BY WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.
YE winds, ye unseen currents of the air,
Softly ye play'd a few brief hours ago;
Ye bore the murmuring bee; ye toss'd the hair
O'er maiden cheeks, that took a fresher glow;
Ye roll'd the round, white cloud through depths of blue;
Ye shook from faded flowers the lingering dew;
Before you the catalpa's blossoms flew,
Light blossoms, dropping on the grass like snow.
How are ye changed! Ye take the cataract's sound,
Ye take the whirlpool's fury in its might:
The mountain shudders as ye sweep the ground;
The valley woods lie prone beneath your flight.
The clouds before you sweep like eagles past;
The homes of men are rocking in your blast;
Ye lift the roofs like autumn leaves, and cast,
Skyward, the whirling fragments out of sight.
The weary fowls of heaven make wing in vain,
To scape your wrath; ye seize and dash them dead. Against the earth ye drive the roaring rain;
The harvest field becomes a river's bed;
And torrents tumble from the hills around,
Plains turn to lakes, and villages are drown'd,
And wailing voices, midst the tempest's sound,
Rise, as the rushing floods close over head.
Ye dart upon the deep, and straight is heard
A wilder roar, and men grow pale and pray;
Ye fling its waters round you, as a bird
Flings o'er his shivering plumes the fountain's spray.
See! to the breaking mast the sailor clings;
Ye scoop the ocean to its briny springs,
And take the mountain billow on your wings,
And pile the wreck of navies round the bay.
Why rage ye thus ?-no strife for liberty
Has made you mad; no tyrant, strong through fear, Has chain'd your pinions, till ye wrench'd them free, And rush'd into the unmeasured atmosphere:
For ye were born in freedom where ye blow;
Free o'er the mighty deep to come and go;
Earth's solemn woods were yours, her wastes of snow,
Her isles where summer blossoms all the year.
O, ye wild winds! a mightier power than yours
In chains upon the shores of Europe lies;
The sceptred throng, whose fetters he endures,
Watch his mute throes with terror in their eyes:
And armed warriors all around him stand,
And, as he struggles, tighten every band,
And lift the heavy spear, with threatening hand,
To pierce the victim, should he strive to rise.
Yet, O, when that wrong'd spirit of our race,
Shall break, as soon he must, his long-worn chains,
And leap in freedom from his prison-place,
Lord of his ancient hills and fruitful plains,
Let him not rise, like these mad winds of air,
To waste the loveliness that time could spare,
To fill the earth with woe, and blot her fair
Unconscious breast with blood from human veins.
But may be, like the spring-time, come abroad,
Who crumbles winter's gyves with gentle might,
When in the genial breeze, the breath of God,
Come spouting up the unseal'd springs to light;
Flowers start from their dark prisons at his feet,
The woods, long dumb, awake to hymnings sweet,
And morn and eve, whose glimmerings almost meet,
Crowd back to narrow bounds the ancient night.
BY HENRY W. LONGFELLOW.
THE shades of night were falling fast,
As through an Alpine village pass'd
A youth, who bore, mid snow and ice,
A banner, with the strange device,
Excelsior!
His brow was sad: his eye beneath
Flash'd like a faulchion from its sheath,
And like a silver clarion rung,
The accents of that unknown tongue,
Excelsior!
In happy homes he saw the light
Of household fires gleam warm and bright:
Above, the spectral glaciers shone,
And from his lips escaped a groan,
Excelsior!
"Try not the pass!" the old man said;
"Dark lowers the tempest overhead,
The roaring torrent is deep and wide!"
And loud that clarion voice replied,
Excelsior!
"O stay," the maiden said, “and rest
Thy weary head upon this breast!"
A tear stood in his bright blue eye,
But still he answer'd with a sigh,
Excelsior!
"Beware the pine-tree's wither'd branch!
Beware the awful avalanche !"
This was the peasant's last good-night;
A voice replied, far up the height,
Excelsior!
At break of day, as heavenward
The pious monks of Saint Bernard
Utter'd the oft-repeated prayer,
A voice cried through the startled air,
Excelsior!
A traveler, by the faithful hound,
Half-buried in the snow was found,
Still grasping in his hand of ice
That banner with the strange device,
Excelsior!
There, in the twilight cold and gray,
Lifeless, but beautiful, he lay,
And from the sky, serene and far,
A voice fell, like a falling star!
Excelsior!
His falchion flash'd along the Nile;
His hosts he led through Alpine snows; O'er Moscow's towers, that shook the while, His eagle flag unroll'd—and froze.
Here sleeps he now alone: not one
Of all the kings whose crowns he gave,
Nor sire, nor brother, wife, nor son,
Hath ever seen or sought his grave.
Here sleeps he now alone: the star
That led him on from crown to crown
Hath sunk; the nations from afar
Gazed as it faded and went down.
He sleeps alone: the mountain cloud
That night hangs round him, and the breath
Of morning scatters, is the shroud
That wraps his martial form in death.
High is his couch: the ocean flood
Far, far below by storms is curl'd,
As round him heaved, while high he stood,
A stormy and inconstant world,
Hark! Comes there from the Pyramids,
And from Siberia's wastes of snow,
And Europe's fields, a voice that bids
The world he awed to mourn him? No:
The only, the perpetual dirge
That's heard there is the sea-bird's cry,
The mournful murmur of the surge,
The cloud's deep voice, the wind's low sigh.
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