Home Scenery

Let pampered bards despise their home,
     And scorn the land which gave them birth,
And o'er the far-off nations roam
     To seek the beauties of the earth;
Roll languidly the aching eye 
Under a bright Italian sky;
Or view the blooming lemon groves
Where Spanish maidens tell their loves
     In murmurs to the scented gales;
Or see the summer sun-light glance
O'er all the hills of merry France, 
     And kiss the impurpled [sic] vales.
But though each lovely spot may seem
Far fairer than the fairest dream, 
Yet how can I forget or scorn 
The glorious land where I was born?
Or turn from childhood's home to pour 
My numbers on a foreign shore?
What though our gorgeous sunset sky, 
With all its splendors, may not vie 
With that which bends in love, and smiles
In beauty o'er the Egean [sic] isles—
And what if fairer groves and flowers 
May deck a foreign soil than ours—
These are our own, and every heart
     Hath linked them with its earliest love,
By ties that time can never part, 
     Or mortal change remove.

I stand upon the rugged hill, 
Made glad by many a tiny rill, 
Where first my devious infant tread 
Scarce crushed the flowret on its bed;
And where, when infant days had gone, 
I sported through the fields of corn, 
Whose tassled heads, in ranked array, 
Like warriors seemed in battle day.
Here oft the weary feet of mine
Pursued afar the truant kine, 
Through wood and brier, away, away, 
Till thirsty night drank up the day;
Or careless crushed beneath their tread
The luscious strawberry, rich and red.
And here, with boyish glee, I leapt
When first my harp-strings, rudely swept 
By hands untaught, gave out a tone 
Of native music, all their own.

Here stands the mansion, old and gray, 
Where first my fleeting breath was given,
Built in a long departed day, 
And fronting not one star of even
That glimmers in the courts of heaven.
Yet many a noble heart hath beat
     Within its old and honored walls, 
And many a joyous hour and fleet 
     Hath flown within its ancient halls.

Vide spread a glorious view extends 
To where the blue-arched ether blends
With shaggy woods that rise upon 
The dim and circling horizon, 
Stretched out, a broad and green area,
From ??? and gray NUNKETUNK
Round southward ?? ?? eye ??? ???
     The verdant steep of old EGERR[???]
The church-spires, peering o’er the wood,
     Point upward to that Land above
Where, won from earth, the Pure and Good
     Pour their undying songs of love.

The hill-side, sloping to the glen,
Is dotted with the homes of men;
And when the East proclaims the day, 
The whited dwellings catch the ray,
And fling it on till vale and bight 
Are sparkling in the welcome light
The Summer fields, in beauty drest, 
Spread far along the extended West, 
Hill, valley, woodland, stream, and plain,
And fields of bright and waving grain:
HILLS, green, whose every rock and sod,
In childhood’s hours my feet have trod.
VALLEYS, where yet this hand of mine,
     In Summer’s joyous day,
Lays down, in long and level line,
Or spreads to meet the bright sunshine,
     The new and fragrant hay:
WOODLANDS, within whose cooling shade,
     I robbed the lovely wild-bird's nest, 
Nor marked the piteous cry she made, 
     Or woes that wrung her gentle breast—
Thoughtless and cruel thus to pour
Such grief where all was glad before.

Where yonder laborer drives his wain, 
Is spread a fair and level plain,
Where once the swarth barbarian came 
To light his country's council flame, 
Or chase the flying game around
MAS-HAW-SHA-WIT's ancient hunting ground,
Ere yet the Pequot called away 
His warriors to the deadly fray, 
Where Mason's fell and bloody horde 
The dark-red storm of battle poured!
Here still their arrow-heads are strown, 
Wrought curious from the flinty stone, 
And spear-points that have drunk the tide 
Of life from foeman’s quivering side.

Across the hills the morning fog
Curls upward o’er the Quinebaug,
Where erst HYEMPS’ mocason [sic]
Brushed from the spray the beaded dew,
When fleet as wind he bounded on
     Along the forest to pursue
The startled wild-deer, ere his land
Was wasted by the spoiler’s hand.
Now through the low morass and dern.
     Oft glancing from between the trees,
And now with many a sinuous turn
     Down through the clear and level leas,
Along the glen a stream is seen
     Slow-winding, in its silent way,
Edged with a line of brighter green,
     And flashing back the light of day,
Its soft and rushy banks conceal
The cat fish and the slimy eel,
While arrowy pike and speckled trout
O’er pebble beds glide round about.
And mirrored in its waters fair
Is seen ??? ??? flashing far [This line hand-written on side; dubious transcription]
The ??? of the ??? car
Fast flying like the shooting star
For there may well the ??? ????
The work of every-grasping man.
Where he has torn the eternal hill
From the primeval base to fill
      The grassy valley, rearing there
A race-path where he may pursue
The winds, and overtake them too,
     In full and fast career.

There soon, along the clanging track,
     The fiery breathed and iron horse
     Will thunder down the line, and toss
His smoky mane in wreathings back,
And from his broad, dark nostrils pour
     Dun smoke and lurid flame,
While terror lights on all before
The thunder of his sullen roar.
Yet in the strength of all his pride
He will not spurn a stripling guide,
     The conquerless yet tame.

But hard at hand on yonder knoll
     There is a spot of earth where they
Who people it hold no control—
     For there a mightier doth stay 
     The arm of mat, and lowly lay 
     His pride, and rule with iron sway, 
Though he may rend the rooted rocks 
     From their deep-seated base, and hurl
The mountains by their hoary locks
     Down headlong with impetuous whirl,
Yet there is one whose arm will bow 
     His haughty forehead to the dust—
And on yon grassy hillock's brow, 
     He guards unceasingly his trust.

There when the moonlight soft and dim 
     Comes glancing from the eastern hill, 
And where the cold white vapors swim, 
     Glides silvery-hued and softly still,
Above the sleeper’s lowly bed,
     The hundred marble tables stand
Like ghosts that hover o'er the dead, 
     Pale wanderers from another land,
The chosen sentinels to keep
     The ashes of the long-unknown, 
Till broken is their dreamless sleep 
     By the Archangel's trumpet tone.

But nearer view yon spot of land, 
Shunned by the plow and mortal hand, 
Where ragged shrubs their branches spread
Above the chambers of the dead, 
Ah, look!—no monumental pile,
Reared by the weary hand of toil, 
Tells of the virtues of the race 
Which sleeps within that humble place, 
For the poor Red Man slumbers there, 
Once lord of all this wide domain, 
But driven backward, and again, 
Till crushed by iron-armed Despair, 
And over-run by treacherous toes,
He sought one spot of earth, and there 
     His mouldering ashes now repose.
His dust to kindred dust is given,
     His race of joy and wo is run [??]
But, oh! there’s registered in heaven
     His last, abiding malison:
And it shall as falls the thunder
When bursts the vollied cloud asunder;
And scathe as doth the light’ning’s strike
Down hissing through the splintering oak.
Sad remnant of a band of braves,
Though in their cold deserted graves,
The vengeance which in life they nursed
     Shall never die, but fierce and stern,
Full on the Spoiler’s homes shall burst
     Its garnered fires to blast and burn.

But rest ye, thoughts that rise in gloom
     Above this green, glad spot of earth,
As spectres from the solemn tomb
     Come dark’ning to the halls of mirth;
Let not the thought of what hath been
Make less the brightness of the scene.