Isaac McLellan: Verses about Forest

Amid the wildernesses vast
That gird the Mississippi's shores,
'Mid woods whose shadows dense are cast
Where the Red River sluggish pours,
The wildcat makes his lonely camp,
His dark, impregnable abode,
Hid in the dusk, unwholesome swamp
Where human foot hath seldom trod.
In dense retreat, in hollow tree,
Or natural cave it rears its brood,
And hunts the forest's recesses
To feed their gaping mouths with food.
In silence of the darkling night,
Or when the new day has its birth,
It goes abroad with step as light
As fall of thistle-down to earth,
No bird may build its airy nest
Beyond the wildcat's plundering quest,
For swift and easy as a bird
It mounts, and scarce a leaf is stirr'd.
It runs, it flies, it springs, it leaps,
As graceful as the antelope,
Yet cruel as the tiger grim
In Indian swamp or mountain slope.

The hare, the 'possum, and the coon,
It waylays in the forest-glade;
'Gainst poultry-yard and sheepfold pen
Its ravaging inroads are made;
So with all arts the human race
Assails it in the pitiless chase.

At day-dawn forth the hunters go
With rifle and with yelping hound;
They run the red fox to his den,
They track the 'cat' in forest grand;
They drive him to some dense retreat
Where high o'erhead the branches meet;
Close to some rough and gnarled limb
The frenzied creature hides and clings.
With foamy jaws and hair erect,
Fierce glances from his eyes he flings,
But deadly aim and rifle-ball
Soon humble him in headlong fall.
But if tenacious life remains,
He meets the baffled, fierce attack,
Then swift thro' wood and briery bush
He flies, the dog pack yelling at his back;
He scales some tree-top, or doth plunge
In some deep fissure of the ground,
And then the death-fight is renew'd
'Twixt the marauder and the hound,
And many a ghastly wound doth show
Before the quarry is laid low.

I ofttimes come to this lonely place,
And forget the stir of my restless race;
Forget the woes of human life,
The bitter pang and the constant strife,
The angry word and the cruel taunt,
The sight and the sound of guilt and want,
And the frequent tear by the widow shed,
When her infants ask in vain for bread.
All these I put from my mind aside,
And forget the offence of worldly pride.

It is said that the Spirits of buried men
Oft come to this wicked world again;
That the churchyard turf is often trod
By the unlaid tenants of tomb and sod,
That the midnight sea itself is swept,
By those who have long beneath it slept.
And they say of this old, mossy wood,
Whose hoary trunks have for ages stood,
That every knoll and dim-lit glade
Is haunted at night by its restless Shade.

It is told that an Indian King, whose name
Hath perished long from the scroll of fame,
And whose thousand warriors slumber low,
In equal rest, with the spear and bow,
Was wont to pursue the fallow deer,
And hold his feasts, and make merry here,
And seek his repose in the noontide heat,
By this noisy brook at my very feet-
And here, at the close of his sternest strife,
He finished his rude, and unquiet life.

It is said that on moonlight nights, the gleam
Of his battle Spear flits o'er this stream;
And they say there's a shiver along the grass
Where the restless feet of the Spectre pass,
And a rustle of leaves in the thicket's gloom
When he nods his dusky eagle plume.
And, methinks, I have heard his war-horn bray,
Like the call of waters far away;
And the arrow whistle along the glade
Where the chieftain's giant bones are laid.

And yonder, where those gray willows lave
Their silvery tassels beneath the wave,
By the hollow valley's lonely tide,
You may find the grave of a Suicide.
And 'tis said, at the noon of a dewy night,
When the hills are touch'd with the silver light
That a spirit leans o'er that lonely turf,
Like a snowy wreath of the ocean surf,
And a sound like a passionate mourner's cry,
Will often startle the passer by.

As a life-weary pilgrim sinks to his last repose,
The old year, pale and pulseless, swoons o'er the drifting snows;
He's gone to join the ages, in the past years laid away,
To sleep in time's mausoleum, until the judgment day.

When he wav'd his fairy spring wand, the airs grew balmy sweet,
There op'd the blue-ey'd violets, in every dusk retreat,
Then snow-white bloom of orchards, and floral offerings rare,
Illumin'd all the landscape, and perfum'd all the air.

His magic wand touch'd tree and shrub, touch'd arbor, sprig and spray,
And quick, suffusing smiles of green would o'er the tendrils play,
They blush'd with joy, as all their buds their folded lips unclos'd,
And their virgin pearly leaves, and petals red disclos'd.

Then all the painted butterflies enjoy'd their little hour,
They flew like winged blossoms, from floweret to flower,
In honeysuckles dipped the bees, to sip from hidden wells
The sweet, ambrosial nectar, and bear it to their cells.

We saw thee in thy summer prime, in all thy bravery dressed,
Thy woods in wealth of foliage, by gentle airs caress'd,
Thy limpid lakes reflecting the colors of the skies,
And all the dales and mountains made gay with flowery dyes.

Ah, pleasant the wide landscape, in your bright summer prime,
The clear, swift, shaded brooks, with their unceasing chime,
Where droop'd the birch and alder, the willow's tresses green,
And oakes and elms on upland slopes, a pastoral, fair scene.

Thy luminous day-skies, the moonlit shades of night,
When sweetest sounds of nature are a blessing and delight;
When chants and hymns of bird life, of blackbird and of thrush
Entrance with soothing melodies the universal hush.

We welcom'd thee in autumn, o'er all the harvest plain,
Thy forehead thick enwreath'd with chaplets of the grain,
When the orchards drop the fruit, and purple grapes hang sweet,
And the sportsman's shots are ringing in field and wood retreat.

And in this winter season, when icicles like gems,
Adorn each twig and bush with twinkling diadems,
We welcome the New Year, for o'er the falling snow,
The sounds of merry laughter and jocund carols flow.

To all who love the transports of forest and the stream,
To hunt the deer, to take the fish that in the waters gleam,
To seek the duck and partridge, the woodcock and the quail,
We send a New Year's greeting, we say to them 'All hail!'

May the New Year rejoice you, with all delights of life,
Prosperities, endearments, of home and child and wife,
May the lights of love and friendship, burn ever pure and clear,
No household glooms, no shades of death, to darken o'er the year.

Slow pass'd the sultry days in Afric wilds,
Slow wan'd the moonlit nights, slow flash'd the dawns,
And still the lion came not with his heavy tread
And roar, to fright the desert space.
There was a hunter of Algerian fame,
Gerard, the lion-killer, stout of heart
And strong of limb, who, with his Arab guides,
Waited and watch'd upon a granite ledge
The lion's coming, wearily delay'd.

He hear's the roar increasing in its swell,
The trampling step that crushes leaves and twigs,
And crash of bending trees cast rude aside,
And knows his shaggy foe hath left his lair,
And comes with lashing tail and tossing mane,
To quell who dares to meet him face to face.
He hears his stride, his roar, his breathing hard
Now twenty paces distant, now fifteen,
And the stout hunter's quickly throbbing heart
With Hope's intoxication wild doth beat.
He hears the latest step, he sees a head
Enormous from the foliage dense emerge,
As forth with grace commanding steps the beast,
In open glade, half-seen and half conceal'd.
Seeing the hunter, his great flaming eyes
Dilated, gaze astonish'd on his foe,
While from his jaws immense he churns the foam.

The hunter for one instant holds his aim,
Then fires, and straightway peals a savage roar
Of agony, that stuns and frights the midnight wood!
He sees one paw, one mighty shoulder then,
Go down, and dark dishevell'd mane,
Then all the monstrous body sinks to earth,
A lifeless mass, outstretch'd and grim in death.

Soon the glad news thro' all the douars spread,
And signal-guns awaken'd all the plain.
And Arabs throng'd exultant o'er the hills.
The lion-king was borne in triumph down
By eager multitudes, while bonfires blaz'd
And guns were fir'd and warlike music made,
And women clapp'd their hands and war-songs sang,
While men in long procession march'd around;
And royal wake and revels high were held
For lion of the Archon laid in state!

With the next day-dawn he o'erlook'd the plain,
Outstretch'd for leagues far in the desert's heart.
All seam'd with rocky gulch and sandy shelves,
And sprinkled with thick clumps of olive groves,
And palms and stately cork trees, fair to see.
He gaz'd on villages and cattle farms,
Embower'd in woods, and saw from day to day
The herds pass forth in lengthen'd files to feed,
And, home returning, folded for the night;
But yet the lion came not. There would come
The wild hogs rooting in the forest glades,
The prowling jackals and the timid hare
That gambol'd safe in fastnesses of hills,
Stags with their kingly crowns and stately trend,
And beasts of prey, and tapirs with white tusks,
But o'er the ridg'd plateau no lion came.

The hunter found in many an open glade
The grassy couch the tawny beast had press'd,
And whence he stalk'd when evening shadows fell
To prowl for prey around the cattle pens.
There, all the roots and stones he had displac'd
To smooth his bed, and thick the ground was spread
With tree-bark scrap'd in play by sharpen'd claws.

At last the triumph! The soft twilight eve
Had faded, and night's dusky shadows crept
O'er glimmering plains and up the craggy cliffs,
Blackening the vistas of the cork-tree woods;
And silence reign'd supreme in all the camps.
The ambush'd hunter listening heard afar
A hollow murmur! Was it but the sound
Of gusty breezes sobbing thro' the leaves,
Or voice of brawling torrents down the rocks?
Was it the wolf's long howl, or wild bear's snarl?
No; 'twas the lion's muffled roar in dark ravine
That yawns below, heard fitfully as he comes;
And as he came, the Arab tribesman quail'd,
Azid and Ombar pale as sheeted ghosts;
Yet firm as rock the Gallic hero stands,
Grasping his rifle with courageous hands,
And quick the savage monster bites the dust.