  ACADIELIKE mists that round a mountain gray Hang for an hour, then melt away, So I, and nearly all my race, Have vanished from my native place. Each haunt of boyhood's loves and dreams More beautiful in fancy seems; Yet if I to those scenes repair I find I am a stranger there. O thou belovËd Acadie, Sweet is thy charmËd world to me! Dull are these skies 'neath which I range, And all the summer hills are strange. Yet sometimes I discern thy gleam In sparkles of the chiming stream; And sometimes speaks thy haunting lore The foam-wreathed sibyl of the shore. And sometimes will mine eyes incline To hill or wood that seems like thine; Or, if the robin pipeth clear, It is thy vernal note I hear. And oft my heart will leap aflame To deem I hear thee call my name,— To see thy face with gladness shine, And find the joy that once was mine. O DO you hear the merry waters falling, In the mossy woods of Carr? O do you hear the child's voice, calling, calling, Through its cloistral deeps afar? 'Tis the Indian's babe, they say, Fairy stolen; changed a fay; And still I hear her, calling, calling, calling, In the mossy woods of Carr! O hear you, when the weary world is sleeping (Dim and drowsy every star), This little one her happy revels keeping In her halls of shining spar? Clearer swells her voice of glee, While the liquid echoes flee, And the full moon through deep green leaves comes peeping, In the dim-lit woods of Carr. Know ye from her wigwam how they drew her, Wanton-willing, far away,— Made the wild-wood halls seem home unto her, Changed her to a laughing fay? Never doth her bosom burn, Never asks she to return;— Ah, vainly care and sorrow may pursue her Laughing, singing, all the day! And often, when the golden west is burning, Ere the twilight's earliest star, Comes her mother, led by mortal yearning Where the haunted forests are;— Listens to the rapture wild Of her vanished fairy child: Ah, see her then, with smiles and tears, returning From the sunset woods of Carr! They feed her with the amber dew and honey, They bathe her in the crystal spring, They set her down in open spaces sunny, And weave her an enchanted ring; They will not let her beauty die, Her innocence and purity; They sweeten her fair brow with kisses many, And ever round her dance and sing. O do you hear the merry waters falling, In the mossy woods of Carr? O do you hear the child's voice, calling, calling, Through its cloistral deeps afar? Never thrill of plaintive pain Mingles with that ceaseless strain;— But still I hear her joyous calling, calling, In the morning woods of Carr! I REMOTE, upon the sunset shrine Of a green hill, a lonely pine Beckons this hungry heart of mine. "Draw near," it always seems to say, Look thither whensoe'er I may From the dull routine of my way: "I hold for thee the heavens in trust; My priestly branches toward thee thrust. Absolve thy fret, assoil thy dust." II Yet if I come it heeds not me; The stars amid the branches see But lonely man and lonely tree,— And lonely earth that holds in thrall Her creatures, while Eve gathers all To fold within her shadowy wall. Now, with this spell around me thrown, Dreaming of social pleasures flown, I grieve, yet joy, to be alone; While whispering through its solitude, Far from its green-robed brotherhood, The pine tree shares my wonted mood. It museth that felicity Which, being not, we deem may be, And mingles hope and certainty. III In starry senate doth arise The lumined spirit of the skies, Walking with radiant ministries. Yet in my lonely pine tree dwells, When 'mid its breast the warm wind swells, A prophet of sweet oracles. Like a faint sea on far-off shore, With its low elfin roll and roar, It speaks one language evermore;— One language, unconstrained and free, The converse of the answering sea, The old rune of Eternity. Then, from this lonely sunset shrine, I turn to toils and cares of mine, And, grateful, bless my healing pine. |
|
