The voice of freedom. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1839-1848, 1839-06-01
ny WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT


Her circet Of green berries. In and out
The chipping sparrow in her coat of brown,
Steals, silently, lest should mark her nest.
Not such thou vert of yore, ere those old woods
Bowed to the whte-man's Then hoary trunss
OF oak, and plane, and hickory DER thee held
mighty canopy. When the April winds
Grew soft, the maple burst into flush
OF scarlet flowers. The tulip tree, high up,
Opened, in airs of June, her multitude
OF golden chaces to humming-birds
And silken-winged insects of the sky
Frai wood-pants clustered round thy edge in Spring;
The liver-leaf put forth her sister blooms
OF tainted blue Here the quck-fooed WOLF
Pausing to lap thy waters, crushed the flowers
OF sanguinatia, from whose brittle stem
The red drops fell like blood The deer, too, left
Her delicate footprints in the soft, moist mould,
And on the fallen leaves. The slow -pace S'bear,
In such sultry Summer noon as.this,
Stopped at thy stream, and drank, and eAped
But thou hast histories, that stir the heart
With deeper feeling; while looked on thee,,
They rise before me-. / behold the
Hoary again with forests behold
The Indian warrior, whom hand unseen
Has smitten with his death-wound in the woods,
Creep slowly to thy well-known rivuet,
And Stake his deatl-thst Hank! that quick cry
That rends the utter silcnce!-'tis the whoop
Of battle and a throng of savage men,
With ma. ed arms, and faces stained like blood,
Fill the green wilderness; the long, bare
fire hesved aloft, bows twang and arrows stream.
Each makes tree his shield and every
Sends forth its arrow. Fierce the fight, and Short,
As is the whirlwnd. Soon the conqucrors
And conquered vansh and the dead remain,
Gashed horribly with tomahawks. The woods
Are still again the frighted bird comes back,
And pumes her wings; but the sweet waters
Crimson with blood Then, the sun goes down.,
Amid the deepening twilight descry
Figures of men that crouch and creep unheard,
And bear away the dead The next days shower
Shall wash the tokens of the fight away.
Hook again: hunters lodge is built
With poles and boughs, beside the crystal well;
While the meek Autumn stains the woods with go!d,.
And sheds his golden sunshine. To the door
The red-man slowly drags tn enormous hear,
Slain in the chestnut hicke, or filings down
The deer from his strong shoulders. Shaggy fells
Ofwolf and cougar hang upon the walls;
And loud the black-eyed Indian. maidens laugh,
That gather, from the rustng heaps ofleaves,
The hickory white nuts. and the dark fruit
That falls from the gray butternut's long bsughs.
So centuries passed by; and still the woods
Blossomed in Spring and REDEEMED when the year
Grew chill, and gstencd in the frozen rains
OF Winter, till the whe-man swung the axe
Beside thee.-sgnal of mighty change.
Then all around was heard the crash of trees
Trembling awhile, and rushing to the ground;
The low of OK, and shouts of men who fred
The brushwood, who tore the earth with ploushs.
The grain sprang thick anditall, and hid in green
The bacIened hi-side}, ranks of spiky maize
Rose, like host embaed; the buckwheat
Whened broad acres, sweetenng with its flowers
The August wind White cottages seen,
With rose-trees at the windows barns, from which
yelled loud and shrill the cry ofchanticleer;
stures, where rolled and neighed the lordly horse
md white focks browsed and beated A rich turf
d grasses brought from far o'erci ept thy ban%
Spotted with the white clover Bluc-eyed girls
Aought pals, and dipped them in thy crystal pool;
And children, rudy -cheeked and fa1en-haired,
Gathered the glisteHng' cowslip fromthy edges.
Since then, what steps have rod thy borler!--IIero,
On thy green bank the woodman of the swamp,
Has laid his axe-the reaper of the hill
ills sickle as they stopped to taste thy stream.
The sportsman tired with wandering in the still
September noon, has bathed his heated brow
In thy cool current Shouting boys let loose
For a wild hoyday, have quantity shaped
Into cup the folded linden leaf
And dipped thy sliding crystal From the wars
Returning, the pumed soldier by thy side
Has sat- and unused how pleasant 'twerc 10 dwell
20 such spot, and be free as thou
ma for no mans biddng.more. At eve,
fhen thou vert crimson with the crimson sky
pvers have gazedup thee, and have thought
heir mingled lives, would flow peacefully
I md brightly thy waters. Here the sage,
wed into thy, selfrepleAished depth,
/ sseen eternal order crcumscribe
"a I'd bind the motions of eternal change,
kom the gushing of thy simple fount
feasoned to the mighty universe.
here other change for thee, that turks ....
y Hg the future ages Will not
IA out strange arts to wither and deform
pleasant landscape which thou makest green
Aoll tho veins that feed thy constant stream