Page:Complete Poetical Works of John Greenleaf Whittier (1895).djvu/177

Rh I hear the wild Rice-Eater thresh
 * The grain he has not sown;

I see, with flashing scythe of fire,
 * The prairie harvest mown!

I hear the far-off voyager’s horn;
 * I see the Yankee’s trail,—

His foot on every mountain-pass,
 * On every stream his sail.

By forest, lake, and waterfall,
 * I see his pedler show;

The mighty mingling with the mean,
 * The lofty with the low.

He ’s whittling by St. Mary’s Falls,
 * Upon his loaded wain;

He ’s measuring o’er the Pictured Rocks,
 * With eager eyes of gain.

I hear the mattock in the mine,
 * The axe-stroke in the dell,

The clamor from the Indian lodge,
 * The Jesuit chapel bell!

I see the swarthy trappers come
 * From Mississippi’s springs;

And war-chiefs with their painted brows,
 * And crests of eagle wings.

Behind the seared squaw’s birch canoe,
 * The steamer smokes and raves;

And city lots are staked for sale
 * Above old Indian graves.

I hear the tread of pioneers
 * Of nations yet to be;

The first low wash of waves, where soon
 * Shall roll a human sea.

The rudiments of empire here
 * Are plastic yet and warm;

The chaos of a mighty world
 * Is rounding into form!

Each rude and jostling fragment soon
 * Its fitting place shall find,—

The raw material of a State,
 * Its muscle and its mind!

And, westering still, the star which leads
 * The New World in its train

Has tipped with fire the icy spears
 * Of many a mountain chain.

The snowy cones of Oregon
 * Are kindling on its way;

And California’s golden sands
 * Gleam brighter in its ray!

Then blessings on thy eagle quill,
 * As, wandering far and wide,

I thank thee for this twilight dream
 * And Fancy’s airy ride!

Yet, welcomer than regal plumes,
 * Which Western trappers find,

Thy free and pleasant thoughts, chance sown,
 * Like feathers on the wind.

Thy symbol be the mountain-bird,
 * Whose glistening quill I hold;

Thy home the ample air of hope,
 * And memory’s sunset gold!

In thee, let joy with duty join,
 * And strength unite with love,

The eagle’s pinions folding round
 * The warm heart of the dove!

So, when in darkness sleeps the vale
 * Where still the blind bird clings,

The sunshine of the upper sky
 * Shall glitter on thy wings!

the noon of the spring-time, yet never a bird In the wind-shaken elm or the maple is heard; For green meadow-grasses wide levels of snow, And blowing of drifts where the crocus should blow; Where wind-flower and violet, amber and white, On south-sloping brooksides should smile in the light, O’er the cold winter-beds of their late-waking roots The frosty flake eddies, the ice-crystal shoots; And, longing for light, under wind-driven heaps,