy grasping hand? How shall young Love escape the untimely grave Thy treacherous arts prepare? or how withstand The insidious foe, who with her leaden band Enchains the thoughtless slumbering deity? Ah, never more to wake! or e'er expand His golden pinions to the breezy sky, Or open to the sun his dim and languid eye.

THE SOLDIER OF THE ALPS.

In the vallies yet lingered the shadows of night, Though red on the glaciers the morning sun shone,

Q. 2

182

COLUMBIAN READER.

When our moss-covered church-tower first broke on my sight,

As I cross'd the vast oak o'er the cataract thrown.

For beyond that old church-tower, embosomed in pines Was the spot which contained all the bliss of my life, Near yon grey granite rock, where the red ash reclines, Stood the cottage where dwelt my loved children and wife.

Long since did the blast of the war trumpet cease,
The drum slept in silence, the colors were furled,
Serene over France rose the day star of peace,
And the beams of its splendor gave light to the world.

When near to the land of my fathers I drew,
And the dawn-light her features of grandeur unveiled,
As I caught the first glimpse of her ice-mountains blue,
Our old native Alps with what rapture I hailed.

"Oh soon, lexclaimed, will those mountains be pass'd,
And soon shall I stop at my own cottage door,
There my children's caresses will greet me at last,
And the arms of my wife will enfold me once more.

While the fulness of joy leaves me powerless to speak, Emotions which language can never define, When her sweet tears of transport drop warm on my cheek,

And I feel her fond heart beat once more against mine.

"Then my boy, when our tumults of rapture subside,
Will anxiously ask how our soldiers have sped,
Will flourish my bay'net with infantile pride,
And exultingly place my plumed cap on his head.

"Then my sweet girl will boast how her chamois has grown,

And make him repeat all his antics with glee,

Then she'll haste to the vine that she claims as her own, And fondly select its ripe clusters for me.

COLUMBIAN READER.

183

"And when round our fire we assemble to-night, With what interest they'll list to my tale of the war, How our shining arms gleamed on St. Bernard's vast height,

While the clouds in white billows rolled under us far.

"Then I'll tell how the legions of Austria we braved,
How we fought on Marengo's victorious day,
When the colors of conquest dejectedly waved,
Where streamed the last blood of the gallant Dessaix."

'Twas thus in fond fancy my bosom beat light

As I crossed the rude bridge where the wild waters roll,

When each well-known scene crowded fast on my sight,

And hope's glowing visions come warm to my soul.

Through the pine grove I hastened with footsteps of air, Already my loved one's I felt in embrace,

When I came, of my cot not a vestige was there---
But a hilloc of snow was heap'd high in its place.

The heart-rending story too soon did I hear-
An avalanche, loosed from the near mountain's side,
Our cottage o'erwhelmed in its thundering career,
And beneath it my wife and my children had died.

AMERICAN SCENERY.

From sultry Mobile's gulf-indented shore
To where Ontario hears his Lawrence roar,
Strecht o'er the broad-backed hills in long array,
The tenfold Alleganies meet the day,

And show, far sloping from the plains and streams,
The forest azure streak'd with orient beams.
High moved the scene, Columbus gazed sublime,
And thus in prospect hail'd the happy clime :
Blest be the race thy guardian guide shall lead
Where these wide vales their various bounties spread.

184

COLUMBIAN READER.

What treasured stores the hills must here combine !
Sleep still ye diamonds, and ye ores refine ;
Exalt your heads ye oaks, ye pines ascend,
Till future navies bid your branches bend;
Then spread the canvas o'er the watery way,
Explore new worlds and teach the old your sway..
He said, and northward cast his curious eyes
On other cliffs of more exalted size.

Where Maine's bleak breakers line the dangerous coast,

And isles and shoals their latent horrors boast,
High lantern'd in his heaven the cloudless White
Heaves the glad sailor an eternal light ;

Who far thro' troubled ocean greets the guide,
And stems with steadier helm the stormful tide.
Nor could those heights unnotic'd raise their head,
That swell sublime o'er Hudson's shadowy bed ;
Tho' fiction ne'er has hung them in the skies,
Tho' White and Andes far superior rise,
Yet hoary Kaatskill, where the storms divide,`
Would lift the heavens from Atlas' laboring pride.
Land after land his passing notice claim,
And hills by hundreds rise without a name :
But were these masses piled on Asia's shore,
Taurus would shrink, Hemodia strut no more,
Indus and Ganges scorn their humble sires,
And rising suns salute superior fires;
For here great nature, with a bolder hand,
Rolled the broad stream and heaved the lifted land; :
And here, from finisht earth, triumphant trod
The last ascending steps of her creating God.
He spoke; and silent tow'rd the northern sky
Wide o'er the hills the hero cast his eye,
Saw the long floods thro' devious channels pour
And wind their currents to the opening shore;
Interior seas and lonely lakes display

Their glittering glories to the beams of day.
Thy capes Virginia, towering from the tide,
Raise their blue banks and slope thy barriers wide;
To future sails unfold an inland way

And guard secure thy multifluvian bay;

That drains uncounted realms, and here unites
The liquid mass from Alleganian heights.
York leads his wave, imbank'd in flowery pride,
And nobler James falls winding by his side;
Back to the hills, thro' many a silent vale,
Wild Rappahanoc seems to lure the sail,
Patapsco's bosom courts the hand of toil,
Dull Susquehanna laves a length of soil;
But mightier far in sea-like azure spread,
Potomac sweeps his earth disparting bed.

He saw broad Delaware the shores divide, He saw majestic Hudson pour his tide; Thy streem, my Hartford, thro' its misty robe, Play'd in the sunbeams, belting far the globe; No watery glades thro' richer vallies shine, Nor drinks the sea a lovelier wave than thine. Mystick and Charles refresh their seaward isles, And gay Piscataqua pays his passing smiles; Swift Kennebec, high bursting from his lakes, Shoots down the hill-sides through the clouds he makes; And hoarse resounding gulfing wide the shore, Dread Lawrence labors with tremendous roar ; Lawrence, great son of ocean! born he lies And braves the blasts of hyperborean skies. Where hoary winter holds his howling reign And April flings her timid showers in vain, Groans the choked flood, in frozen fetters bound, And isles of ice his angry front surround.

Here my bold Mississippi bends his way
Scorns the dim bounds of yon bleak boreal day
And calls from western heavens, to feed his stream,
The rains and floods that Asian seas might claim.
Strong in his march and charged with all the fates
Of regions pregnant with a hundred states,
He holds in balance, ranged on either hand,
Two distant oceans and their sundering land,
Commands and drains the interior tracts that lie
Outmeasuring Europe's total breadth of sky.
But chief of all his family of floods

Missouri marches through his world of woods;
He scorns to mingle with the filial train,