A boy, I sit by running stream, The humble life my daily dream: Some lowly good--some wrongs redrest, A noiseless life, its peaceful rest. As that stream calm my life shall be; As placid in its purity. The humble stone shall tell the tale When life began--when strength did fail. An humble race shall bear my name Blest by a few not rich in fame. Oh! king, thine eye! It says, but then Thy hand had not the guilty stain.
Hark! how the marriage-bells are ringing! Voices fill the air with singing. Waves of light are now the beating Of my heart, and the repeating Seems no weariness of pleasure, Only increase of its treasure. Ah! dear wife! thy look hath sped Many a sorrow. But this head! E'en at the hearth, and by thy side This kingly blood-stained form doth glide. The quiet house of God,--the prayer Rising as incense in the air. I breathe the still and mighty power, I catch the glory of the hour. Am I not pure, and armed for strife With England for her better life? Thou gory head! my prophecy, In that loved church told not of thee.
Look as if heaven changed thy face, Let pardon there at last have place: Before me, on this awful sea, Some gleam of heaven reflected be.
In Pearl-run valley, not far from the noise and crowded streets of our great Metropolis, the original forests, and a few unsightly rural dwellings, have given place to a large number of those pleasant homes, which citizens of wealth or of comfortable means, have erected for their summer abodes. Hence the hills around are dotted with costly mansions, and unpretending cottages.
It is a sight inspiring happiness to look on these dwellings in the spring. You have evidence that so many families, released from the city are rejoicing in the pure invigorating air, in the sunshine and shadows, in the rooms associated with so much ease and tranquility.
Can it be that any one can be found who is void of all sympathy with the natural world? All who seek these rural homes, at the established season, are supposed--if we are the correct exponents of common opinion,--to take wings from the city, for those cool and shady nests, under the influence of love for the country?
Of course, when the spring arrives, all who have led a fashionable career for the winter, have a sudden and marvellous restoration to their senses. Like those whom some friendly magician has freed from the enchantments of an evil genius, they are restored to a healthy judgment. They then perceive the folly of the life which they have led. The absurdity of denominating as society, crowded assemblies, where conversation bears the relation to interchange of thought, such as becomes intelligent creatures, which wilted and fallen leaves sustain to those of the beautiful and nutritious plant from which they have been torn,--where trifles and external polish are accepted in the place of the best qualities which can commend others to our esteem,--where friendships are formed, not links of human creatures with affectionate qualities to one another, but to fashion, whose representatives they are,--friendships to be dissolved, as easily as the melting of the Pyramids of frozen cream, all these facts become, as soon as the air is heated in spring, some of the most clear of all possible demonstrations. Then they long for a more reasonable life. All that true poets or wise moralists have taught of the rural home, asserts its power over the memory. All vulgar glare becomes utterly distasteful. Simplicity of life, amid a nature that summons man to cast off artificial follies, has a powerful fascination. They have been poor city puppets too long. Let them now be true men and women, where all things are so true and real. Hence they hasten to the country.