Page:Scenes in my Native Land.pdf/212

208 She helps to beautify. Yea, go not forth, Till from the brow of yonder mountain height Through interlacing branches, rich with bloom, The tulip, or magnolia, thou dost part The canopy of close-enwreathed vines, And through a mass of foliage, looking down On copse, and cultured field, and village spire, Behold the Susquehannah, like a bride, Glide on in beauty, to her nuptial hour. Here, too, are gloomy haunts, where roam the bear, Or the insatiate wolf, and sunny glades, Where with light foot the red deer leads her fawn, And quiet, shaded brooklets, where leap up The speckled trout. Yet still, deceitful Vale, So lulled, and saturate in deep content With thine exceeding beauty, thou dost hide A blotted history, of tears and blood, A dire, Vesuvian, lava-written scroll, Which the confiding lover at thy feet But little wots of. Thy romantic groves. And fairy islets, have sent up the cry Of wounded men, and o'er the embroidered bank Where violets grow, the carnage-tint hath lain Deep as a plague-spot. Ask yon monument. That o'er the velvet verdure lifts so high Its lettered chronicle, who sleeps below? And why, so many lustrums, tearful Spring