Great Parent of Nature! if to the bleak mountains, The light of thy smile bringeth verdure again; Doth gladden the desert with palm trees and fountains, And scatter new beauties o’er valley and plain; If the wealth of thy bounty, in showers descending, Can make “the waste-places” bloom fresh as the rose; And thy rainbow of promise, in loveliness bending Upon the dark cloud, hush the storms to repose;
Oh! cannot the light of thy favor awaken The well-springs of joy in a desolate heart, And clothe with new verdure the bosom forsaken Of all that could pleasure or solace impart? And hast thou not showers for the _spirit’s_ refreshing, And songs in the night-time of sorrow to give? Then open thy windows and pour down a blessing— O smile! and this wilderness heart shall revive.
Arch imitator! ’mid thy varied tone, That revels so acquisitively sweet, Rivalling e’en Nature’s self, when doth thine own Wild native air my rapt delusion greet? Hast thou a voice to echo every note Of liquid melody that erst hath dwelt ’Mid the greenwood, or where soft zephyrs float: Yet of thine own hath not, in ecstacy to melt?
What modulation, what inflected grace, Breathes through the volume of that warbling spell! An intonation clear, that doth embrace The woven minstrelsy from rock to dell. The spring-tide melody, the summer lay, The plaintiveness of darkly shadow’d night— Who hath her choral charms, as beaming day— These in their change are thine, to ’wilder and delight.
That rich, full swell of sweetness and of force, That seem’d to wrap thy life-stream with the song, In its wild strength—as struggling springs their source, Break, and are borne in murm’ring sounds along: Say, was it thine?—thy Parent-giving strain, The innate warbling of thy purer soul, That gush’d, as if it would to bowers attain Where flowers unwith’ring bloom, and strains divine e’er roll?
But ah! again to earth that half-fled sprite Sinks, in the beauty of some well-known air, Less free and joyous, in its raptur’d flight, Than the wild touching thrill that spoke thee there. Kindred of thine own vocalizing race, Yet of surpassing skill and strength of flow— Illimitably varied—where we trace The wondrous spell of mystery, we seek to know.