Page:Oregon, her history, her great men, her literature.djvu/349

348 Never wake again, and never

Song of bird is heard around;

And the music and the beauty,

Toil and battle, love and duty,

Of the bright terrestial space

Shall be hushed and chilled and faded

In the ghostly deeps invaded

By a cold and silent race;

O thy hamlets of the meadows;

And thy cities of the plain;—

Have we not their fates and shadows

In the sunny tropic main?

Coral cities, wall and tower,

Temples, arches, tree and flower,

Wrought with all the soul of art!

And the fishes, gold and scarlet—

Silver-mailed, and purple-barred,

Shine, like idle orient people,

'Mong the columns, flushed and starred;

And a myriad shapes of terror,

Dumb as death and black as error,

Loiter slow in street and isle

Or in slumber's horrid semblance

Lure their prey with hellish smile.

Thus forever and forever,

Till the sad sea songs are sung,

Name or fame of thee shall never

Live on human lip or tongue;

Set within the dim recesses

Of the ocean's wildernesses

Shall thy sculptured city shine,

And the gold of mermaid tresses

Match the emerald of thine!

And I sit and look and listen

While the pathos of the rain

And the streaming tears that glisten

On the misty window pane

Weave a sadness in my fancy

And a horror in my brain!

Ah, believe me, land of apples,

Swarming hives, and matchless grain,

'Tis a fate that with thee grapples

In the sobblng of the rain: