The Ashland union. [volume] (Ashland, Ashland County, Ohio) 1854-1868, 1858-10-13
poetrp,
From Harper's Monthly Magazine for June.
A NIGHT SCENE.
sY WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT

On River. gentl, Riverl gliding on
In silence, underneath this starless sky
Thine is a ministry that never rests
Even while the living slumber. Fora time,
The meddler, man, hath left the elements
In peace; the Ploughman breaks the clods NJ
more;
The minor labors not, with steal and fire,
To rend the rock and he that hews the stone
And he that fells the forest he that guides
The loaded vain, and the poor animal
That drags it, have forgotten. for n while,
Their tolls, and share the quiet of the earth.
Thou pausest not in thine allotted task,
Oh darkling River through the night heal
Thy wavelets ripping on the pebbly beach
/ hear thy currents stir the rustling sedge
That skirts thy bed thou intermittest not
Thine everlasting journey, drawing on
A silvery train from many mountain brook
And woodland spring. The dweller by thy
side,
Who moored his little boat upon thy beach,
Though all the waters that upbore it then
Have slid away DER night, shall find, at morn
Thy channel filed with waters freshly drawn
From distant cliffs, and hollows where the rill
Comes up amid the water-fags. All night
Thou givest moisture to the thirsty roots
OF the 1.-the willow and Exchanging plane,
And cherishest the herbage on thy bank,
Speckled with little flowers and sendest up,
Perpetually, the vapors from thy face
To steep the hills with dew, or daFken heaven
With marching clouds that trail the abundant
showers
Oh River, dnrkling River what a voice
Is that thou interest while all else is still
| The ancient voice that, centuries ago,
Sounded between thy hills while Rome was
yet 81.
a weedy solitude by Tiber's str(amI
How many, at this hour, along thy course,
Slumber to thine eternal murmuriugs,
That mingle with the utterance of their dreams
A dpah hnfD fhan 4
Thy soft familiar dashings, and is soothed,
And sleeps again. An uiry multitude
Of little echoes, all unheard by day,
Family repeat. till morning, after thee,
The story of thine endless goings forth.
Yet there are those who lie beside thy bed
For whom thou once didst rear the bowers that
screen
Thy margin. and didst water the green fields
And now there is no night so still that they
Can hear thy lapse; their slumbers, were thy
voice
Louder than ocean 3, it could never break
For them the early violet no more,
Opens upon thy bank, nor. for their eyes.
Glitter the crimson pictures Of the clouds
Upon thy bosom, when the sun goes down.
Their memories are abroad-the memories
OF those who last were gathered to the earth
Lingering within the homes in which they sat,
Hovering above the paths in which they trod,
Haunting them like u presence. Even now
They visit many dreamer in the forms
They walked in, ere, at last, they wore the
shroud
And eyes there are that will not close to dream,
For weeping and for thinking of the grave,
The new made-grave, and the pale one W ithIn !.
These memories and these sorrows all shall
fade
And pass away, and fresher memories
And newer sorrows come and dwell a while
Beside thy border, and, in turn, depart.
On glide thy waters till at last they flow
Al
And all night long give back the gleam of
And glimmer with the trains of light that
stream
From halls where dancers whirl. a DINNER
TOUCHES thy surface from the silent room
In which they tend the sick, or gather round
The dying and a slender, steady beam
Comes from the little chamber III the roof,
Where, with a feverous crimson on er check,
The solitary damsel, dying too,
Plies the quick needle till The stars grow pale.
There, close beside the haunts of revrl, stand
The blank, unlighted windows, where the
poor,
In darkness and in hunger, wake till morn.
Teere, drowsily. on the halfcoEscious
OF the dull watchman, pacing on the wharf,
Falls the soft ripple of thy waves that strike
On the moored bark but guiltier listeners
Are near the pl owlers of the night, " no steal
From shadowy nook to shadowy nook, and
start
If other sounds than thine are in the dir.
Oh glide away from those abodes, that
bring
Pollution to thy channel and:: make foul
Thy once clear current. Summon thy quick
waves
And dimpling edies linger not, but haste,
With all thy waters, haste thee to the deep,
There to be tossed by shifting winds and
rocked
By that mysterious force which lives within
The seas immensity and wields the weight
of its abysses, swaying, to and fro,
The bilIowy mass, until the stain, at length,
Shall wholly pass away, and thou regain
The crystal brightness of mountain springs.