The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Margaret Chandler/The Brandywine

The Brandywine
My foot has climb'd the rocky summit's height, And in mute rapture, from its lofty brow, Mine eye is gazing round me with delight, On all of beautiful, above, below: The fleecy smoke-wreath upward curling slow, The silvery waves half hid with bowering green, That far beneath in gentle murmurs flow, Or onward dash in foam and sparkling sheen,— While rocks and forest-boughs hide half the distant scene.

In sooth, from this bright wilderness 't is sweet To look through loop-holes form'd by forest boughs, And view the landscape far beneath the feet, Where cultivation all its aid bestows, And o'er the scene an added beauty throws; The busy harvest group, the distant mill, The quiet cattle stretch'd in calm repose, The cot, half seen behind the sloping hill,— All mingled in one scene with most enchanting skill.

The very air that breathes around my cheek, The summer fragrance of my native hills, Seems with the voice of other times to speak, And, while it each unquiet feeling stills, My pensive soul with hallow'd memories fills: My fathers’ hall is there; their feet have press'd The flower-gemm'd margin of these gushing rills, When lightly on the water's dimpled breast, Their own light bark beside the frail canoe would rest.

The rock was once your dwelling-place, my sires! Or cavern scoop'd within the green hill's side; The prowling wolf fled far your beacon fires, And the kind Indian half your wants supplied; While round your necks the wampum belt he tied, He bade you on his lands in peace abide, Nor dread the wakening of the midnight brand, Or aught of broken faith to loose the peace-belt's band.

Oh! if there is in beautiful and fair, A potency to charm, a power to bless; If bright blue skies and music-breathing air, And nature in her every varied dress Of peaceful beauty and wild loveliness, Can shed across the heart one sunshine ray, Then others, too, sweet stream, with only less Than mine own joy, shall gaze, and bear away Some cherish'd thought of thee for many a coming day.

But yet not utterly obscure thy banks, Nor all unknown to history's page thy name; For there wild war hath pour'd his battle ranks, And stamp'd in characters of blood and flame, Thine annals in the chronicles of fame. The wave that ripples on, so calm and still, Hath trembled at the war-cry's loud acclaim, The cannon's voice hath roll'd from hill to hill, And ‘midst thy echoing vales the trump hath sounded shrill.

My country's standard waved on yonder height, Her red cross banner England there display'd, And there the German, who, for foreign fight, Had left his own domestic hearth, and made War, with its horrors and its blood, a trade, Amidst the battle stood; and all the day, The bursting bomb, the furious cannonade, The bugle's martial notes, the musket's play, In mingled uproar wild, resounded far away.

Thick clouds of smoke obscured the clear bright sky, And hung above them like a funeral pall, Shrouding both friend and foe, so soon to lie Like brethren slumbering in one father's hall. The work of death went on, and when the fall Of night came onward silently, and shed A dreary hush, where late was uproar all, How many a brother's heart in anguish bled O'er cherish'd ones, who there lay resting with the dead.

Unshrouded and uncoffin'd they were laid Within the soldier's grave, e'en where they fell; At noon they proudly trod the field—the spade At night dug out their resting-place—and well And calmly did they slumber, though no bell Peal'd over them its solemn music slow; The night-winds sung their only dirge, their knell Was but the owlet's boding cry of woe, The flap of night-hawk's wing, and murmuring waters’ flow.

But it is over now,—the plough hath rased All trace of where war's wasting hand hath been: No vestige of the battle may be traced, Save where the share, in passing o'er the scene, Turns up some rusted ball; the maize is green On what was once the death-bed of the brave; The waters have resumed their wonted sheen, The wild bird sings in cadence with the wave, And naught remains to show the sleeping soldier's grave.

A pebble stone that on the war-field lay, And a wild-rose that blossom'd brightly there, Were all the relics that I bore away, To tell that I had trod the scene of war, When I had turn'd my footsteps homeward far— These may seem childish things to some; to me They shall be treasured ones; and, like the star That guides the sailor o'er the pathless sea, They shall lead back my thoughts, loved Brandywine, to thee.