The Culprit Fay and Other Poems
FRAGMENT.

Joseph Rod

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I.

Tuscara! thou art lovely now,

Thy woods, that frown'd in sullen strength

Like plumage on a giant's brow,

Have bowed their massy pride at length.

The rustling maize is green around,

The sheep is in the Congar's bed;

And clear the ploughman's whistlings sound

Where war-whoop's pealed o'er mangled dead.

Fair cots around thy breast are set,

Like pearls upon a coronet;

And in Aluga's vale below

The gilded grain is moving slow

Like yellow moonlight on the sea,

Where waves are swelling peacefully;

As beauty's breast, when quiet dreams

Come tranquilly and gently by;

When all she loves and hopes for seems

To float in smiles before her eye.

II.

And hast thou lost the grandeur rude

That made me breathless, when at first

Upon my infant sight you burst,

The monarch of the solitude?

No; there is yet thy turret rock,

The watch-tower of the skies, the lair

Of Indian Gods, who, in the shock

Of bursting thunders, slumbered there;

And trim thy bosom is arrayed

In labour's green and glittering vest,

And yet thy forest locks of shade

Shake stormy on that turret crest.

Still hast thou left the rocks, the floods,

And nature is the loveliest then,

When first amid her caves and woods

She feels the busy tread of men;

When every tree, and bush, and flower,

Springs wildly in its native grace;

Ere art exerts her boasted power,

That brightened only to deface.

III.

Yes! thou art lovelier now than ever;

How sweet 'twould be, when all the air

In moonlight swims, along thy river

To couch upon the grass, and hear

Niagara's everlasting voice,

Far in the deep blue west away;

That dreaming and poetic noise

We mark not in the glare of day,

Oh! how unlike its torrent-cry,

When o'er the brink the tide is driven,

As if the vast and sheeted sky

In thunder fell from heaven.

IV.

Were I but there, the daylight fled,

With that smooth air, the stream, the sky,

And lying on that minstrel bed

Of nature's own embroidery

With those long tearful willows o'er me,

That weeping fount, that solemn light,

With scenes of sighing tales before me,

And one green, maiden grave in sight;

How mournfully the strain would rise

Of that true maid, whose fate can yet

Draw rainy tears from stubborn eyes;

From lids that ne'er before were wet.

She lies not here, but that green grave

Is sacred from the plough—and flowers,

Snow-drops, and valley-lilies, wave

Amid the grass; and other showers

Than those of heaven have fallen there.

This book comes from:m.funovel.com。

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