Читать книгу The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Various - Страница 2

Hast thou not been where wild winds, freshly blowing,

    Brought odorous gladness on each passing gale;

Hast thou not been where the pure streamlet flowing,

    In each soft murmur told a gentle tale:

As the bright flashing of its gushing water,

    Glad as the tones of merriment and glee

That joyous burst from children in their laughter,

    Swift dashes onward to the boundless sea?

Hast thou not been where the enamelled mead

    Its beauty gave to the enraptured sense,

And the crushed lily, from the elastic tread,

    Yielded its life in breath of sweets intense?

Hast thou not been in spring-time’s early hours,

    Where the lone bird its short sweet carol gave

To the young bursting leaves and budding flowers,

    Beside some wildly-rushing mountain wave?

Not such the lay it sings in summer hours,

    When love beats high within its little breast,

And its exulting song it joyous pours,

    Where thick embowering leaves conceal its nest.

Hast thou not marked, when autumn’s gorgeous glory

    Fled in the rushing of the hurrying blast,

The deep’ning pathos of the moral story

    Sighed in each cadence, as it onward passed.

Hast thou not heard the ancient forests, bending

    To the far sweeping of the mighty wind,

Send forth a solemn sound, as though responding

    To voices deep that secret powers unbind?

Hast thou not stood where ocean madly raging,

    Rolled onward as with overmastering shock:

‘Till hushed the storm, the chaféd surge assuaging,

    It gently laved the firm-opposing rock?

Hast thou not gleaned a lesson to thy reason

    From winter’s fostering power and spring’s awakening reign;

Summer’s brief heat, autumn’s maturing season,

    And learned vicissitudes are not in vain?

But from the varied page outspread before thee,

    Garner’d of wisdom for thy fleeting days,

Whether the sunshine or the storm be o’er thee,

    Forward to look with hope, and trust, and praise?