Page:The Poets and Poetry of the West.djvu/79

 1820-30.] MICAH P. FLINT. 63 Where pageants, music, beauty, wine and mirth. Ambition, favor, grandeur, all that glares, — A king and courtiers, hated and caress'd. In seeming held the keys of love and joy. Remorse had smitten them. Her snakes had stung Their hearts ; and the deep voice, that all on earth Is vanity, had scattered their gay dreams. They clad themselves in hair, and took a vow To break their silence only at the tomb.* Haply, they thought to fly from their dark hearts ; And they came o'er the billow, wand'ring still Far to the west. Here, midst a boundless waste Of rank and gaudy flowers, and o'er the bones Of unknown races of the ages past, They dwelt. Themselves knew not the deep, dark thoughts Of their associates. When the unbidden tear Rose to their eye, they dashed away to earth The moisture; but might never tell the source Whence it was sprung ; nor joy, nor hope, nor grief. Nor fear might count, or tell, or share their throbs. When sweet remembrance of the past came o'er Their minds in joy, no converse of those years Might soothe the present sadness of their state. Man's heart is made of iron, or 'twould burst 'Midst mute endurances of woes, like these. I saw the sun behind the western woods Go down upon their shorn and cowled heads. No vesper hymn consoled their troubled thoughts. Far o'er the plain the wolf's lugubrious howl, The cricket's chirp, and the nocturnal cry Of hooting owls, was their sad evenino- song. death. THE BEECH WOODS. Grove, rearing thy green head above the smoke And morning mists, I bend me to thy shade, And court thy sheltef from the ceaseless hum. And wearying bustle, of the dusty town. To taste thy coolness, privacy and peace.* What string invisible, sweet beechen wood, Know'st thou to harp, that here my morning dreams Of youth, my young imaginings, return In all the freshness of their rainbow hues ? My earliest love was for the dark green woods. From stinted wishes, cares and toils at home. From master's frown at school, the bitter scorn Of dark-ey'd maids belov'd, that vanquish'd me In the proud struggles of the dawning mind ; From all the sad presages of the years To come, the cypress-woven destiny. Which my young eye, prophetic, ken'd from far ; From emulation's early fires ; from pride. And hope just op'ning in the bud, and nipp'd By early frost, I bounded to the woods. The stillness reached my heart. The cool- ing shade Soon taught my thi'obbing pulses rest.
 * By their tows, they are permitted to speak just before