Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1881-03-26
SALT RIVER.
BIT GEORGE ALrRKD TOWNSEND.


Led through the cliffs of limestone, mile on mile
And far inland green and cool retreat,
Lay all embowered and hid from hum. n feet;
The laurel grew to arbors for repose,
The long blue grass was dy led by many rose,
! he high gray walls with oaks were corniced Ger
And dropped their creepers to the crystal shore;
And there were walks in groves where silence gre
Profouider for the note OF the cuckoo,
Where they, the philosophic few, could walk
In high Arcadian fellowship and talk,
Who climbed each step but one Of powers ascent,
And losing that, were doomed to Punishment;
A little handful, driven from the sun
OF Power, to a loneer Pantheon,
Here they discussed the Empire they resigned
And nobler Empires of the human mind.
One year in four the waited vessel sped;
4 wounded eagle guided il o'erhead.
The beaten hero who had lost realm
Blew onward without mariner or helm;
Fate filled the wind, nor foe nor friend pursued,
But grander Nature gave her solitude
No more the world its censure or applause
Heaped on bis head, his memory, or his cause
Grave and respectful was his welcome made,
And immemorial in this high arcade
He kept converse with statesmen as they came,
Aud felt how Time was kinder still than fame.
Once on the strand they who the scepter lost
Waited at four years close him To accost
Whose boat was due. And oldest OF them all
Was one of figure soldierly and tall az
AT Bemis flights an army back he bore
And took the sword their sullen General wore;
For this he sought TO pierce the splendid sun
Where steadier fortune set her Washington;
Cast down for such presumption, he abides
The oldest exile on these silent tides.
In stature less but not in spirit so,
Stand Two who once were mortal foe and foe;
One fell before the others deadly aim, (2)
But all the winds Of Heaven blew his fame.
The other sought in various empires place,
And lived long and solitary race. (S)
Still as they meet IN this sequestered spot,
Where mind is mind and rivalry is not,
The victim knows, peTchance, their fate reversed
Had made the martyr If the man accused
Again in talk old York's redoubt they storm,
And at Quebec the ranks OF Arnold form;
The Seaate's head and the Exchequer's source,
Twinkle with themes for luminous discourse.
Riviere du Sci ! What Lethe fows in thee
Where such as Burr and Hamilton agree?
Who comes with this judicial, searching face
Scotch in his nature, Southern in his grace?
Ills he a Congress chose to lead the crowd,
But to the spite OF rancorous faction bowed ~
Two led here and two who might have been
Poured on his head thor jealousy and spleen (5)
Since then tumultous assemblies make
Rulers, or exiles to this lonely lake, (6)
Yet serving well through good OF i'll report,
None fear in fame with Crawford to consort.
No, nor that trio yonder in the glen
With heads OF gods on bodies like to men;
The one whose eyes like diamonds in vault
Might lead the mind high heaven to assault
None lost the seepter with SO deep regret,
No mind on power was go divinely set,
None in its fuilness more fit to rule,
None in its loss to play the grayer fool
Still in the wildness Of his whitened hair,
There lies t E palIor OF long despair;
Rejected from his kingdom, like u Saul,
He raised prophet d foreboded all,
Yet all he saw by logic came to pass
A nervous giant in house OF glass,
Debate and hate, revolt, contention, gore,
The slave freeman and the master Door,
Though in the mart his wasted ashes lie,
Here i'll Valhalla walks Calhoun for aye.
Earnest as he, but lighted like a star,
Shines there the visage OF an orator ;(S)
Ithuriels stature and trumpet's tone,
Where eer he walks he leads, and he alone.
Thrice in the lists he rode to take the crown,
Thrice in the dust his princey head went down.
But though defeated, all the world agree,
He had the pleuitude of chivalry.
Still IN his mind this twilight turns to day,
And Nature brightens at the name OF Clay.
Austere, revered, voluptuous, endowed
With fire and darkness like thunder cloud,
yes he whose eyes with tender greatness shine, %
Who stood like Moses the mountain line,
Worthy to take Gods tablets Of the law,
Aud break them to multitude in awe
But not TO pass into the promised state,
To die unmurnslring, even at the gate,
And leave the name of Webster to the land,
One just too human to be wholly grand.
And lost il with wrinkle and a smile ; Q0)
The live Van Buren,, greater in defeat
Than blaudly minist'ring in Caesars seat
The torch he welded better than the sword,
In his revolt reeled down the feudal lord,
He tarried long behind his time, and went
To exile like q veteran to his tent.
Yet there is one whom death bequsathed the throne
And sought to win it, living, for his own; C1D
The gracious Fillmore fashioned best for love,
To play Apollo at the fall Of JOve,
He saw, like Seward, an invader sail
To conquest though himself had raised the gale,
And both recite in this enshrined retreat,
Their country's glory in their own defeat.
So also he who found the mountain path
Fremont-but not the road that glory hath;
And martial Scott, whose many cubits bring
The Office OF the Guardsman, not the King;
Together these the limpid Tippes glass,
The subtle Douglas and the timid Cass,
The yearning Chase with ermine on his breast,
Over heart sick ia q seepters quest;
High-mettled Breckenridge by exile bowed
And young Mcclellan, Hamlet Of the crowd,
With cautious Seymour in the whiriwinu spent
That threw soldier forward from his tent
They speak together, hearty and unyeXe1,
"Who spies the shalop? Who is coming next?
Then in the sky mote an eagle grew,
And something floating on the river drew;
A golden light shOne on q steady sail
AS sunken sun upon a cloudet pale;
Nearer 1t came and nothing else was seen
No standing exile, passive and serene,
But dropped the wounded eagle from its sphere,
And on the shallop lighted on a bier.
The vessel grounds on the melodious shore,
And every exile looks the dead one DER;
He lay like one at work, lain down to nap,
Tied round with beard as by sleeping cap,
Benevolent and credul0us of face,
AS one whose world lay in printing case,
And who had played the mightiest games OF self,
With but quill and not care of pef,
Till kindness set him foremost in revolt,
And passion slew him with thunderbolt
Still round his brow red ripe strawberries were,
And seeds of grasses spaTkled in his hair,
And IN his hands seed of sorghum mute
The evening Zephyrs Weakened to flute,
AS if some mad ophelia in her wrongs
Were burying Polonius with songs.
Poor Greeley" said statesman, is IL thou?
o who will labor for compassion now
Here is the first of us dead at the gate
His dove heart broken meath the olives weight
Not as ambitions victim did he fall
And like the Robin in the nursery tale,
Well bear his bier, and say his funeral words,
Whose life was ever tunefu as the birds
~ Horatio Gates. 10 John C. Calhoun.
(2) Alexander Hamilton. 81 Henry Clay.
(3) Aaron Burr. (0) Daniel Webster
~ William II. Crawford. Qo) Martin Van Buren,, de