Page:Poems of Sentiment and Imagination.djvu/26

22 And the spirits that watched o'er her slumbers repeat

In their low silver voices, so clear and so sweet,

A thousand soft murmurs, the tones of her love,

Like the gush of a fountain, the coo of a dove;

O their voice is as thrilling, their accent as wild,

As the heart and the dream of the dark forest child!

Know ye the spirits that dwell by the river

That rolleth its flood to the ocean forever;

That rusheth and roareth from mountain to plain,

'Till its thunder is lost in a sullen complain?

Have ye not stood where the torrent was breaking

Its tide on the rocks, till each echo awaking,

Hath joined in the chorus with torrent and river,

And lengthened the anthem forever and ever?

Have ye not been where the rivulet leapeth

On through the shade where the willow-bough weepeth,

Glancing along in its beautiful motion,

Till the river hath borne it away to the ocean?

Ah, there are spirits by brooklet and river,

Where the giant trees grow or the frail flowers quiver,

In the glen and the dell, by the lake and the fountain,

In the shadowy wood, on the pine-covered mountain—

Not a spot where the foot of the while man can tread,

But spirits are whispering tales of the dead.

Proud forests! ye stately old woods of the West,

In what glorious hues are your aged boughs drest!

How bravely ye stand in your gorgeous pride,

Decked out in the robes that old autumn hath dyed;

Yet my heart hath grown sadder by gazing on ye,

And list'ning the voices that sigh from each tree,

For they tell of the red man—the child of the wood—

And his form seems to rise in the dim solitude;

And now when the autumn winds sigh through the trees,

His voice haunts my ear with each swell of the breeze;

I hear his low call, and his step stealing by,

The twang of the bow, and the bird's sudden cry—