Page:Peterson's Magazine 1842, Volume I.pdf/247

14 OUR FATHERS, WHERE ARE THEY.

THE OLD FORGE,

NY w. J. VERNON.

AN INNUAN TRADITION.

We are daily growing older, HY D. M. BEWOOD, And our fiuthers, where are they? — Underneath the graasy hillocks, fT eannot fram my heart root out

in the church-yard, old and gray, Wherr the elms above are waving, in their qniet beds they lie, With the cold earth vi their bosoms, And their facea to the sky.

In the hoary mountain passes Where for siberty they fell, In the dit and mystic foreal, es Tu the quiet rural dell, Or wherever thoy have fallen Av rimir pilgrim way they trod, With their sabres for the foeman, And their hearts upon their Gad.

In the churches ald of England, Where the cchoes now are woke That aruse upun tie stillness When the holy martyrs spoke, Where the Sabbath chimes are ringing From each minster gray and grand, Or eacl! hill, in ev'ry valley Of our father’s FATEERLAND,

By the frozen shores of Sweden, By the blnshing hills of Frauce, ‘By the méorlaud and the mountain Over Scotland's brown expanse, By the walls of aiden Carthage, By the suuny isles of Greece, _ By the sulemn tombs of Egypt, Sleep our fathers, sleep in peace! °

Oh? the ages that have vanished,

Since the murdered Abc! died, ‘ Gv’ry age has seen its millions

Buried by the victiin’s side, © Oh! the kingdoms pane forever,

And the tribes that are no more— Nota dirge to them remaineui

Save the surf upon the shore.

Vet the earth amid these changes Is the saine as on the morn When the angels sung together, And the morning stars were born; in its beauty still as youthful 1t is smiling 10 the sky,— For a type of the Rrmnnat, Aa the face of Geo on high?

Srexxess.—Sickness is a guide and an instructor: it has heen mercifully erdaimed xs a preparation for what ix to follew iu its sleps; it fratzs the heart for the tomb, °

The lave that rings ilsu,and J must die!” Bayan.

Ts the neighborhved of the quict village of Unionville, Massachusetts, is one of the loveliest liltte nooks that is to be fuund in the wide world. Any one who has ever visited “I'he Old Forge," will al once agree with me in this assertion; and I would advise any one who has not to betake himself to same ane of the depots of the Boston aud Albany Railroad, whence the cars will place him directly on the spot without any farther trouble of his own. It is, perhaps, as worthy of being visited as most of the modern resorts of those who find themselves, during the summer mouths, with money ia their pockets, and nothing te de but get rid of it. The quiet Joveli- ness of the place, and—save the warbling of the birds, and the perpetual voice of the waterfall—the deep silence that reigns there, ate its principal charms. For houre buve I gat, ejther alone, or with a single Seiend, on some moss-covered rock, shaded by the maple and the ash tree, fearing to break, even hy a word, ihe spell that aeemed thrown around me. And when I grew weary, | or rather when the time came that I must leave, for one could never weary of being there, 1 would turn away, atil] wrapt in the same decp fecling of awe and medila- tion, as if the Spirit of Solitude bad chosen this for her retreat, and cxercised @ mystic influence over every one that intruded himself into her haunts.

But [ have not yct described the place, and even now my pen shrinks from the task, from the consciousnesa of its utter inability to perform it.

There is a little stream (whether it has a name I know not) that rises I cannot tell where, but ic flows into the Merrimac, and thence mingles ils waters with the sea. It is a most beautiful river, as all others are that I have ever seen, for water, running, dashing, foam- ing water iz always beautiful, But thie ane is superia- tively so, and the superb granite arches that have, here and there, been thrown across its winding channei, for the accommodation of the Railroad cars, have rather added to, than diminished, its eftect. But the Old Forge is the place of all others; for if rocks, ond trees, and flowers and water, can be so disposed as to give pleasure to the eye, such is their arrangement here. On either side, that most majestic of all trees, the forest elm, dips its reots into the sparkling stream, and many even hang down their branches, and lave them in its cool depths. So thickly are the rocka scattered across ihe channel, that it is diflicult for the waler to find its wuy through, and it dushea over one, glides swiftly by