Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant

THE LOVE OF GOD.23

FROM THE PROVENÇAL OF BERNARD RASCASAll things that are on earth shall wholly pass away,Except the love of God, which shall live and last for aye.The forms of men shall be as they had never been;The blasted groves shall lose their fresh and tender green;The birds of the thicket shall end their pleasant song,And the nightingale shall cease to chant the evening long;The kine of the pasture shall feel the dart that kills,And all the fair white flocks shall perish from the hills.The goat and antlered stag, the wolf and the fox,The wild-boar of the wood, and the chamois of the rocks,And the strong and fearless bear, in the trodden dust shall lie;And the dolphin of the sea, and the mighty whale, shall die.And realms shall be dissolved, and empires be no more,And they shall bow to death, who ruled from shore to shore;And the great globe itself, so the holy writings tell,With the rolling firmament, where the starry armies dwell,Shall melt with fervent heat – they shall all pass away,Except the love of God, which shall live and last for aye.

FROM THE SPANISH OF PEDRO DE CASTRO Y AÑAYA.24

Stay rivulet, nor haste to leaveThe lovely vale that lies around thee.Why wouldst thou be a sea at eve,When but a fount the morning found thee?Born when the skies began to glow,Humblest of all the rock's cold daughters,No blossom bowed its stalk to showWhere stole thy still and scanty waters.Now on the stream the noonbeams look,Usurping, as thou downward driftest,Its crystal from the clearest brook,Its rushing current from the swiftest.Ah! what wild haste! – and all to beA river and expire in ocean.Each fountain's tribute hurries theeTo that vast grave with quicker motion.Far better 'twere to linger stillIn this green vale, these flowers to cherish,And die in peace, an aged rill,Than thus, a youthful Danube, perish.

SONNET

FROM THE PORTUGUESE OF SEMEDOIt is a fearful night; a feeble glareStreams from the sick moon in the o'erclouded sky;The ridgy billows, with a mighty cry,Rush on the foamy beaches wild and bare;No bark the madness of the waves will dare;The sailors sleep; the winds are loud and high.Ah, peerless Laura! for whose love I die,Who gazes on thy smiles while I despair?As thus, in bitterness of heart, I cried,I turned, and saw my Laura, kind and bright,A messenger of gladness, at my side;To my poor bark she sprang with footstep light,And as we furrowed Tago's heaving tide,I never saw so beautiful a night.

SONG

FROM THE SPANISH OF IGLESIASAlexis calls me cruel:The rifted crags that holdThe gathered ice of winter,He says, are not more cold.When even the very blossomsAround the fountain's brim,And forest-walks, can witnessThe love I bear to him.I would that I could utterMy feelings without shame,And tell him how I love him,Nor wrong my virgin fame.Alas! to seize the momentWhen heart inclines to heart,And press a suit with passion,Is not a woman's part.If man come not to gatherThe roses where they stand,They fade among their foliage;They cannot seek his hand.

THE COUNT OF GREIERS

FROM THE GERMAN OF UHLANDAt morn the Count of Greiers before his castle stands;He sees afar the glory that lights the mountain-lands;The horned crags are shining, and in the shade betweenA pleasant Alpine valley lies beautifully green."Oh, greenest of the valleys, how shall I come to thee!Thy herdsmen and thy maidens, how happy must they be!I have gazed upon thee coldly, all lovely as thou art,But the wish to walk thy pastures now stirs my inmost heart."He hears a sound of timbrels, and suddenly appearA troop of ruddy damsels and herdsmen drawing near:They reach the castle greensward, and gayly dance across;The white sleeves flit and glimmer, the wreaths and ribbons toss.The youngest of the maidens, slim as a spray of spring,She takes the young count's fingers, and draws him to the ring;They fling upon his forehead a crown of mountain flowers,"And ho, young Count of Greiers! this morning thou art ours!"Then hand in hand departing, with dance and roundelay,Through hamlet after hamlet, they lead the Count away.They dance through wood and meadow, they dance across the linn,Till the mighty Alpine summits have shut the music in.The second morn is risen, and now the third is come;Where stays the Count of Greiers? has he forgot his home?Again the evening closes, in thick and sultry air;There's thunder on the mountains, the storm is gathering there.The cloud has shed its waters, the brook comes swollen down;You see it by the lightning – a river wide and brown.Around a struggling swimmer the eddies dash and roar,Till, seizing on a willow, he leaps upon the shore."Here am I cast by tempests far from your mountain-dell.Amid our evening dances the bursting deluge fell.Ye all, in cots and caverns, have 'scaped the water-spout,While me alone the tempest overwhelmed and hurried out."Farewell, with thy glad dwellers, green vale among the rocks!Farewell the swift sweet moments, in which I watched thy flocks!Why rocked they not my cradle in that delicious spot,That garden of the happy, where Heaven endures me not?"Rose of the Alpine valley! I feel, in every vein,Thy soft touch on my fingers; oh, press them not again!Bewitch me not, ye garlands, to tread that upward track,And thou, my cheerless mansion, receive thy master back."

THE SERENADE

FROM THE SPANISHIf slumber, sweet Lisena!Have stolen o'er thine eyes,As night steals o'er the gloryOf spring's transparent skies;Wake, in thy scorn and beauty,And listen to the strainThat murmurs my devotion,That mourns for thy disdain.Here, by thy door at midnight,I pass the dreary hour,With plaintive sounds profaningThe silence of thy bower;A tale of sorrow cherishedToo fondly to depart,Of wrong from love the flattererAnd my own wayward heart.Twice, o'er this vale, the seasonsHave brought and borne awayThe January tempest,The genial wind of May;Yet still my plaint is uttered,My tears and sighs are givenTo earth's unconscious waters,And wandering winds of heaven.I saw, from this fair region,The smile of summer pass,And myriard frost-stars glitterAmong the russet grass.While winter seized the streamletsThat fled along the ground,And fast in chains of crystalThe truant murmurers bound.I saw that to the forestThe nightingales had flown,And every sweet-voiced fountainHad hushed its silver tone.The maniac winds, divorcingThe turtle from his mate,Raved through the leafy beeches,And left them desolate.Now May, with life and music,The blooming valley fills,And rears her flowery archesFor all the little rills.The minstrel bird of eveningComes back on joyous wings,And, like the harp's soft murmur,Is heard the gush of springs.And deep within the forestAre wedded turtles seen,Their nuptial chambers seeking,Their chambers close and green.The rugged trees are minglingTheir flowery sprays in love;The ivy climbs the laurel,To clasp the boughs above.They change – but thou, Lisena,Art cold while I complain:Why to thy lover onlyShould spring return in vain?

A NORTHERN LEGEND

FROM THE GERMAN OF UHLANDThere sits a lovely maiden,The ocean murmuring nigh;She throws the hook, and watches;The fishes pass it by.A ring, with a red jewel,Is sparkling on her hand;Upon the hook she binds it,And flings it from the land.Uprises from the waterA hand like ivory fair.What gleams upon its finger?The golden ring is there.Uprises from the bottomA young and handsome knight;In golden scales he rises,That glitter in the light.The maid is pale with terror —"Nay, Knight of Ocean, nay,It was not thou I wanted;Let go the ring, I pray.""Ah, maiden, not to fishesThe bait of gold is thrown;Thy ring shall never leave me,And thou must be my own."

THE PARADISE OF TEARS

FROM THE GERMAN OF N. MÜELLERBeside the River of Tears, with branches low,And bitter leaves, the weeping-willows grow;The branches stream like the dishevelled hairOf women in the sadness of despair.On rolls the stream with a perpetual sigh;The rocks moan wildly as it passes by;Hyssop and wormwood border all the strand,And not a flower adorns the dreary land.Then comes a child, whose face is like the sun,And dips the gloomy waters as they run,And waters all the region, and beholdThe ground is bright with blossoms manifold.Where fall the tears of love the rose appears,And where the ground is bright with friendship's tears,Forget-me-not, and violets, heavenly blue,Spring, glittering with the cheerful drops like dew.The souls of mourners, all whose tears are dried,Like swans, come gently floating down the tide,Walk up the golden sands by which it flows,And in that Paradise of Tears repose.There every heart rejoins its kindred heart;There in a long embrace that none may part,Fulfilment meets desire, and that fair shoreBeholds its dwellers happy evermore.

THE LADY OF CASTLE WINDECK

FROM THE GERMAN OF CHAMISSORein in thy snorting charger!That stag but cheats thy sight;He is luring thee on to Windeck,With his seeming fear and flight.Now, where the mouldering turretsOf the outer gate arise,The knight gazed over the ruinsWhere the stag was lost to his eyes.The sun shone hot above him;The castle was still as death;He wiped the sweat from his forehead,With a deep and weary breath."Who now will bring me a beakerOf the rich old wine that here,In the choked-up vaults of Windeck,Has lain for many a year?"The careless words had scarcelyTime from his lips to fall,When the lady of Castle Windeck,Came round the ivy-wall.He saw the glorious maidenIn her snow-white drapery stand,The bunch of keys at her girdle,The beaker high in her hand.He quaffed that rich old vintage;With an eager lip he quaffed;But he took into his bosomA fire with the grateful draught.Her eyes' unfathomed brightness!The flowing gold of her hair!He folded his hands in homage,And murmured a lover's prayer.She gave him a look of pity,A gentle look of pain;And, quickly as he had seen her,She passed from his sight again.And ever, from that moment,He haunted the ruins there,A sleepless, restless wanderer,A watcher with despair.Ghost-like and pale he wandered,With a dreamy, haggard eye;He seemed not one of the living,And yet he could not die.'Tis said that the lady met him,When many years had past,And kissing his lips, released himFrom the burden of life at last.

LATER POEMS

TO THE APENNINES

Your peaks are beautiful, ye Apennines!In the soft light of these serenest skies;From the broad highland region, black with pines,Fair as the hills of Paradise they rise,Bathed in the tint Peruvian slaves beholdIn rosy flushes on the virgin gold.There, rooted to the aërial shelves that wearThe glory of a brighter world, might springSweet flowers of heaven to scent the unbreathed air,And heaven's fleet messengers might rest the wingTo view the fair earth in its summer sleep,Silent, and cradled by the glimmering deep.Below you lie men's sepulchres, the oldEtrurian tombs, the graves of yesterday;The herd's white bones lie mixed with human mould,Yet up the radiant steeps that I surveyDeath never climbed, nor life's soft breath, with pain,Was yielded to the elements again.Ages of war have filled these plains with fear;How oft the hind has started at the clashOf spears, and yell of meeting armies here,Or seen the lightning of the battle flashFrom clouds, that rising with the thunder's sound,Hung like an earth-born tempest o'er the ground!Ah me! what armèd nations – Asian horde,And Libyan host, the Scythian and the GaulHave swept your base and through your passes poured,Like ocean-tides uprising at the callOf tyrant winds – against your rocky sideThe bloody billows dashed, and howled, and died!How crashed the towers before beleaguering foes,Sacked cities smoked and realms were rent in twain;And commonwealths against their rivals rose,Trode out their lives and earned the curse of Cain!While, in the noiseless air and light that flowedRound your fair brows, eternal Peace abode.Here pealed the impious hymn, and altar-flamesRose to false gods, a dream-begotten throng,Jove, Bacchus, Pan, and earlier, fouler names;While, as the unheeding ages passed along,Ye, from your station in the middle skies,Proclaimed the essential Goodness, strong and wise.In you the heart that sighs for freedom seeksHer image; there the winds no barrier know,Clouds come and rest and leave your fairy peaks;While even the immaterial Mind, below,And Thought, her wingèd offspring, chained by power,Pine silently for the redeeming hour.

EARTH.25

A midnight black with clouds is in the sky;I seem to feel, upon my limbs, the weightOf its vast brooding shadow. All in vainTurns the tired eye in search of form; no starPierces the pitchy veil; no ruddy blaze,From dwellings lighted by the cheerful hearth,Tinges the flowering summits of the grass.No sound of life is heard, no village hum,Nor measured tramp of footstep in the path,Nor rush of wind, while, on the breast of Earth,I lie and listen to her mighty voice:A voice of many tones – sent up from streamsThat wander through the gloom, from woods unseenSwayed by the sweeping of the tides of air,From rocky chasms where darkness dwells all day,And hollows of the great invisible hills,And sands that edge the ocean, stretching farInto the night – a melancholy sound!O Earth! dost thou too sorrow for the pastLike man thy offspring? Do I hear thee mournThy childhood's unreturning hours, thy springsGone with their genial airs and melodies,The gentle generations of thy flowers,And thy majestic groves of olden time,Perished with all their dwellers? Dost thou wailFor that fair age of which the poets tell,Ere yet the winds grew keen with frost, or fireFell with the rains or spouted from the hills,To blast thy greenness, while the virgin nightWas guiltless and salubrious as the day?Or haply dost thou grieve for those that die —For living things that trod thy paths awhile,The love of thee and heaven – and now they sleepMixed with the shapeless dust on which thy herdsTrample and graze? I too must grieve with thee,O'er loved ones lost. Their graves are far awayUpon thy mountains; yet, while I reclineAlone, in darkness, on thy naked soil,The mighty nourisher and burial-placeOf man, I feel that I embrace their dust.Ha! how the murmur deepens! I perceiveAnd tremble at its dreadful import. EarthUplifts a general cry for guilt and wrong,And heaven is listening. The forgotten gravesOf the heart-broken utter forth their plaint.The dust of her who loved and was betrayed,And him who died neglected in his age;The sepulchres of those who for mankindLabored, and earned the recompense of scorn;Ashes of martyrs for the truth, and bonesOf those who, in the strife for liberty,Were beaten down, their corses given to dogs,Their names to infamy, all find a voice.The nook in which the captive, overtoiled,Lay down to rest at last, and that which holdsChildhood's sweet blossoms, crushed by cruel hands,Send up a plaintive sound. From battle-fields,Where heroes madly drave and dashed their hostsAgainst each other, rises up a noise,As if the armèd multitudes of deadStirred in their heavy slumber. Mournful tonesCome from the green abysses of the sea —A story of the crimes the guilty soughtTo hide beneath its waves. The glens, the groves,Paths in the thicket, pools of running brook,And banks and depths of lake, and streets and lanesOf cities, now that living sounds are hushed,Murmur of guilty force and treachery.Here, where I rest, the vales of ItalyAre round me, populous from early time,And field of the tremendous warfare waged'Twixt good and evil. Who, alas! shall dareInterpret to man's ear the mingled voiceThat comes from her old dungeons yawning nowTo the black air, her amphitheatres,Where the dew gathers on the mouldering stones,And fanes of banished gods, and open tombs,And roofless palaces, and streets and hearthsOf cities dug from their volcanic graves?I hear a sound of many languages,The utterance of nations now no more,Driven out by mightier, as the days of heavenChase one another from the sky. The bloodOf freemen shed by freemen, till strange lordsCame in their hour of weakness, and made fastThe yoke that yet is worn, cries out to heaven.What then shall cleanse thy bosom, gentle Earth,From all its painful memories of guilt?The whelming flood, or the renewing fire,Or the slow change of time? – that so, at last,The horrid tale of perjury and strife,Murder and spoil, which men call history,May seem a fable, like the inventions toldBy poets of the gods of Greece. O thou,Who sittest far beyond the Atlantic deep,Among the sources of thy glorious streams,My native Land of Groves! a newer pageIn the great record of the world is thine;Shall it be fairer? Fear, and friendly Hope,And Envy, watch the issue, while the lines,By which thou shalt be judged, are written down.

THE KNIGHT'S EPITAPH

This is the church which Pisa, great and free,Reared to St. Catharine. How the time-stained walls,That earthquakes shook not from their poise, appearTo shiver in the deep and voluble tonesRolled from the organ! Underneath my feetThere lies the lid of a sepulchral vault.The image of an armèd knight is gravenUpon it, clad in perfect panoply —Cuishes, and greaves, and cuirass, with barred helm,Grauntleted hand, and sword, and blazoned shield.Around, in Gothic characters, worn dimBy feet of worshippers, are traced his name,And birth, and death, and words of eulogy.Why should I pore upon them? This old tomb,This effigy, the strange disusèd formOf this inscription, eloquently showHis history. Let me clothe in fitting wordsThe thoughts they breathe, and frame his epitaph:"He whose forgotten dust for centuriesHas lain beneath this stone, was one in whomAdventure, and endurance, and emprise,Exalted the mind's faculties and strungThe body's sinews. Brave he was in fight,Courteous in banquet, scornful of repose,And bountiful, and cruel, and devout,And quick to draw the sword in private feud,He pushed his quarrels to the death, yet prayedThe saints as fervently on bended kneesAs ever shaven cenobite. He lovedAs fiercely as he fought. He would have borneThe maid that pleased him from her bower by nightTo his hill castle, as the eagle bearsHis victim from the fold, and rolled the rocksOn his pursuers. He aspired to seeHis native Pisa queen and arbitressOf cities; earnestly for her he raisedHis voice in council, and affronted deathIn battle-field, and climbed the galley's deck,And brought the captured flag of Genoa back,Or piled upon the Arno's crowded quayThe glittering spoils of the tamed Saracen.He was not born to brook the stranger's yoke,But would have joined the exiles that withdrewForever, when the Florentine broke inThe gates of Pisa, and bore off the boltsFor trophies – but he died before that day."He lived, the impersonation of an ageThat never shall return. His soul of fireWas kindled by the breath of the rude timeHe lived in. Now a gentler race succeeds,Shuddering at blood; the effeminate cavalier,Turning his eyes from the reproachful past,And from the hopeless future, gives to ease,And love, and music, his inglorious life."

THE HUNTER OF THE PRAIRIES

Ay, this is freedom! – these pure skiesWere never stained with village smoke:The fragrant wind, that through them flies,Is breathed from wastes by plough unbroke.Here, with my rifle and my steed,And her who left the world for me,I plant me, where the red deer feedIn the green desert – and am free.For here the fair savannas knowNo barriers in the bloomy grass;Wherever breeze of heaven may blow,Or beam of heaven may glance, I pass.In pastures, measureless as air,The bison is my noble game;The bounding elk, whose antlers tearThe branches, falls before my aim.Mine are the river-fowl that screamFrom the long stripe of waving sedge;The bear that marks my weapon's gleam,Hides vainly in the forest's edge;In vain the she-wolf stands at bay;The brinded catamount, that liesHigh in the boughs to watch his prey,Even in the act of springing, dies.With what free growth the elm and planeFling their huge arms across my way,Gray, old, and cumbered with a trainOf vines, as huge, and old, and gray!Free stray the lucid streams, and findNo taint in these fresh lawns and shades;Free spring the flowers that scent the windWhere never scythe has swept the glades.Alone the Fire, when frost-winds sereThe heavy herbage of the ground,Gathers his annual harvest here,With roaring like the battle's sound,And hurrying flames that sweep the plain,And smoke-streams gushing up the sky:I meet the flames with flames again,And at my door they cower and die.Here, from dim woods, the aged pastSpeaks solemnly; and I beholdThe boundless future in the vastAnd lonely river, seaward rolled.Who feeds its founts with rain and dew?Who moves, I ask, its gliding mass,And trains the bordering vines, whose blueBright clusters tempt me as I pass?Broad are these streams – my steed obeys,Plunges, and bears me through the tide.Wide are these woods – I thread the mazeOf giant stems, nor ask a guide.I hunt till day's last glimmer diesO'er woody vale and grassy height;And kind the voice and glad the eyesThat welcome my return at night.

SEVENTY-SIX

What heroes from the woodland sprung,When, through the fresh-awakened land,The thrilling cry of freedom rung,And to the work of warfare strungThe yeoman's iron hand!Hills flung the cry to hills around,And ocean-mart replied to mart,And streams, whose springs were yet unfound,Pealed far away the startling soundInto the forest's heart.Then marched the brave from rocky steep,From mountain-river swift and cold;The borders of the stormy deep,The vales where gathered waters sleep,Sent up the strong and bold, —As if the very earth againGrew quick with God's creating breath,And, from the sods of grove and glen,Rose ranks of lion-hearted menTo battle to the death.The wife, whose babe first smiled that day,The fair fond bride of yestereve,And aged sire and matron gray,Saw the loved warriors haste away,And deemed it sin to grieve.Already had the strife begun;Already blood, on Concord's plain,Along the springing grass had run,And blood had flowed at Lexington,Like brooks of April rain.That death-stain on the vernal swardHallowed to freedom all the shore;In fragments fell the yoke abhorred —The footstep of a foreign lordProfaned the soil no more.

THE LIVING LOST

Matron! the children of whose love,Each to his grave, in youth have passed;And now the mould is heaped aboveThe dearest and the last!Bride! who dost wear the widow's veilBefore the wedding flowers are pale!Ye deem the human heart enduresNo deeper, bitterer grief than yours.Yet there are pangs of keener woe,Of which the sufferers never speak,Nor to the world's cold pity showThe tears that scald the cheek,Wrung from their eyelids by the shameAnd guilt of those they shrink to name,Whom once they loved with cheerful will,And love, though fallen and branded, still.Weep, ye who sorrow for the dead,Thus breaking hearts their pain relieve,And reverenced are the tears they shed,And honored ye who grieve.The praise of those who sleep in earth,The pleasant memory of their worth,The hope to meet when life is past,Shall heal the tortured mind at last.But ye, who for the living lostThat agony in secret bear,Who shall with soothing words accostThe strength of your despair?Grief for your sake is scorn for themWhom ye lament and all condemn;And o'er the world of spirits liesA gloom from which ye turn your eyes.

CATTERSKILL FALLS

Midst greens and shades the Catterskill leaps,From cliffs where the wood-flower clings;All summer he moistens his verdant steeps,With the sweet light spray of the mountain-springs,And he shakes the woods on the mountain-side,When they drip with the rains of autumn-tide.But when, in the forest bare and old,The blast of December calls,He builds, in the starlight clear and cold,A palace of ice where his torrent falls,With turret, and arch, and fretwork fair,And pillars blue as the summer air.For whom are those glorious chambers wrought,In the cold and cloudless night?Is there neither spirit nor motion of thoughtIn forms so lovely, and hues so bright?Hear what the gray-haired woodmen tellOf this wild stream and its rocky dell.'Twas hither a youth of dreamy mood,A hundred winters ago,Had wandered over the mighty wood,When the panther's track was fresh on the snow,And keen were the winds that came to stirThe long dark boughs of the hemlock-fir.Too gentle of mien he seemed and fair,For a child of those rugged steeps;His home lay low in the valley whereThe kingly Hudson rolls to the deeps;But he wore the hunter's frock that day,And a slender gun on his shoulder lay.And here he paused, and against the trunkOf a tall gray linden leant,When the broad clear orb of the sun had sunk,From his path in the frosty firmament,And over the round dark edge of the hillA cold green light was quivering still.And the crescent moon, high over the green,From a sky of crimson shone,On that icy palace, whose towers were seenTo sparkle as if with stars of their own,While the water fell with a hollow sound,'Twixt the glistening pillars ranged around.Is that a being of life, that movesWhere the crystal battlements rise?A maiden watching the moon she loves,At the twilight hour, with pensive eyes?Was that a garment which seemed to gleamBetwixt the eye and the falling stream?'Tis only the torrent tumbling o'er,In the midst of those glassy walls,Gushing, and plunging, and beating the floorOf the rocky basin in which it falls.'Tis only the torrent – but why that start?Why gazes the youth with a throbbing heart?He thinks no more of his home afar,Where his sire and sister wait.He heeds no longer how star after starLooks forth on the night as the hour grows late.He heeds not the snow-wreaths, lifted and castFrom a thousand boughs, by the rising blast.His thoughts are alone of those who dwellIn the halls of frost and snow,Who pass where the crystal domes upswellFrom the alabaster floors below,Where the frost-trees shoot with leaf and spray,And frost-gems scatter a silvery day."And oh that those glorious haunts were mine!"He speaks, and throughout the glenThin shadows swim in the faint moonshine,And take a ghastly likeness of men,As if the slain by the wintry stormsCame forth to the air in their earthly forms.There pass the chasers of seal and whale,With their weapons quaint and grim,And hands of warriors in glittering mail,And herdsmen and hunters huge of limb;There are naked arms, with bow and spear,And furry gauntlets the carbine rear.There are mothers – and oh how sadly their eyesOn their children's white brows rest!There are youthful lovers – the maiden lies,In a seeming sleep, on the chosen breast;There are fair wan women with moonstruck air,The snow-stars necking their long loose hair.They eye him not as they pass along,But his hair stands up with dread,When he feels that he moves with that phantom throng,Till those icy turrets are over his head,And the torrent's roar as they enter seemsLike a drowsy murmur heard in dreams.The glittering threshold is scarcely passed,When there gathers and wraps him roundA thick white twilight, sullen and vast,In which there is neither form nor sound;The phantoms, the glory, vanish all,With the dying voice of the waterfall.Slow passes the darkness of that trance,And the youth now faintly seesHuge shadows and gushes of light that danceOn a rugged ceiling of unhewn trees,And walls where the skins of beasts are hung,And rifles glitter on antlers strung.On a couch of shaggy skins he lies;As he strives to raise his head,Hard-featured woodmen, with kindly eyes,Come round him and smooth his furry bed,And bid him rest, for the evening starIs scarcely set and the day is far.They had found at eve the dreaming oneBy the base of that icy steep,When over his stiffening limbs begunThe deadly slumber of frost to creep,And they cherished the pale and breathless form,Till the stagnant blood ran free and warm.